Happy Halloween!

We turned our pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns yesterday, always a fun event.  I cut the top off of Zach's pumpkin and he started scooping out the seeds while he waited for daddy to carve the face. 

Kristin was having a little too much fun with that knife!

Lauren was super fast.  She had the top cut off, all the guts scooped out and started doing her face before anyone else. 

Megan was drawing her face first before cutting.

The older they get the easier these jack-o-lanterns become!  The girls all do their pumpkins 100% by themselves and it's just Zach that needs help with a knife. 

Posing with their finished pumpkins:

The jack-o-lanterns from left to right:  Zach, Megan, Kristin and Lauren.

So that brings us to tonight, trick-or-treating.  Zach was originally going to be a race car driver like he was last year but switched to this dinosaur costume at the last minute. 

I'm glad he chose that since it was so cold tonight.  I'm sure all the padding in that costume kept him pretty warm. 
Megan was a rocker girl and Lauren was a native american. 

Not really sure what Kristin was, she just likes to wear that wig!

Everyone but Kristin went out trick-or-treating at some point during the night.  Kristin kept saying she was too old but I saw much older kids out.  I think she just wanted to stay in where it was warm and let her siblings do all the work.  All the candy goes in the communal candy bowl and she knows that.  Why do all the work when you can get the candy for free?  Smart girl. 

Here's just part of the candy they collected.  Zach was in heaven with all that candy in front of him!

We have enough candy to last us until Valentine's Day! 

Homecoming 2011

Lauren's highschool had their homecoming dance tonight.  She's had her dress for a couple of weeks and she's had her shoes since June but the one thing she didn't have was a date!  That's really funny too since she does have a boyfriend.  (Long story!)  She had fun anyways by having a friend come over and they got ready together.  Of course I took pictures...

Yeah I know, their dresses are short and tight.  It's hard to find dresses anymore that aren't and after searching every store we could think of and spending many hours dress shopping I finally conceded in letting Lauren wear this one.  Too bad the weather didn't cooperate, she had to have been quite cold since it's been raining/snowing all day.  :)

1st Place

Kristin's volleyball team placed first in their division (for the regular season) after winning tonight's game.  Way to go Kristin!  They were in first place leading up to tonight and to keep it that way they had to win tonight against the 2nd place team.  They won the first set but lost the second set which forced them to play a third set.  It was a little iffy at first but they managed to pull out a win to win the whole game.  Kristin played all of the 1st and 3rd sets and was subbed in halfway through the 2nd set so she got a lot of playing time.  The team posed again after the game for pictures:

Playoffs are this weekend and in order to be the champs they have to win 3 games.  It wouldn't surprise me if they do it too since they've played really well together this season.  I'm not interested in cramming 3 games in next weekend but I would like to see them make it to the end.  They sure deserve it.

Spirit Week

Zach's school had spirit week this week which is always a fun thing.  Monday was hat day and Zach wore his pirate hat from a couple years ago.  I forgot to take a picture of him that day but it was just a pirate hat, use your imagination!

Tuesday was pajama day and Zach picked out these spiderman pajamas to wear.

It was very weird putting him on the bus wearing pajamas!

Wednesday was crazy hair day and at first I was a little stumped.  With the girls they would wear lots of pony tails sticking out all over but you can't really do that with a boy.  So I just spiked his hair up with about half a bottle of gel and then sprayed his hair blue.  You can't see the blue in the picture but it's there.

After seeing that picture I realize he really needs a haircut!

Today was mismatch/backwards/inside out day.  Another tough one since he always wears plain colored (black, brown, blue) pants/jeans and most of his shirts go with any color.  I managed to put together brown pants with a green shirt that had a stripe going across it and then another shirt that was blue plaid.  We added black socks with his white sneakers and that was about all I could come up with. 

After he went to school I was thinking that I should have turned the blue shirt inside out but oh well, he didn't seem to into anyway.

Tomorrow they're just celebrating the birthday of who the school is named after so no weird clothes or anything.  Kindergarten is having a fall festival though and it happens to be in the afternoon so I'll get to go in and see him.  I'm not sure what they'll be doing but hopefully it's picture worthy.

Soccer

Lauren's soccer game was in Lancaster today at 4:30.  You do know what that means right?  Go early and hit the outlets!  We really only went about an hour earlier but Lauren did get 2 pairs of jeans for $30.  That was worth stopping for.  The field was just a third of a mile away from the outlets and we ended up getting there in plenty of time. 

They started off strong and pretty much dominated the first half.  Here's a few shots of her.

With just a few minutes to go in the first half and a score of 0-0 Lauren takes the ball up the side...

Crosses it to the center...

and one of her teammates kicks it into the goal to score!  Yay!  Lauren got an assist.  So the half finishes with Lauren's team winning 1-0.

The second half was like watching a whole other game.  The other team pretty much dominated but I really think it was because Lauren's team was tired since they only had 2 subs.  The opposing team had 7 subs so they always had a fresh set of girls to go out.  So not only did the opposing team dominate they also scored 2 goals to win the game.  It was very disappointing, they really should have won that.  After the game we stopped at Fudrucker's to grab some dinner before heading home.  This was my kind of away game, lots of shopping and food choices nearby!

Volleyball

Volleyball is almost done, Kristin's second to last game was yesterday so I took a few videos of the game to share.  This first video was taken at the beginning of the game after losing about 8 straight points from the other team's server.  Kristin got this one to give her team their first point and the serve.  From then on Kristin's team dominated.

So finally it's Kristin's serve and she gets point after point after point...

This is a continuation of the above video showing where she serves and wins the game for them.  She's been doing that a lot this season.

Kristin didn't play in the second game but they won that one too.  Only one more game to go in the regular season and then possibly playoffs.

After the game they let me take a team picture since Kristin missed picture night ( I had a meeting plus I didn't know it was picture night.)  I didn't ask to take it, the coaches wanted Kristin to have it which I thought was very nice.  So here's the team minus 2 girls that didn't make it to the game. 

 And one of Kristin once we got home.

I think I'm actually going to miss volleyball when it's over.  This is Kristin's last year for this league, after this I guess it's onto highschool volleyball.  That should be interesting!



Fall Festival

Last night was our elementary school's fall festival.  We've been going to this ever since Lauren was in kindergarten so this was our 12th year.  (Last year was the only time they've ever had a winter festival instead, same concept though.)  Two tips I've learned about this event:  1) go early, parking can be a nightmare! and 2) do all the games in the gym first before it gets too crowded.  The games include a mini golf game, a guess which key opens the treasure chest, knocking down cans with a tennis balls, throwing hula hoops over a big inflatable tiki statue and of course the rock wall:

They also had face painting but Zach wasn't interested, he was however interested in the big inflatable bouncy house/slide.  That was very popular with the kids but he did end up doing it twice, once with me and once with Lauren. 

The cake walk was in the library which is the one activity that all my kids like.   One of us always ends up winning one but I got a little worried as the night wore on and no one was bringing me a cake  (they always find me and give it to me so they don't have to carry it around!)  Finally here comes Kristin with this tiny peanut butter/chocolate cake. 

But hey, a cakes a cake and we can say that we've kept our cake winning streak alive for yet another year.  The other highlight of the night is the baskets that they raffle off.  Each class is responsible for putting a basket together, for instance, Zach's class did a "Family Game Night" basket.  I sent a Hi Ho Cherry O game in that I got last year by mistake (I didn't realize that we already had it and since I got it dirt cheap I didn't want to return it.)  It was headed to the Toys for Tots bin this Christmas but instead went to Zach's class basket.  Some of the other themes were:  Disney basket, Christmas basket, Pampering Mom basket, Sports basket, etc...  We have never, I repeat, never, won a basket in all the years we've been going (and I've put tons of tickets in too.)  I was so excited when Lauren's name was announced as one of the winners!  I had no idea which one she won until later but it was the one she said she least wanted to win, the "Italian Dinner" basket:

That basket was heavy!  Inside there was of course lots of boxes of pasta, 2 jars of pasta sauce, a huge jar of different types of olives, parmesan cheese, a colander, a restaurant.com gift certificate, potholders and a recipe book.  I had to throw away the spaghetti box that expired in 2007 but everything else was keepable.  Now Lauren can make us a couple spaghetti dinners.   She was not very excited about winning it but at least the Hunter family can now say we've won a basket.  I'd like to go on a streak of winning those instead of the cakes.  Maybe with Zach being at that school now it'll change our luck!

Megan goes to work

With me of course.  Her school had off on a Thursday a couple of weeks ago so she decided to come to work with me to play with my two-year-olds.  All the kids actually had off but Lauren wasn't home and I asked Kristin to watch Zach for me.  I would've brought them with me too but I worried about Zach catching something while he was there and getting sick.  If only he would stop sucking his fingers...  So Megan was my helper for the day.  She did great too.

 She read books with the kids:

Played with them in the sandbox:

Had a little time to enjoy the horse by herself:

And sat with them at circle time:

Notice how the same little girl is with her in 3 out of the 4 pictures?  She's a sweetie, always has the cutest facial expressions.  Maybe next time my kids have a day off from school I'll bring the rest of them with me.  I know Zach would love it.

Weekend Soccer Tournament

So this past weekend Lauren and I went to a soccer tournament near Washington DC.  It was actually in Maryland but Lauren kept telling everyone it was in Virginia.  I guess that sounded cooler!  (Though to her defense we were really close to the MD/VA border.)  We rode down with another mom and soccer player.  Lauren was getting bored in the car and borrowed my camera to take some pics during the 2 hour car ride. 

We went straight to the soccer fields because they had a 4:00 game which they unfortunately lost.  After the game we drove to the hotel to check in and luckily got adjourning rooms.  (The girls asked and insisted on this when we were checking in at the front desk.)  It was neat though since we could keep the doors open between the rooms and it felt like we had a suite instead.   Next it was off to find somewhere to eat.  There was a mall a few miles down the road that had a variety of places and the girls settled on the restaurant that had the shortest wait time, Dave & Buster's.  

I can't really say that the food was that good but us moms got the Purple People Eater as a drink and that was so good that we ended up getting two!  Good thing we had two 16-year-old drivers with us.  :)  Of course with being at Dave & Buster's we had to let the girls play some of the games so after dinner we got them each a card.  That was their weekend entertainment.  I about had a heart attack when the bill came.  Between the food, the drinks, the kids non-alcoholic versions and the game cards it was more than what our family of 6 would have spent!  Of course the game cards were on there so I guess it wasn't that bad.  Food, drinks and entertainment all on one bill.

We got back to the hotel room and went to sleep but not before getting one last picture.  This was taken with Lauren's cell phone.

There were 2 games on Sunday but the first one didn't start until 2:45.  Yay, we got to sleep in!  When everyone finally did get up we checked out of our hotel and went looking for somewhere to have breakfast.  We found a wonderful pancake house that had delicious food.  We talked about that pancake house all day!  We then went back to the mall so the girls could cash in their Dave & Buster's points they accumulated the night before.  Of course we had to shop and walk the mall too.

With shopping done and the points being spent we headed over to the soccer fields.  Finally, here's a few pictures from the games on Sunday.  Not sure which game these are from, they had a 2:45 game and a 5:00 game.

Lauren doing a questionable header.  She looks awfully close to that girls' head.

She had a breakaway here but took one too many steps and the goalie saved it.

I never get pictures of her coming towards me, I thought this was a neat shot.

They lost the 2:45 game but won the 5:00 game.  With only one out of 3 wins they were done and didn't advance to the finals on Monday.  Good thing since she had school!  Would we have stayed if her team made it?  Probably.  There were college coaches watching the girls so I wouldn't have wanted her to miss that.   But I was secretly happy that we went home Sunday night since I had off Monday and all the kids had school.   I got to enjoy one whole day by myself, I don't know when that's happened last. 

Weekend soccer tournaments that require a hotel are fun and this one was no exception.  Of course I had great company and lots of laughs.  Can't wait for the next one!  (Well...yeah, I actually can.)  I can only take so much fun in one season.  :)

Happy 14th Birthday Kristin!

Unfortunately for her she had school today but we did get to celebrate by going out to dinner.  She chose Timothy's which surprised me but she said she remembered going there when she was in girl scouts and she liked it.  So Timothy's it was.  We all had a good dinner and then we split some desserts.  Kristin's came with a candle.

After dinner we went home and opened presents.  Of course Zach was Kristin's "helper."

She got some clothes, a book about "useless information", candy and a gift card to Five Below.   Lauren got her this jacket:

I also had her pick a couple books that she wanted off of amazon but they won't be here until Monday so she'll get a late birthday present too. 

Happy Birthday Kristin!

Volleyball

Kristin did awesome tonight at her volleyball game.  It was a game that was scheduled to have been played last Friday but had to be cancelled due to a conflict.  That worked in our favor since originally it was an away game but then ended up being played at home.  So anyway, like I said, Kristin did an awesome job.  The first game she ended up winning it for her team by serving 6 straight points.  Yay!  My Kristin has killer serves.  Then during the second game her serve came up when they were at 17 points (first team to 25 wins)  and she wins it again with 8 straight points.  Not only did she do a great job serving but she had an incredible save that she made to keep the game going.  Really....Lauren, Paul and I had looks of amazement... our Kristin just did that?  But yep, she dove and slid and got the ball back over the net to get another point for her team. I've never seen her move that quickly before!  I hope during the rest of the games this season she plays like that.  I didn't take any videos of her tonight but here's one I took of her during her game last week while she was serving.

I'll try to get some more video of her doing something other than just serving.  Tonight would have been perfect but I'm sure there will be other moments too.  Right Kristin???