Hallelujah- Halloween is over!

After a new baby, too many parties and way too much candy(which is already gone) we are happy to say that Halloween is over!

(I have no idea why it is all underlined! Can't seem to change it either.)

This is was our "haunted hallway". JD wanted us to do this. My mom was here waiting for SD to arrive and she did most of it. This is consequently one of the last things I was doing before I went to the hospital to have SD. It was much more impressive in person! ID and the cat had to pose for the pic.

JD as Optimus Prime.He was quite disappointed that he couldn't actually transform.

Maybe next year, I will be supermom and find a way to make that possible!

AD as Wonder Woman. I had no idea she knew who wonder woman

is. But once she saw the costume, she would have

no other. She wore the suit on and off for many days. I once asked her while she was wearing it to throw away a dirty diaper and she said, "I will throw it away because that is what superhero's do and I'm a good superhero!"

ID as a pterodactyl! He was a good sport and settled for this costume. He originally

wanted to be a scary pumpkin with long terrifying vines and a mean face. He was very understanding that mom was a little preoccupied this year.

Warning! The following images are not for the faint of heart!!!

AD has finally discovered the scissors (more like the butcher knife)! It was my first night alone with all four and it was a memorable one! RD went off to school and I went to work with homework, dinner, and bedtime. JD had a fever of 102.7 so I had him soak in the tub while the kids and I ate. (Luckily my wonderful friend Kelly had brought me dinner so I atleast didn't have to fix it!) Then I did homework with ID. I sent JD to bed and banished AD to the basement to watch TV till we were done. This usually is not a problem. SD was of course awake and hungry by now. After homework I called AD up and sent her and ID to get ready for bed. Meanwhile I made a phone call. AD popped out of her room, all smiles and so innocent wanting me to see her self "improvements." Needless to say I was struck dumb and could not continue the conversation on the phone. I did good- I didn't yell or get upset, I casually laughed. She assures me that it will grow long again and apparently that is why she did it. I still do not have a clear explaination to why she wanted to give herself a mullet. She was quickly sent to bed so I would not have a melt down. RD got home after school and found the pile I had rescued from the trash on the table before I could warn him. He actually took it worse then I did! He is quite saddened. I think when she wakes in the morning it will hit me pretty good. Not sure what we will do about it yet. I'll take suggegtions. She has deffinatly outdone me, I only cut my barbies hair and my own bangs off once or twice, not my beautiful curlly locks!

She left the back alone but you can see it shorter on your right hand side. The top is almost all gone
She actually thinks she is posing so we can see her good job
This is almost a layered look
I retrieved this from the trash

Our final addition!

Meet Samuel Alexander! Sorry it took sooooo long to get the pics to you all. I'm a bit sleep deprived and have a bit of a head cold. These two drags do not mix well (You can ask Frank)! Otherwise we are doing well! For those who have not heard yet, SD joined us last Thursday, Oct 2 at 7:43 p.m. Weighing in at 7lbs even and 20 ins. My water apparently broke at 5:30 p.m. and the hard contractions started very soon afterwards. Frank was working to 6 that night so I called him at 5:59 to see where he was. We had actually planned to go out that night since my mom was in town. I told him I think we have a change of plans and that he should get home as fast as he can. By the time he pulled up at 6:05 the contractions were pretty intense. He changed and we ran out the door. My friend Kathe was a lifesaver and showed up to take the kids. Mom (major lifesaver!) finished making them dinner and then came to the hospital too. We got to the hospital in about 20 minutes, though it was one of the longest rides of my life. Then SD arrived about 1 hour and 13 minutes later. The nurses said they were excited to see a mom arrive that was really in hard labor. Yah I was a wimp and had the drugs anyway. I really enjoy the experience much more that way. He is healthy and besides being a little piggy is happy. So here are some pics. I tried to get them in a slide show but have yet to figure out how to set one up. I would add more but the piggy is squealing!

Proud bro and big sis

Check out the hair!

Am I really that funny looking?

While the kids are away the parents will play!

A short history of our buying vehicles- we bought our Saturn new on RD's b-day about 9 years ago, then we traded that in for our Venture van four years ago just two days after RD's b-day! So we thought we would continue the tradition only do it on TEM's b-day! Happy birthday TEM! We got ourselves a new van. We went to the Toyota dealership on Thursday. We acually went "just to window shop". The only van that fit our criteria was a new trade in that they were still doing normal maintenance on, so we were not able to drive it. So we came home last night and did some research on the internet. We found the blue book value of the 2005 Honda Odessy with 39,000 miles at the dealership to be $23,900, just what the dealer said they were asking for. All the comments from other Honda owners were very positive. Then we looked up our 2003 Chevy Venture for the trade in value. It was listed to be between $4200-$5600. We found the comments to be most interesting. Many people that have or had a Venture from 2001-2003 were very dissatisfied. Their main reasons were the repairs they had to make including the head gasket, manifold, electrical and transmission problems! All of these things we are currently having trouble with or see it in the future. So we came to the conclusion that we should buy a new van and soon while we could still get a decent trade in. We went back to the dealership today with a specific price ($15,000, Ha HA) and monthly car payment we wanted. We totally did not think we would get it. It took us a little over 5 hours to get $5000 knocked of the price and for them to give us $4477 for our trade in! This took the price to $14400! We did opt to buy an extended warrenty because this van is loaded with electrical toys, and we had to put our sales tax into the loan so that brought the loan up to $17,000. We said "no" to their offers at least 5 times and we were actually in our old van leaving the parking lot to go home when the dealer ran out to us and said they would give us what we wanted! But all in all we think we got a pretty good deal.

The milage was a little more than I like to buy on a vehicle,but it has electric everything, a sun roof, DVD player, 6 disc CD player, navigation system that talks to us, a back up camera, dual sliding side doors, climate control AC, and leather seats with warmers. It has air bags all over the place, stow-in-go seats (fold up to be level with the floor), and an optional 8th seat. I would never had bought this vehicle if I did not get the price we got. We are actually paying about $2000 less for this van than we did for our Venture! I can only pray that this van lives up to the Honda reputation! I'm really not excited about having a car payment again but I know I won't be paying for major repairs for at least 60,000 miles!

Trying out the new toy!

Hey we finally got a new digital camera! We had a great opportunity today to use it. JD being part of the cub scouts we were able to participate in the Memorial Day Good Turn day at Jefferson Barracks Memorial Cemetery. The scouts in the area spent a few hours putting a flag on every grave to honor the veterans to observe Memorial day. We didn't actually stay for the whole ceremony but we made sure to put flags on grandpa McC's and uncle BAD's father's graves. The kids seem to enjoy it although they didn't quite get the purpose. JD put the flag on grandpa's, ID put the flowers we had brought, and AD put the flag on BAD's dad (with the help of her foot!). After I had explained that the people were buried in the graves under our feet, I was telling the kids a bit about grandpa McC serving in the navy during WWII on a carrier fighting the Japanese. Then I explained how he had many tractors and dump trucks all the time to run his excavating business. ID was very interested in the tractors. He asked if he had a tractor for moving hay and I said he mostly had tractors that moved the earth around. He was slightly disappointed in this. He was sitting on the ground right next to the grave for this conversation. He then bent down as if talking to grandpa and said "You really should have a tractor for doing hay!"

I do feel a little morbid taking pictures at a cemetery, but it is good proof that we actually did it!