~Carved~

I was up to my eyeballs in things to do all weekend (the house was overflowing with teenage boys and even a visiting friend from Belgium), so I was unable to respond directly, but Thank You all for your hurrahs and encouragements on my last post. It was much appreciated- and yes, the cake was delicious, thank goodness! :)

After all the birthday and visitor hoopala, we ended last weekend with some pumpkin carving. I have to say I'm not big on Halloween (for lots of reasons), but I do enjoy pumpkin carving now that the boys are old enough to do it for themselves AND help clean up afterwards (I do not enjoy the aftermath . . .)

The Husband's creation
I think he looks like Frankenstein :)

The Youngest's:
that is suppose to be a cigarette sticking out of it's mouth (no idea) and if you look closely you'll see he wrote 'karen' on it's side- a reference to the movie 'The Watcher in the Woods'- a family favorite

The Oldest's pumpkin:
I was guessing Picasso, but he says it has to do with an anime show he watches

My cat'o lantern
(I was too tired to think of anything more creative)

Twister decided Cat o'Lantern made a good companion- no fleas

Anyway- our creations found their way to the front porch and tonight I will light them up to greet anyone who may come to the door.

I also have these darling tattoos I found at Target to hand out. I picked these up a month ago- I prefer to not hand out candy simply because having it around the house is dangerous for me and my lack of control where sweets are concerned.

  In fact, I already have quite the stash of chocolate of my own- all the way from Belgium, courtesy of our Belgium visitor. I think this may be the first year I will not be raiding the kids' trick or treat loot!!

~He's Fifteen and I'm Still Playing Mom~

It's been a REALLY long day. 
It started early this morning: get up and have a family birthday breakfast to celebrate The Oldest turning 15. Let him open a few cards and gifts. Send him and his brother off to school. 
Drink Coffee. 
Get showered, dressed and do some light picking up. 
Drink More Coffee. 
Prepare Ebay packages to be shipped out, as well as a birthday package for a far away friend, and a package for my mother (which happened to be 3lbs of coffee). Eat lunch. 
Somewhere in there, The Husband comes home from work unexpectedly because the internet connection at the office isn't working and he needs to work from home. 
We have a cuppa coffee. 
The kids get home from school (two hour early release) and I take The Oldest to his birthday gift: a 2:30 pm. ear piercing appointment. So we fill out lots of paper work and a young gal plunges a needle into each lobe and off we go. 
We stop at the drug store for the recommended cleaning solution. They don't have it even though the paperwork we have says you can find it just about anywhere. But we don't have time to go anywhere else because we have a picture appointment to get to. 
So we go to our 4:00 pm scheduled picture appointment, walking in at exactly 3:50. Early for once!! But they are 'having technical difficulties' and we don't start our photo session for another 45 min. So when it's finally done and they say we can wait about ten minutes until they should have our photos ready for viewing, I'm pretty much like, 'Yeah, right'! And can you guess what I need at this point? 
Yup- More Coffee. 
And something to eat because I'm starving! Thirty mins and some coffee talk later,  Oldest and I go back and sure enough, our pictures are "almost done". I call The Husband (who is suppose to make dinner) and tell him he's got plenty of time. And when everything is bought and paid for we walk out of there at 6:30 pm- 2 1/2 hours after our scheduled appointment.
Oh! But we still have to find that dang cleaning solution for his ears. We stop at a nearby Target. No such luck. I grab the least recommended thing they have and we go. 
Home at 7pm. Dinner nearly done! 
We dine on Baked Ravioli, Garlic Toast and Salad with Ranch Dressing- all at the specific request of the birthday boy. It tastes amazing because I didn't have to make it!! 
But I DO still have to make a birthday cake for his party tomorrow. And it's 7:30 pm, but no problem, right? 
Oh- but I'm making an icecream cake that requires layers to be frozen one at a time, starting with the crust. The crust is made, popped in the freezer and we spend the next hour looking over old photos of The Oldest as a baby. 
The Husband and I ooh and awhh, The Youngest does a remarkable job of allowing all the attention to be on big brother and The Oldest looks bored and rolls his eyes impatiently. 
Layer One is done!! 
Layer two is vanilla icecream. Cool- literally. Ha! This layer takes a quick 20 mins. to freeze and we are half way. 
Then comes the hot fudge layer. No problem, right? 
Thirty mins. go by- not even close to frozen. 
An hour goes by- nope, still runny. 
An hour and a half . . . ? 
I give up and go blog.  
And now at 12:29 am, here I am- still waiting. And we are SO. NEARLY. THERE! And then? One Last Layer to go . . . and then it's suppose to freeze overnight- though at this rate I'm not sure we'll get the full 'overnight' in. 
So everyone's been long ago to bed and sound asleep, but me. Because I'm waiting for hot fudge to freeze. 
And no- this time I do not want any coffee.

~It's That Time of Year Again~

 We had our last cookout of the season . . .

and finalized everything needed for back to school . . .

And then today the backpacks went on and new shoes were tied . . .

The boys were marched outside for their annual torture picture taking . . .
The Youngest went for silly.

The Oldest went for the modeling look. "Hey Ladies, check out this action . . ."

And then, because I'm really cruel, they had to pose with each other.
Don't they look thrilled?

Ah . . . much better. I think.

And off they went . . . and I am dancing jigs around the house!! ;)

The Youngest started seventh grade today . . . and his brother is now a ninth grader. Yes indeed, high school is upon us! Trying to soak it all in . . . wondering where time went and HOW DID I GET THIS OLD?! I remember my own freshmen year like yesterday (actually, better than yesterday. I really can't recall yesterday too well). Crazy stuff . . .

I would normally be way more emotional than I am on this first day of school, but it's also that time of year for the germs- and they seem to have gotten to me extra early this September! So I'm way too tired fighting some bug to make any more of it than it is. And that's probably a good thing. 

So lots of this today . . .

And tea, too . . .

And then it's early to bed for this mama.
Here's to hoping this is all the illness it's gonna be this month!

Happy September!