A Parade of Halloween-ness

The girlies had their annual Halloween parade at school on Friday (anyone know whether they do this little tradition in Arizona?).

I got there an hour and a half early to save our seats. If that doesn't say, "dedicated mother" what does?

Anywho, Aunt Whit was in-town and came to watch.



Here is Pipes when she first sees us (for some reason the red-eye fixer thing wasn't working, so I couldn't change it).



And here she is when she notices we're all taking pictures:



Whit had to chase Adi to get this shot. The darn girl wouldn't stop to smile at the camera when she was walking by!



This year was the first one that I wasn't signed up for either of their Halloween class parties (due to the unkown-ness of my condition with Jr.). I felt a bit empty driving away from the school after the parade!

Principal's Pride

Miss Pips received her second Principal's Pride Award on Thursday (her first one we missed due to strep throat).

What is Principal's Pride?

It is a recognition for the kiddos who did something exceptionally well the week before. In Piper's case, it was the awesome Witch Addition Coloring Page she did.



Did you see it? That is the principal kneeling down by Pippy.



She was so darn proud of herself. And I have to say, I felt a bit of pride myself, knowing that Pipes is being recognized for something that she always does so well at.

Good job Piper!

A Marshmallow World

Guess what we woke up to this morning?



That's right, snow! I assume someone heard mine and the kiddos wishes, since we've been hoping that we'd get to see at least one last snow before we had to move to sunny Arizona.

Mostly, I want to get at least a bit of use out of the millions of dollars I spent on winter attire last year (ok, so not millions of dollars. But I spent the better part of spring stocking up on clearance winter clothes for this time of year).



The kiddos rushed to put on their coats and snowboots (over their jammies) to get the newspaper at 7 o'clock this morning. I would like to apologize to any neighbors that my children awoke with their squeals of delight.



Then, because I am the awesomest-posemest mommy ever, I let them go out and play in the fluffy stuff a bit before school.




And then they went off to face the day with soggy gloves.

But hey, we made a memory, right?

Halloween Party

So, first, let me show you the kiddo's costumes (before I get into my complete stupidity for agreeing to have a Halloween/Going Away Party for the girls).

What do you say when your daughters see these Monster High Dolls and say, "Mom, can I be her for Halloween?"


Umm... *gulp*

So, there were no patterns for these (duh) so I rigged these babies up. Please do not judge too harshly.







And here's Adi's look-a-like:











And Mr. Porter Pot wanted to be "A star wars". I finally convinced him to call himself Luke Skywalker. This was another costume that required my imagination since there are, surprisingly, no patterns for Jedi Knights.




Why is his hair black? Because he saw the girls getting their hair sprayed and wanted a turn too.

He also wouldn't let me take any pics of him, so this was the best I got.


Now, onto the party.

*Sigh*.

So, originally, the party was supposed to be small. But when the girls had other "special" friends they wanted to invite, I didn't have the heart to say no, seeing as how we are planning on uprooting them soon.

Then the day of the party came, and I kept getting phone calls from various mothers asking if their daughters were really invited to the party since they didn't get an invite.

"Of course!" I said cheerfully as I glared at my daughters.

So we ended up with 17 children there.

Yup, 17. That, of course, includes my three younguns.











So I had to stretch the party into the kitchen table (and the kitchen bar), and there still weren't enough seats for everyone.



Luckily, I got a few of my old Activity Girls over to help me, and, let me tell you, they saved my life.

And they also seemed to enjoy doing it to. (Here's one of my awesome helpers playing tape-the-eye-on-the-hastily-drawn-ghost)



I discovered that 16 little girls (and one 3 year old boy) can eat 8 Totinos Pizzas. And a bag of carrot sticks with ranch. Yikes!

Then the kiddos played "Mummy Wrap". I'm not sure what the point was except to wrap someone up in cheap Walmart TP that kept breaking.






These little red-haired beauties are stinking awesome. They are older girls, but they are so good with Porter. They made sure to include him in everything.




Then there was the pinata. Luckily another of my girly helpers wanted to hold up the pole with it attached (I was a bit afraid of getting whacked in my baby-belly).




We spent the last 1/2 hour of the party watching How To Train Your Dragon.

Well, not me, but the girls did. I got to clean up while they ate popcorn and candy.



Most of them, anyway. A few drifted off to the playroom.

And then, after all of the guests cleared out, I sat down and cried.

And then vowed to never have that many girls over at once again.

You know, until the next birthday...

*Ahem* I have an announcement...

And what kind of announcement has my children standing next to a gigantic tire?

Well, their Daddy will soon be driving a truck that has a few of these attached.

In Arizona.

Yep, you read that right. I said ARIZONA.

Baby, we're coming home!

Just at the right time of year, I must say.

Anywho, I brought the kiddos to Kennecott Copper Mine to give them an idea of where Daddy will be working. He isn't working here, mind you, but in a place much like this.

They checked out the current active open-pit, unfortunately Pipes was a bit short to actually see the mine through this (can you tell that she's just staring at the sky?).



Picturesque, eh?



And they wanted their photo taken by the same kind of truck OP will soon be cruising around in.




Can you tell that Porter is pretending to drive it?

So, there you go.

We're moving.

As soon as we find a place to live...

Cornbelly's

OP's little sister Jessie and her new Hubby (whom I finally got to meet) came up for a quick visit last week.

And I tortured them and took them out to Cornbelly's at Thanksgiving Point. They were good sports about it though. Especially since they had to walk at a snail's pace with 7 month pregnant me.



Anywho, I really do love Cornbelly's (not so much the price though). They have great stuff for the kiddos to do- and the adults. I loved these giant air-pillow thingys last year, but I was afraid to give it a go this time.



Adi enjoyed sliding off of them.



They had these tire-swing thing-a-ma-jiggers for the kiddos to ride on.



And a cow train.



Here is where these Merrill kids could have spent all day (I got a bit nervous though 'cause I couldn't keep an eye on them at all times).



Awesome, right? There were four sides of climbing and sliding.



But once the youngun's discovered the black tunnel of death, they mostly stuck to it.

It really sent them flying. Here's Chad (the new bro-in-law) trying to stick an elegant landing.



It wasn't the worst one I saw from this tube...



Porter and Chad waiting for Jessie to come down. Porter kept trying to get his faced kicked in by those coming down.



And here she comes.



There were also these giant inflatable balls to play around with.



They were fun, but they were huge and heavy. I think a couple of the kids got taken out by it.



Roping the wooden steer.

"It's a bull, Mom." -Adi

Excuse me.



Of the course the wooden house full of corn kernels (and who knows what other diseases).



Porter was so excited to climb this spider web, until he got frustrated because the black rope was more rubbery and he couldn't move around too much.



There was also a corn maze, a giant iguana haunted house thing, and much more, but I got hungry (and maybe a bit grumpy) and just stopped taking pictures.

How to play tennis

**A series of instructional photographs**

First, one must come prepared with a ball and racket.


Serve said green and fuzzy ball.



The opponents prepare to return the hit.



Success (sort of)



The point counts, girls score!

One must always have a victory dance prepared for moments of triumph in tennis.



Always stay aware and focused on the game.



Girls turn to serve.



Volley.



Aim for the ball, not your teammate.



Score for the boys.

Once again, always perform a victory waddle when a point is scored.



The most important part of tennis, is to stay friends no matter who wins or looses,



Well, that, and always bring a smile!