So my second son has a weird habit. He comes home from school almost everyday with "treasures" he has found. The thing is, it is all TRASH. Crap he's found on the playground or literally in the trash can and for some strange reason he comes home with it. Some of his treasures include: an eyeglass lens, a girl's headband, an arm of a Mr. Potato Head, a bubble wand, an empty Fanta bottle and an empty box for latex gloves. He keeps them all on the headboard of his bed and gets really upset if I tell him to get rid of them because they are trash. What the heck? I am scared he is going to end up like one of those people on Hoarders who thinks everything is a treasure and they live among their clutter and mess to the point they can't even take a shower in their own house because it's filled with 400 empty rolls of paper towels!

A Historical Moment

So today is the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down. I will sum up exactly what I remember of this day, 20 years ago:

I was 15. My dad was watching the news and my sisters and I were flitting around doing who knows what and he said, "History is being made right now and you aren't even watching!" Then I stopped and watched (for about 20 seconds) people jumping up and down and climbing around on a wall.

Profound, huh? I wish I could say I was so insightful at that moment in time, but yeah, I've got nothing. Pretty much the only thing I think I knew about the Berlin Wall was that there was a Disney movie (I can't remember the title - help me out!) about a true story of a family that made their own hot air balloon to get over it. History indeed.

A Word to the Wise

Now that fall is here, don't forget to practice safe leaf raking:

The One Where I Confess I Think Halloween is Dumb

I think Halloween is the dumbest pretend holiday. Homage to the macabre? Really? I don't like the premise behind it. I don't like the gallons of candy. I don't like all the hoopla about some weird day everyone decides to dress up and beg at doors and let perfect strangers give their children things to eat like that is a normal thing. Bah humbug, I know. I think it is fun only for the fact that I like to see my kids have so much fun. So I pretend to like it for them. I dress up every year. I head up the classroom parties. I take my kids to the trunk-or-treats and trick-or-treating. This year I even took inspiration from my sister and had a Halloween feast of sorts. So, that being said, here are some pictures:

Little J was a zombie thing. I don't know. He always picks the dead stuff - ghost, mummy, zombie. I get creeped out looking at this picture.

Big J was Anakin Skywalker. Only because I won the costume in a giveaway. He wanted to be Michael Jackson because recently he has been thinking MJ is awesome because he got into the Weird Al Yankovic song "Eat It" so I had to show him it was parodying "Beat It" and so that opened up a whole new world. I just couldn't bring myself to figure out a MJ outfit when we had a perfectly good one (and he's loved Star Wars much longer than he's even known about MJ).

Little Miss as the happy ladybug on her very first Halloween.

Little Man as a tiger. Except he wouldn't wear the hat. He held it the whole time instead. And this picture is really about the only picture we have because he refused to be in any pictures.

Me the pirate with a cute little ladybug again.

The "feast." I really just threw together things I already had. Next year will be better! We had "witches fingers" (chicken strips with green pepper nails), "mummy dogs", "eyeballs" (except I was going to make them bloodshot with food coloring, but I didn't have any), "bones" with "blood" (breadsticks shaped into bones with spaghetti dipping sauce), "witches brooms" (big pretzel rods with fruit rollups for the straw), and then the boys wanted to make "spider webs" out of fruit roll-ups, too. Admittedly, not the most well-rounded meal, but it was festive. What was the most fun about this is that the two older boys totally helped make everything and we had a lot of fun doing it together.

All in all it was a hectic, but fun weekend. (Even if I do think Halloween is dumb :-)

Some Fun Giveaways *Edited*

I won another giveaway recently - an Anakin Skywalker Halloween costume. Just for taking a minute to enter and now my boys think I'm the coolest mom ever. I already have a stash of other items I've won that are starting to give me a pretty good jump on Christmas presents and they didn't cost me a cent. So here are a few more fun giveaways available to you (being shared at the risk of lowering my odds of winning :-) Some end really soon, so enter fast!

Strider Running Bike - Ends 10/26 here

Vat 19 Tuffo Waterproof Blanket - Ends 10/27 here

Tinkerbell and The Lost Treasure DVD and fairy wings - Ends 10/27 here *I WON*

Hexbug and Nano Bug Microrobotic Creatures - Ends 10/27 here

Kolcraft Tiny Steps 2-in-1 Activity Walker - Ends 10/28 here

Sleepy Wrap - Ends 10/29 here

SproutBaby $50 Gift Card - Ends 10/30 here

Pulse Yoga DVD - Ends 10/30 here

Hasbro Games - Candyland Sweet Celebrations and Girrafalaff Limbo - Ends 11/2 here

$50 Tiny Prints Gift Certificate - Ends 11/2 here

*NEW* Barbar 1900 Tourmaline Cordless Combo (curling iron and flat iron set) - Ends 11/3 here

Your choice from LuShae Jewelry collection - Ends 11/6 here

Kolcraft Jeep Wrangler Unlimited G-Edition Stroller - Ends 11/10 here and Ends 11/16 here

$40 Visa Gift Card - Ends 11/12 here given away by this blogger here

Asking a favor of you

Attention all 6 readers of mine:

Please go vote for my sister (http://swampbrat.net/) for the John Lennon award here. It only takes a second, but will make a big difference. Thanks!

P.S. Do it by Tuesday.

Where to start?

It's been a while. Does anyone else just wonder where the day goes and then wonder where the week went? And now I'm looking at the month wondering where it has gone. Some things of note that have happened over the past month or so:

Two of my children had birthdays. Big J is now 9 and Little Man is now 3.

Big J chose to take his best buddy to Worlds of Fun for his big day. We had a little celebration and cake here and he had donuts for a treat in his class at school, but there was no big party, just the amusement park. It was just me, Big J and his friend. It was perfect weather and not crowded. It was fun. Except for the fact that after 3 rides I puked. And they weren't even hardcore rides. This is from someone with season passes to Six Flags growing up - the bigger the ride the better. I am holding to the theory that the medication I am on can cause dizziness and so I think it made me even more sensitive to the motion of the rides; however, it was pretty lame by any standards.

It started on the very first ride. Then Big J wanted to go into that ride that spins really fast and the floor drops out from under you and you stick on the wall. I used some serious Jedi mind tricks to not send puke flying all around to stick on the wall, too. When it ended, I was sweating and could barely walk down the ramp. Just for the record - that ride is NOT FUN. But I was sucking it up trying to be the cool mom and all, so then we went on a roller coaster. It wasn't a big one, but it was called the Boomerang because it went forward then came back the same route backwards. When I got off of that I knew I was going to hurl. I was scoping out my strategic path of acceptable bushes as I walked off just hoping I wouldn't puke right there on the platform. Then I saw a bathroom across from the ride exit and pretty much abandoned my parental responsibilities as I ran in there and tossed my cookies. I was better after that, but still a little queasy. Lucky for me the boys thought the log ride was the best ride ever and rode it like 20 times.

Little Man had a small celebration with us on his actual birthday, but then we had the big party this past weekend when my parents were in town. He had a Hot Wheels party. Originally, he told me he wanted a "blue" party. Not Blue's Clues, just a blue birthday party. But then he opted for Hot Wheels because he is all about motor vehicles and manly things like that. It was a relatively calm party and I think he and his guests had a lot of fun. We had the big car mat out with a box of cars and then a few of the ramps and things for them to play with at will. We played pin the wheel on the race car. We decorated individual race cars to take home and had a Hot Wheel pinata. Then everyone got to take home a goody bag of Hot Wheels themed items like gummy race cars, chocolate cars and tire-shaped bubble gum.

It's hard to believe both these boys are the age they are. I love them!

I ran the 5k I committed to here. I finished it in 30:36, about 3 minutes slower than my "normal" time. I knew that was about where I would finish, although my goal was to do it in 30 flat. However, I was surprised to see that in my age division for females I was 13th out of 83 and 152nd out of 669 total women running the 5k. So despite still not feeling like I'm in shape (except round is a shape, right?) I was ok with it all. And I was really proud of my husband for running his very first 5k. He beat me by 8 seconds.

And since we are on the subject of commitments brought up in that post, I am reporting on my weight loss attempts and can say that since that post I have lost 8 more pounds. So obviously I am not going to make my goal of losing 14 pounds by the end of October, but it is heading that direction slowly. I have not been as diligent as I should have been the last 2 weeks, so I am recommitting to step it up right now.

Little Miss is 4 months old. Now tell me that didn't just fly by! I took her for her 4 month check-up and she weighed in at 16 lb. 12 oz. and 25 1/4 inches. A RUNT compared to her brothers at this age. All of them were at least 2 pounds heavier and at least 2 inches longer. I guess it is good she is more petite since she is the girl. And who am I kidding? She's got thigh rolls that don't quit! It was still weird not to have a baby that is off the chart, though. She is hanging out in the dainty upper 80s to mid-90s percentiles. She is still wonderful and the best baby ever!

I have a lot more I could write about, but I will leave it at that for now, except to say that we finally figured out what to have Little Miss be for her first Halloween - a ladybug!