King of the Wild things, Green Ninja, Amy and an Alpaca

Aw, my favorite holiday has passed now.  What have I learned?  That homemade costumes are the cutest!  and that eating all of Quinn's candy that he thought was "icky" gives me nightmares at night - plus some added pounds... :(

Our jack-o-lanterns -- a few rotted before Halloween...

A close-up of the rotting business.

The Tuesday before Halloween Ronin's cub-scout group had a Halloween meeting where the kids could wear their costumes, pet a llama (alpaca) and play games.

Rojo was very soft, but kept making noises... so now I'm afraid of llamas... :(

Ronin and Rojo

This was as close as Quinn would get--- he didn't want to get near it.

Quinn's costume looks like a bunny or a donkey at this point...  Ronin said he looks like Eeyore because he didn't have a tail. haha

mmmm... doughnuts....

Quinn was NOT amused with the mummy-game

AW!  Look, sweet little Boldin fell asleep in my lap at work!

I FINALLY finished Quinn's costume the night before Halloween.  It's the first costume I've ever made from scratch, and I have to say, I was pretty pleased with myself - especially having no pattern to go by  :)

Quinn was super excited to have a tail and a crown finally - so he danced for me.

And Halloween day we got to dress up at work:  

I dressed as Amy Winehouse-- you can't tell the difference, right?!

My friend Connie :)

My office-mate Terri :)

Some of the OPS ladies :)

My friend Deborah -- she was the dummy that stands on the street... looks just like her.

After lunch I volunteered to help Ronin's class make spider-hats.  they weren't allowed to wear costumes, but could wear their pajamas and have crazy hair.  Which is lame - but at least it's something.  It was kind of fun and I got to talk to his teacher a little bit- she is younger than me, which is weird, but she seems very patient and easy-going with the kids.  I heard someone tell Ronin "your mom is pretty cool" and he said "yeah, I know".   ha ha!  

Spider hat!

Ronin's friend Jacob dressed in Spiderman PJ's too.

 Halloween night we went to Kim's house to go trick-or-treating with her son, William, and another neighbor kid.  The boys got POUNDS of candy in just a short time.  Quinn was SO cute - he ran to each house because his legs are shorter than the older boy's.  After every house he'd ask "are we going to go to another house?"

Video of him asking if we are going to another house.

Quinn saying "trick or treat"  - kind of blurry though...

The munchkins

Green Ninja

 

See!  Quinn is Max- King of the Wild Things!

Gang of trick-or-treaters

Over the weekend we went to visit Nana and Papa to wear them and the dogs out.  haha

 Reading books at Nana and Papas house

Ronin's first grade school photo

Quinn's birthday is next week!  He wanted a Bubble Guppy theme... so here's the invite for a few of the neighbor kids and some of my girlfriends:

I have his birthday off so we'll probably make a day of going to Chuck-E-Cheese and get a giant balloon from the party store before friends come over...  The rest of his birthday gifts should be arriving today - spoiled boy!

Lots of love,

C

Pumpkins and Halloween Party

After our Saturday of family pictures got canceled a couple weekends ago, I took the kids to Joes Place farm where they got to pick out pretty much whatever they wanted.  

Their pumpkins :)

Quinny painted one of his and Ronin carved two of his pumpkins-- all by himself! He did a really good job, I was surprised at how well he did!

Intent on painting

Carving...

Pumpkin #1

Pumpkin #2- using the carving pattern

Quinn's finished product

Ronin got a new bike!  After having the chain fall off daily and Ronin having to wait for me to put it back on each time, Nana was nice enough to buy Ronin a new bike!  a much bigger bike too!  Ronin was so excited picking out his bike.  He specifically wanted one that had the back-peddle brakes.  We found a 20" bike that had them and he rode it all over the yard/garden section at Walmart to test it out.  When we got home and I opened the back of the car to get it out he hollered to the neighborhood "HEY EVERYONE! I GOT A NEW BIKE!"  It was so cute!  All the neighbor kids gathered around while we took the tags off and he got his helmet on.

His helmet is actually on BACKWARDS here.

New bike mom! 

Shilo and Ronin made a MineCraft puppet show for me one night

One of the guys at work has been bringing in his puppy, Boldin... who is the CUTEST puppy ever!  A little distracting, but he is the highlight of all us ladies day when we get to cuddle with him :)

Boldin and me :)

Saturday Robert and I went to a friends Halloween party.  Mostly fun, I might have went off on another woman there because she was an idiot.  Robert just shakes his head and laughs. Good man.

"Queen of Hearts" and I hate that mask- it's freaky! 

Us ladies in the car going to the party (that's Julie and Kim)

Poor Robert was the Designated Driver...  and the name-tag was my idea, don't judge.

Kim and Me

This weekend is Halloween!  I still need to make a tail for Quinn's wolf costume.  He is super excited about the idea of trick-or-treating to get candy.  He kept asking me "is it Halloween yet?" no "is tomorrow Halloween?"  haha   And the other day I asked what it would take to get him to go to the bathroom in the toilet, he told me "cupcakes!" so I got mini-cupcakes and he did well that night.  The next day I told Cheyla to just give him a quarter of a cupcake as a reward.  He was pretty pissed off that he wasn't getting a whole cupcake, so he stopped going in the toilet.  When I got home Cheyla told me about it and I asked Quinn about the cupcake situation, and he said "Yeah, I'm NEVER going to the bathroom again".  haha!  Little turkey!  If he can't have a whole cupcake he won't even try.

I had a parent-teacher conference with Ronin's teacher this week.  She said he's always making her laugh, he needs to stay on task, hold his pencil right more of the time... pretty normal stuff.  The funny part is that she said he gets her jokes when the rest of the class doesn't.  Or he'll say things she's thinking - which happens to me all the time!  Smart boy.  She commented on how creative he is, and how detailed his stories are :)   I told her how I used to write about morbid things when I was little, like houses killing people and lots of blood and violence, she said he writes about pretty morbid things too, mostly zombies killing people, but she doesn't see it as a problem and it's kind of a boy thing.  He's more like me than I give him credit some times.  :)    

Ronin and I had a talk about what he's been hearing on the bus or at school and if he has questions.  He said he hears the "f" word a lot from one boy on the bus, so I explained what cuss words are and what words were okay for him to say instead.  I tried to explain what drugs were and that in about 5 or 6 more years he'll probably know people that are doing them, so I lightly touched on what drugs are and when I got to the ones that make you hallucinate, he asked if I put those in his food!  haha!  I said I would never put drugs in his food!  But he told me one time he ate some of my food and then started seeing things that weren't there.  haha!  And the last thing we touched on was "sex" because he's heard the word on his bus a lot and he want's to know what it is and where babies come from!  I kind of postponed that discussion and told him to tell me what he hears from his friends/classmates and we will have the talk later.  Fun stuff.   I promised him I'd be honest with him as long as he always came to me for answers and not his friends.

Quinn's birthday is coming up!!  I have invites ready, I just haven't decided how we are doing it yet!  He doesn't really have any friends his age to invite- most of his friends are Ronin's friends/neighbor kids.  I guess there's nothing wrong with that as long as he gets CAKE!  haha

Lots of love,
C

Cub Scouts and Tonsills

A few weeks have gone by since I updated this...  Ronin had another Cub Scout meeting, but this time he got to wear his uniform.  He's wearing the wrong color of hat/scarf for his den though, so we had to order the right color for tigers this week.  So far the big meetings are pretty boring for him, which I agree, they are.  We have our first Den meeting tonight, where he'll earn a bead or something to work towards a badge.  That should be more fun for him.

Cub scout

They made cookies - Quinn got in on the snacking

A couple weekends ago Ronin was pretty sick with a high fever at night and he eventually lost his voice.  I took him to urgent care that Sunday to make sure it was okay for him to return to school the next day.  He had viral laryngitis.  Poor guy.  He missed an entire SUNNY weekend of playing with his neighbor friends because of it.

He had to wear a face mask because he was coughing

Generation "Kindle"

Sunday after his doctor visit we were going crazy to get outside so we took a drive to Nana and Papas place in Battle Ground so I could show the boys the property and the barn.  Uncle Scott showed up with his fish he caught that day.  Quinn was pretty grossed out and wouldn't touch it.  

Uncle Scott, Ronin and the fish

Quinny really wanted to go to the forest, so we drove to Lewisville Park before dinner time.

Cheese!

We found some squirrels, this one looked back at us

My coffee is never safe when Quinn finds it

  

The weekend we were house-bound with Ronin's sickness Robert made the bunny a hutch!  Quinn likes to take everyone out in the backyard to show them the new bunny hutch.  And bunny seems pretty happy not to be living in his own poop. :)

Ronin's new sweatshirt...  

Once Ronin was feeling better -- ALL the neighbor kids came over to color.

Ronin's been doing well on his spelling tests :)  I bought him a game called "Mine Craft" for doing well on his tests.

He lost another tooth!  The tooth fairy gave him a dollar coin :)

Quinn coloring

Playing Mine Craft with his friends

This disgusting thing was by my front door the other day- yuck!

Yesterday Ronin and Bella wanted to see each other's Halloween costumes - so freaking cute!

I had my Tonsils out last Wednesday, I'll spare everyone the pictures, but it's been a tougher recovery than I anticipated.  My energy is zapped and it's painful to sleep, but each night/day seems to get better and less painful.  I returned to work for part of the day yesterday and today.  I should be fine by next week :)   This weekend we are going with Kim and her kids to the "Fruit Loop" in Hood River to visit the apple orchards and get family pictures!  Should be fun :)

Lots of love,

C