Blessed Beyond Belief

Halloween

Today we saw a newspaper article about Harrison Blvd. and figured we would try it out.  About an hour before we were set to leave Russell announced that he wanted to dress up like a girl.  So Tim drove him over to Maggies to pick up a few things and between those, some things from home and a make up job in the car - this is what he came up with.  One of the best parts was his hairy armpits coming out of his shirt sleeves.

Lafonduh, the hippie chick, and Buzz lightyear - space ranger.

This neighborhood is unbelievable.  It's in downtown Boise but feels like I would imagine some street back east in the fall.  The huge mature trees all shades of reds, golds, and yellows were gorgeous and all the houses were so full of character.

I guess this Halloween tradition has been going on for a long time. They organize really well with the help of the police for traffic control and BSU students manning the cross walks.  One house even hired BSU drama students to dress up in costume out front of their house.  You should have heard the comments and looks that Russell, er - Lafonduh got.  Everything from 'how YOU doin?' to 'nice rack!'.  I'm not sure if it was funnier to see him from the front or watch him walk from behind.  What a figure, huh?  If only I could get my stomach that flat...

All the houses had some type of decoration - this one was interesting.  The convo bubbles had all her catch phrases in them - 'and I can see Russia from my house!.....'

We've decided that we want to go back every year.  In fact, we've decided that we want to live on this street.

One of the last houses was handing out blinking reflector lights for the kids to wear.  We put them to good use.

Then we came home so that Autumn could go trick or treating with her friend, Will could pass out candy, and Russell could de-boob himself.  

Tim took a ton of video on Harrison Blvd.  I'll link to it soon as he puts it together.  I'm sure he got a ton of 'scenery'.

Here it is:

does it get any cuter?

Yesterday we got through THREE school meetings.  It was a whopper.  Basically, everything is fine, our kids are brilliant, and I have no need to panic.  Ok, a bit of an exaggeration, but all in all, it's ok.  And that's all I got to say about that - for now.

Grandpa Mike accidentally left a pair of his reading glasses here a few weeks ago.  Today Will discovered them on his book shelf.  Look - it's mini mike!  Tomorrow I'm going to make cake balls.  Yes - CAKE. BALLS.

Good Explanation

Worth it to watch through -

not fun.

Here's where I get to whine about things not being fair again.  So go ahead and click your back button if that's not fun for you.  Cause guess what?  It's my blog and that means I get to whine about whatever I want.  Is that bitchy enough?  

So today I get to go to an IEP meeting.  What's an IEP meeting?  Well let me tell you - it's where you sit with about 4 - 6 other people who are 'professionals' of your child and try to figure out how best to serve and educate him.  Sounds fun, huh?  No - it's not fun.  In fact, it makes me a really not pretty person.  It makes me want to scream, stomp my feet, and use words I don't normally use.  It makes me want to yell about how I'm not THE person for this.  why me, why me, why me??!!!

Yeah, I know - we all have things in our lives that we don't want to deal with.  Well this is mine.  If you've read this far - thank you.  If you've read this far and still love me (flaws and all) - then thank you very much.  We'll be back to our regularly scheduled posts of cute pictures and heart warming stories someday soon.  But right now I need to go clean up and look like a parent whose got it together.

The Par-tay.

Well, it WAS a costume party.  And I wanted to pretend I had lots of hair.  Scary, huh?

Here's the witch and the cute little children she is going to eat.

Sipping some coffee to get me through the birthday party.

Tim wanted to be a hockey player.  I wanted him to stuff a bra for boobs under his hockey jersey, wear some glasses and lipstick and be Sarah Palin, aka hockey mom.  But he only got as far as the jersey.

Here's the groovy cupcake cake for the groovy birthday girl.

Pumpkin painting.

A solider, hippie, sick person, witch, and a snow princess.  Glad I didn't have to kick anyone out for wearing a skimpy tasteless costume.  That was my job.  Oh wait, I wasn't wearing that costume.

Dipping carmel apples.

Here's where Will professes his undying love for Maggie (again).  I think I forgot to mention that he fell in love with her the night of the homecoming dance.  What a lucky girl, two handsome Kelly men head over heals for her!

The girls also went on a neighborhood scavenger hunt.  Everyone had a great time and I got to pat myself on the back for another successful kids birthday party.  I always forget how much work they are until I'm in the thick of it.  That's probably on purpose cuz if I remember I would have stopped doing these a long time ago.

Hippie Girl 2008

We had a groovy little Halloween party here today.  All the girls came dressed up.  Of course I had to take Autumn out for a little photo shoot pre-party.  Here's a little preview.

Eleven Years Ago

This little girl came into our lives after a long and difficult delivery. Oh how I wish that I could have the beautiful pictures of that day that babies born now do.  The crystal clear images of that first moment, the expressions of the parents, every last detail forever documented.  Instead I have snapshots captured on an automatic 35mm camera.  Not super clear and in limited quantities.  But somehow it's still a perfect depiction of the day.  It WAS a blur, it was imperfect, and it was a day I'll never forget.  I guess I don't need beautiful portraits of the day because that day is forever burned into my memory.  And really it was just the beginning of what would be the life of our very interesting, challenging, funny, and beautiful Autumn Rose.

Guess what today was

How do you think it went?

more later......

This is a lovely photo, right?

You would never know that we were at a waste water treatment plant.  You would never know that a few hours later we would be introduced to the room that all of the treasure valley's poop goes. Yeah, poop.  Last week we attended a conference on autism.  Then on Saturday we dressed and taxi'ed our son and his date to a homecoming dance.  This week we accompanied our daughter on a field trip to the Boise Water Shed .  And it was lovely, until we got to the room with the raw sewage.  ewww.

I wonder what kinds of fun things we will do when we no longer have (young) children who require us to do things like tour the local poop plant facilities.

Camel Talk

A couple of weeks ago we went to Linder Farms for a corn maze, petting zoo, and fall fun.  Didn't realize we would get a lesson on how camels talk.  We found it oddly familiar since Russell often speaks in the same manner.  Especially when he wants food.

Even though Will politely asked if the camel could be nice, he just wasn't sure about him and kept his distance.

This guy wanted food too, but the camel ate it all.  So I took his picture instead.

Hopped back on the hay ride and headed to the corn maze.  Much to the kids dismay, we choose the easiest one.  Still got lost and took far too long for my taste.

Corn.  When people think IDAHO, they think POTATO.  Honestly, I don't even know what a potato plant looks like.  All you see growing in the summer are corn fields.  All you see in the fall are brown corn stalks.  The potatoes must be east or north or south or something cuz when I go shopping all the potatoes say 'idaho grown'.  But all I see is corn.  Anyway, makes for some good corn mazes around here.  I even hear there's one that's carved in the shape of the two clowns running for president.  I don't dare get lost in that one.