Fang-tastic Jack

Last night we tackled our pumpkin. We think he turned out pretty cool. Daddy started the cutting:

Luke wanted to know how much Jack had inside, so he took a good look:

Luke and Gabriel both helped clean him out. Kaden wanted nothing to do with it except to remind us that pumpkins are orange and orange is spelled: O-R-A-N-G-E. Good to know.

Here's how Fang-tastic Jack looks outside (yep, I named him :) Clever, huh?)

Family, Fair, Food, and Fun

This past weekend was the bi-annual humongo craft fair here in Oklahoma City: An Affair of the Heart! Vendors and buyers come from ALL over, it's pretty amazing. There are 6 packed buildings at the fairgrounds. The show lasts for 3 days and it is insanely busy but lots of fun to go. My Mom, my Granny, and my cousin Mel flew in for the weekend to join me. We had such a great time! The food is worth the admission fee alone, Indian Tacos, yum!

Thanks to my sweet hubby who took the day off of work on Friday so that he could watch the boys so all us ladies could go crafting all day long! Thanks to my family who flew in to go with me, I appreciate it. And to my family that could not come, we missed you and it will all happen again in February! Get ready!

Here's some Friday pics. Mel's first Indian Taco, remember it well my dear. (we had gorgeous weather by-the-way)

My sweet angel baby! She was a hit, people would walk by see her in the stroller and point her out to whomever they were with. She was always adorable and was perfect both days we went!

Seems like every year there is a theme, some one constant at almost every booth and this year it was crosses. Crosses as artwork, jewelry, wall hangings, on hats, jackets, shirts, on denim, cotton, satin, camo even, you name it and it had a cross attached to it. Not only were their crosses of many different shapes and sizes, they were mostly jeweled crosses, like a bedazzler went crazy. Mel said it best "Bling for Jesus!" She cracks me up.

Here's my kiddos on Saturday. Luke is such a cheese ball.

I missed Gabriel's smile but here he is helping to hold Josie, he was so proud.

I'll post some pics of some of the cool things I got at the craft fair soon! I know you are excited. And YES, there's bears, and YES there's Mizzou. Speaking of which---we are number #9!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Top ten baby! Mizzou-rah!!!!!!!!!! Let's GO Tigers!

Sweet Josie Claire

Josie got this outfit from her Aunt LeeAnn and Uncle Todd. OHMIGOODNESS---isn't she just adorable? Thought I would share the pics. I have lots to blog about but not the time right now. Josie and I are getting over being sick but we are MUCH better today. I will blog soon but wanted to send out some new photos for your viewing pleasure. What a sweet baby girl.
(Aunt LeeAnn, Josie had no patience for the shrug so that is why she isn't wearing it!)

It's a hit!

We took Mike's PlayStation to St. Louis with us and the fam loved GuitarHero as much as we do! (sorry about that Aunt LeeAnn :)

Here are some fun pics of them rockin':

See, loads of fun. I'm sure we will have another round at Christmas time, those of you who didn't get to play this time---just be ready. Mom and Jackie I am calling you both out! :) Practice your air guitar!

Fall Break

Last week the boys had their fall break at school. We loaded up and went home to St. Louis! We had a great time seeing my family. My bro flew in from Chicago (where he is working right now---still lives in LA) and we had a blast. It was a short, quick trip but well worth it for all of us! We are so blessed having such an amazing family! Here are some of the highlights from our trip.

Watching cousin Sam play volleyball:

Playing soccer with Uncle Thaddeus:

On Saturday we spent most of the day and night at my Aunt Deb and Uncle Don's house. We had a great family BBQ and lots of football and GuitarHero (those pics to follow soon!) Speaking of football---Mizzou-rah! Another great win over Texas Tech. Way to go Tigers!!

Family fun at the Fitz's:

And I LOVE this photo. It's Aunt Deb and my Momma, sisters with their Grandbaby girls! Awesome!

Gamers

Michael bought himself yet another new toy, Guitar Hero 2 for his PlayStation 2. He got into it while he was deployed this summer. He says it's very addictive and I can actually see that this time. I try playing but I am terrible and it's still fun. The boys like watching Daddy play so he set it up so they could try. It's kinda hard to explain but you have color-coded buttons at the top of the guitar which are your top strings and then another long button that you can "strum". You follow the colored notes on the TV and have to hit the buttons together at the certain time to play each note. I can't really explain it but that is good enough. Mike set the TV for the practice level at very slow so Luke could try and he did a pretty good job. He got a little frustrated but we kept telling him it's hard to do. Kaden wanted to try so Mike held the guitar and did the strumming and let Kaden push the colored buttons, he did awesome. Boy knows his colors! They had a fun time getting to be part of Dad's game, you can imagine!Angel baby girl decided that she wanted to play the guitar too. She rolled herself over to the TV and, well take a look for yourself:What a gorgeous girl, that smile is to die for. She is all over, I can't leave her for a second and she has rolled ALL over the place. Never know where she will be. Sweet Josie, we've got to be careful now!

I had the boy's parent-teacher conferences this week. Both their teachers love them and say they are doing a great job! Kaden needs to stay on task a little more and Luke needs not to talk so much, wonder where he gets that from??? Academically they are where they should be or a little ahead so that is awesome! I am so proud of my boys.

No, not scared.

October is half gone already (can you believe that?!) so it was about time for us to put up the few Halloween decorations we do. On Saturday we went outside and did just that. Mike put up all the spider-web nastiness, I don't do well even with fake spiders. Luke gets a big kick out of that, I am already dreading practical jokes in the future!! Luke and I made our little ghosts to hang from the trees and added a few random bones if you look hard you can see them in the picture:

That's about all we do for Halloween, Mike would like to do more and do scary, etc. But not me. Especially not when we have such little kiddos. These decorations will do just fine.

My new toy

From a gargantuan box big enough to room one of my children, an exercise machine was born. Well created I guess. It took me a little over 3 hours altogether to assemble my new elliptical. Now before you start judging, just realize this was 3 hours with 3 little boys running around and a not-so-happy-baby girl wanting to be held. AND take note of what was on our TV during set-up, so you can imagine how much hubby help I received. (mostly kidding---he did come help when I repeatedly called him over and over and over again! There were some things that just required two people!) Now it's all done and housed in our bedroom, not the best place but it's certainly better then the living room! I love my elliptical. Welcome to the family.

Here is one last photo--a quite-happy-baby girl waiting for some rice cereal and applesauce. "Yum Momma!"

Too much fun!

My sweet, sweet Gabriel was resting peacefully he is room, dreaming of snakes, snails, and puppy dog tails...that's what I thought anyways. I went to his room to wake him thinking "Wow, that is quite a long nap my boy is taking!" I opened the door to find this:

Not only did he take the books out, he took the bookshelf apart---we still haven't found all the pieces yet. Little stinker.

The other night the 4 boys made my nice big living room a ROUGH HOUSE. I think Daddy lost this round.

You should have heard the giggles from all 4 of them. It was precious. Now, if I can only get Dad to stop starting this 10 minutes before bedtime all will be good!!!

Need more food!!!

My angel girl went in for her 6 month appointment yesterday. The doctor said she is just perfect. Josie had 6 shots and an oral vaccination (bless her bones) but she stopped crying as soon as I picked her up. She is always such a good baby!!! The only minor issue is that Josie has only gained 7 oz since her last appointment in mid-August. That is not so good. The doc really isn't worried, he said let's wait and see what happens. In a month she'll go back in for a weight check and her second dose of flu vaccine. In the meantime since Josie is 6 months, she can start baby fruits and veggies so hopefully this will help but some weight on her. Here are some pics of Josie eating her rice cereal, yum, yum. Isn't she gorgeous??

A Tiger Trouncing

Awesome! My Missouri Tigers beat Nebraska 41-6 last night on National TV. (thanks to ESPN, I loved watching my Tigers in HD!!!) It was a great game, they looked so good! I am still on a high. I don't know if anyone is going to take us serious yet, we will have to wait and see about that. I'm proud of my boys. MIZZOU-RAH!!! And check out our littlest Mizzou fan: