....because when you *think* you can do it better, you should

mostly because I think she's cute.....

Pictures taken - check

Monday afternoon I took the kids to Black's to get their pictures taken. Jack had his birthday photo shoot and then they took the kids Christmas card picture.

I spent the afternoon wrapping 3 boxes in Christmas wrapping paper and packing things to take. I took a little tree as well. I also made some snacks for the kids to eat while I was picking out the pictures. I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and packed some cheese balls. I packed a juice box for each of them too.

I can! not! wait for you guys to see the pictures. Jack had a blast! They got some adorable pictures. I hate waiting for them to come in. It's the worst part.

The picture above is from Black's blog. He's a bit of a Peachy Pie fan and called her Princess the whole time. The boys walked in and he said "Where is my Princess". You should have seen his princess bat her eyes and twirl around. Lordy.

Halloween 2009

Halloween 2009 was a success! The day before, it snowed. Not just snow, but it snowed snow balls. Snow chunks. It was crazy. It was cold and wet.

Not today though. Nope. It was perfect. I don't think we reached 60, but we had sunshine and that's almost as good.

I've been waiting for Halloween for weeks. We decided that Claire would be Strawberry Shortcake and my mind went crazy. I decided that I wanted to color her hair pink. Anyone can put on a wig or spray that crap on their hair. Pink hair it would be!

Here she is getting ready for her transformation.
One of my co-workers, Natae, helped me apply the pink. I needed it put on quickly and Natae was willing to help, so I took her up on it.After the color was done I put her hair in rollers. Such a happy camper.As if life could get any better.....
She got to sit under the dryer which made her SUPER happy. She loved it!Then it was time to get her costume on. She was so excited! We got the dress on, the tights. I put on her hat and she wasn't all too excited anymore. I took it off to air-brush some cheeks on her. She wasn't overly fond of that either. I think she'd had her fill of mommy/daughter time. She even mentioned missing her brothers.

Finally, it was time to put on her fake lashes and her look would be complete. She asked me not to, but being the Halloween Mommy Dearest that I am, I just....kinda....did it. And got this fab pic.
And then down came the tears. Not only did she not want the hat, or make-up, she REALLY didn't want the lashes. At all. She cried and cried. Did I mention that I air-brushed her make-up? Yeah. Well she finally quit crying and decided that the hat would work out just fine. (I kinda told her that she'd have to wear her stocking hat if she didn't choose this one and then NOBODY would know what she was supposed to be. See? Halloween Mommy Dearest. I'm not proud of it. Well, not super proud of it, at least.)

The end result.

Strawberry Shortcake!

Here are all the kids. Nathan was a baseball player. I tried to explain to him that Halloween wasn't career day, but he didn't care. He wanted to be a baseball player anyway. And really, he took one for the team last year. He was the Tin Man. His friends would walk by with super cool costumes as Nathan tried to hide behind the nearest tree - because he was the Tin Man. So baseball player it was.

If you asked Jack what he was he'd tell you a bat. After all, he had wings. :) A devil wasn't a stretch for him, that's for sure. He had a b*l*a*s*t trick-or-treating. He loved every second of it. He asked almost everyone if we could come in their house. It was pretty funny. One guy said, "Maybe you can come in, I don't know, maybe next week". I'm almost positive Jack penciled him in.
Here is the gang: Dawson, Caymen, Claire, Nathan and Jack.Here are the kids with their loot. For reals - nobody needs that much candy. But! We'll take it. ;)

Pumpkin painting

Monday we picked out our pumpkins. Each of the kids picked one out (and loved every second of it...) and then I chose one. I don't think I'll be able to carve the one that Jack picked, so I thought I better get a 'stand-by'.

We also got mini pumpkins for them to paint. They had a blast!!

You know what?

You're Cranky!

(Do you love how he says it with a big, fat, smile?)

Do you love it?

I got my hair cut and colored Sunday night. Do you love it as much as I do? The red is HD again and again Justin doesn't like it. But I sure do. Oh! And do you love the self portrait? It drives me crazy when I see a self portrait, but I had to. HAD TO! :)
Oh yeah! Here are my blue nails. Speaking of blue, Jack told me yesterday that he liked my byou (blue) hair. Um, close sweetie. :)