sneak peek

Nothing, absolutely nothing, was sewn by me this year for Halloween. Maybe when they start packing their own lunches & backpacks, doing their own laundry, and cleaning up more of their own messes, I'll have time to create costumes by hand again. This year was easy. A few minutes on the internet and a quick visit from the UPS truck, and we were all set.

Costumes were donned for school yesterday, so I snapped these pics of the girls during the morning chaos. For photos of our man-eating shark and penguin, you will have to wait until Trick-or-Treat tomorrow evening.

Cozy to a Cupcake

She will not sleep in her bed anymore. She says "Mine not cozy" and climbs in next to me. Every night. But this...
...this is comfy cozy to Cupcake.

more haircuts!

We've been going haircut crazy here lately! I guess #1 inspired his siblings. Here's a pic of Zippy with his mohawk spiked like he likes it. And The Spark has new bangs. Plus Cupcake got her regular cropped cut since she hates having her hair combed. Ever. And not to be left out even though she doesn't need anything done to her beautiful, thick, curly, long hair, Princess Eee is getting a little trim too.

Pumpkins & Ice Cream

I haven't had a chance to post about Zippy's new 'do, and this photo doesn't do it justice, but he his sporting a dark blue mohawk. Punk rock, this kid. So here he is carving his pumpkin this morning. He chose to carve a picture of a bat on his pumpkin and then both Cupcake and Princess Eee attempted to replicate his design with varying results. They did their own since I gave them each a little scraper tool rather than knives. The Spark and #1 both stuck with the traditional, jack-o-lantern face and both carved great spooky faces with no help from me.

J has been gone since the crack of dawn today at an all day review session for his real estate exam that he hopes to take next month, so it was five on one today for pumpkin carving.

Who is this kid?! I still hardly recognize him, but I'm getting used to his new look.

Did all her own scooping too!

And after a seriously kid-friendly dinner of mac-n-cheese, hot dogs, and muffins, I had everything on hand to make our own ice cream with our ice cream maker ball thingy. It takes a while so we have to seize the opportunity to put it to use when I know we will have finished dinner early enough to spend a lot of time on dessert. A Saturday at home with no J for dinner presented the perfect chance. The kids were psyched. I even got a "I like you, Mom, you're really nice" from Zippy while he helped me fill the ball with ice. And then they rolled and rolled.
And it was good. Vanilla with maple syrup mixed in.

And The Spark proclaimed it to be the best ice cream EVER!

Before and After

This fall #1 insisted on finally having the dreadlocks he has wanted for about a year now. So we did it. It's only hair, and he has his own style which I admire greatly in a kid. He knew what he wanted and was confident and comfortable in his choice even though no one else he knows around here has dreads. He held tough and kept his chin up when people said stuff like, "You look like Albert Einstein." He didn't cave when people made all the typical comments about dreadlocks like, "Do they stink yet?" and "What about lice?" He liked his look, and we're proud of him for it. What he did not like was how high maintenance making dreadlocks is. It gave us nice quality, quiet time together as I backcombed and rolled each section of hair trying towork on each one of them at least once a week. He has really great hair, and it doesn't want to spontaneously dread itself up. It was work, and it tugged on his scalp when I worked on it. His eyes watered. My upper arms actually burned. It was a work in progress since it takes 3-6 months for hair to be really locked up. We were only about a month in.

Last night he decided that rather than lay his head in my lap again and bear with the tugging of hairs against his scalp as the backcombing inevitably entailed, he wanted it all off. No more dreadlocks, no more long hair. All off. So, we did it. I snipped each of his thirty dreadlocks off at the base, and then J fired up the clippers. #1 has not had short hair in years so to me he looked like his six year old self. He looks so much younger than he did yesterday. That isn't exactly what an almost eleven year old wants to hear, but it's true. Just so his attitude doesn't revert back to his six year old self.

And true to form, Zippy did not sit idly by while all this hair transformation activity occured. I'll post about his new 'do later.

Weekend in the north country

What North Country kids do with free time...

Chop down saplings that are obstructing our woods trail:


Play with sticks:


Help with trail maintenance by mostly whining to go do something else:

Work that hatchet:

Attack the brambles with this most awesome tool ever (and I don't mean J):

A little weed-wacking:

Try out last winter's equipment while daydreaming about the upcoming season:

Bake a loaf of banana bread:

The Spark is missing from these photos because she's been away all weekend at her BFF's house in northern Vermont. Cupcake and I get to go pick her up soon, and we've all missed her lots!

This week's doings

Princess Eee started dance class. Several of her friends are in the class, and I was dragging my feet signing her up because I was afraid of how Cupcake would react if we held firm that this class is Princess Eee's deal and not for Cupcake to join even though the girls in it are her friends too and she's eligible age-wise as well. I also took a month to convince myself that Princess Eee should indeed do this class because it means picking her up 45 minutes early from school every Tuesday from now until Memorial Day weekend when they have their big recital. But, she was so excited when I told her she was going to get to take dance lessons with her friends. And she especially loved the hand-me-down lavendar leotard with flowery skirt. And Cupcake was okay with not joining in.

And here's J all dressed up in his Firefighter "Class A's" which we like to call "Class-ay!" on his way to a funeral with the fire department today. Don't worry, no one died in the line of duty. One of the two original members of the town's fire department, which formed in the 1940's, and former chief (many decades ago) passed away earlier this week. This is how dapper the fire fighters look for things like funerals and parades. The shirt actually has faux buttons on the placket which hide the zipper, yes, the zipper, in case the fire fighters have to pull a super-hero costume change and zip off to an actual emergency.

I thought he should definitely wear these black shoes since he is, after all, in his fire fighter Class-ay suit, but he thought maybe they'd be more appropriate for the next parade rather than a funeral.

Rain Day

Yesterday the three big kids had a Rain Day from school. It was like practice for snow days in winter. There were flood warnings all over the state, and since there is a brook that runs right in front of the big kids school that often gets rather high in the fall and spring, they cancelled school for the day. The brook did crest over the driveway bridge, and the guys who work the farm there were stuck at work. Two of them live there anyway.

Cupcake is always home with me on Fridays, so we had a busy day of five of us not going anywhere other than a quick walk out to check on our own little brook that was rushing over the road near our house. There was lots of block town building with Legos mixed in, online surfing for the perfect Halloween costume ideas, and homemade playdough.

Gandparent visit photos

It's been a full week since J's family came and went, so here, finally, are a few photos from their visit...

Sister Hez muggin' in our kitchen. Look! It's the girl version of J.:
Zippy showing Gramma Joy some old photos:

Princess Eee loving her snack:

The Spark and Santa, I mean Grampa: