Halloween!

Yay!  Another Halloween!  Zach is so easy with costumes.  He had a choice of being a race car driver (last years costume still fit) or this spooky skeleton.  I guess it's a little obvious which one he picked. 

Kristin dressed up as a waitress because she still wanted to go trick-or-treating (it was her old band outfit). Lauren dressed up also but she stayed home to hand out candy.

Kristin posing with her tray and towel.  She's the one that took Zach out.

Megan also dressed up but she went trick-or-treating with her friend.  I'm not sure what the heck Megan is but at least she attempted to put on an outfit unlike many of the older kids I normally see trick-or-treating. 

Oh yeah, our pumpkins we carved yesterday.  I said you had to wait until today to see the finished product.  So here they are:

Megan's is the one to the far left.  Zachary's is next, he carved his name.  "Lauren's" is the next one, it says "Boo" and finally we have Kristin's.  She carved "Go Away" which got many chuckles from the kids through the night. 

Another picture with the porch light off.  Do you realize how many pictures I had to take to get one where the lights inside the pumpkin were all on at the same time?  The lights would blink on and off and change colors.  Maybe next year I'll use ones that don't blink!

Carving Our Pumpkins

There's nothing like waiting until the last minute before Halloween to carve our pumpkins.  We either were busy or just didn't feel like doing it.  So the night before Halloween it is.  I guess it really doesn't matter when we do it as long as it gets done.  To make it a little easier I pre-cut the tops so all the kids had to do was take it off and start scooping. 

 

Here's Zach showing the inside of his pumpkin.

Megan being goofy, as usual!

Zach had to lift off the top of one of the pumpkins.  I love Megan photo bombing!

Kristin is just about as goofy as Megan.

And let's not forget about Lauren...

...at least I got a picture of her pumpkin!

This was a milestone year.  The first year we let Zach carve his own pumpkin, all by himself. 

Yeah I know, scary isn't it? 

But he really did do a good job and miraculously neither Paul or I had to take him to the emergency room for cutting himself. 

You'll have to wait until tomorrow to see the finished pumpkins.

Last Game

The season ended for Kristin on a semi good note.  Her team played awesome the first game and the score was pretty close the whole way through.  They should have won it but unfortunately they ended up losing it.  I said semi good because the second game they played was horrible!  It was like watching a whole other team!  Kristin, of course, played good in both games.  :)  No, really she did.  Here's a few pictures from the games.

So that is it for this year.  She at least still has the banquet to go to.

Fall Festival

The annual fall festival took place last night at Zach's school.  We've been attending this event since the girls were little and it's a mix of fun and dread for me.  It's fun because they have lots of games and activities the kids can do and I get to see other parents I know.  I dread it because it gets so crowded anymore and within 15 minutes of being there you can hardly walk down the hall!

 

This year it was me, Zach and Megan that went.  I pre-bought what seemed like a gazillion tickets because they're always cheaper if you buy them early and we tend to use lots of them.  So the kids could play whatever games they wanted, eat dinner and do the cake walk multiple times.  Zach was the luckiest one this year because his number was called the second time he did the cake walk.  He ended up picking chocolate cupcakes with candy corn on top and we found out that his first grade teacher made them.  We all agreed that he picked the best one!  So Megan, who has always been lucky at the cake walk took all night to finally win a cake (good thing I bought a gazillion tickets right?)  She ended up with a store bought one from Zingo's. 

But...not only did they each win a cake, Zach won one of the baskets that was raffled off.  His ticket was the one pulled for the game basket.  

So now our record for winning a basket at the basket raffle stands at 2.  We've been at this elementary school for 13 years and spend at least $10 each year on tickets to try and win one. So that's $130 we've spent over the years and we've gotten an Italian basket (Lauren won that a couple years ago) and the game basket Zach just won.  The items inside were totally not worth it!  I'll just consider the money a donation to the school instead.   

 

We have 3 more years to enjoy (or dread) these fall festivals.  As long as the kids keep having fun I guess I'll keep taking them.    

Backyard Visitors

Seeing deer around our house is not all that unusual but we normally don't see them hanging out in our backyard.  One was in our neighbors garden area and the other ran down the hill when I came out on the deck to take a picture.  

At least this time it wasn't a snake or a snapping turtle or that mangy looking fox that I still see from time to time.  Of course this means that there must be an over population of deer in our area, they just better stay away from our cars when we're driving!

Montreal

The reason why Paul missed all the activities this weekend is because he spent the weekend in Montreal, Canada.  He got two tickets to see the Flyers/Canadiens game from a metal supplier at his company so he and his brother Steve went.

They didn't just have any seats either, they had seats right on the glass. Here's a picture of the teams warming up.

And another picture of one of the face-offs that was right in front of them

Their seats were right next to the Canadiens penalty box.

I watched the game at home and once I figured out where they were it was easy to spot him and Steve.  Unfortunately it was of the back of their heads!  It wasn't until after Paul got home and watched the game (that I taped) that he saw himself from the front. 

He's the first person behind the glass to the right of the player, wearing a Flyers orange shirt. 

It sounded like it was a fun weekend!

Kristin's Sweet 16th Birthday

Happy birthday Kristin!!!  Her first birthday plans involved having 2 of her friends come over and spend the night.  Since Paul was away I took her, her friends and Lauren and Zach (Megan was at a friends house) to Applebee's for dinner.  When we got home we put candles on this giant spiderweb brownie and sang to her.

The next day we had all the family over for dinner and she had yet another cake and another round of happy birthday sung to her.

After everyone left Paul let her drive his car down the street and back.  Shhh!  Don't tell anyone.

She is in driver's ed right now but hasn't had her road experience time yet.  Hopefully it won't be long before she can really drive.

Soccer

It's supposed to be nice fall weather in October not 90 degrees and humid!  It was a miserable day to sit and watch soccer.  Today was Breast Cancer Awareness day so Lauren's team wore pink uniforms for the day.  Here she is waiting on the sidelines for a break in the game so she could go in.  

It was header day for Lauren today.  I cringe every time she does this.

Kristin, Megan and Zach were all there watching Lauren's game too but they kept going inside to enjoy the air conditioning.  It was miserable sitting there I tell you.  I can't imagine though what the players felt like running around on that hot turf field. 

At least Lauren wasn't running around the whole time!  Her team ended up wining the game 2-1.  Hopefully the rest of her games have more seasonable weather.

They won!



It was an unbelievable day at the high school this afternoon, Kristin's volleyball team actually won!  :)  They even won it in two games.  Here's Kristin after winning the first game, she's moving to the other side to play the second game.

#22, in the front row.

The final score of the second game.

They slapped hands with the other team at the net and then celebrated their victory!

Soccer, this time at the college level!

***Note***  I had issues with uploading pictures before so that's why I stopped.  Then about a month ago I played around with my blog and the uploading of pictures was actually working :)  Unfortunately it was at a time that I was really busy with all the back-to-school things.  Now that things have kind of settled down (sort of) I figured I'd better get back into this.  I have a lot of back posting to do so make sure you scroll down as well as check out what is currently going on.  I'm still going to do this chronologically and realize that I have to go all the way back to last November!  It'll eventually get done. 

 

 

It was homecoming weekend at Lauren's school yesterday so that meant lots of sports games at the athletic complex.  This was her third home game and at the other two home games it was no problem to find a parking spot in the lot.  Not this time though, they were directing people down the street to a local elementary school and then busing us back to the complex.  When our school bus pulled into the lot they had just started announcing the starting players.  Whew!  Barely made it but we found a seat and started watching.  Up until this point Lauren has never played in any of the home games.  She has had playing time in away games though but since we didn't go to them (they were all very far away, like CT and NH) Paul and I had never seen her play for her new team. 

 

After seeing her start every single game in her high school career and start almost all of her travel games (I would say all but there might have been 1 game that she didn't start) it was weird to not see her start in her college games.  I totally understand though since she's a freshman and she walked on.  How cool was it when I saw her get in yesterday's game with 10 minutes to go in the first half.  Then after the half she started the second half and played another 10 minutes.  Here's a few pictures of her playing:



 

 

 

 

They were winning 1-0 then the other team tied it up by scoring off a penalty in the box.  The game ended 1-1 which sent them into two 10 minute overtime periods.  No one scored so the game officially ended in a tie. 

After the game the team jogged over to the stands and back.   Lauren is right in the middle of this picture. 

This picture was right after her first home game.  She didn't play but it was the first time we saw her in her uniform.  Since they have laundry service she has never brought her uniform home.  Needless to say I'm thrilled about that!

A picture of Paul and I and our soccer girl. 

If you look on their website this is the picture you will see of her.  Make sure to read her bio!  There will definitely be a future blog post about something she wrote.

 Her team picture.  She is in the first row, second one from the left.

And that's it, the first time we saw her play at the college level.  Very cool!  Hopefully there will be many more pictures to come!