Things That Make Me Smile

This is like my ode to Fall.  It's gone by so fast and the leaves are pretty much all over the place but the trees.  It's time to look forward to Winter, folks!

We had a couple of weeks of just beautiful fall weather where the sun is bright, the temperature is just right, the air smells of leaves, the wind is blowing a shower of colorful leaves over the streets...ahhhhhh - love it.  It makes me happy.

I would just walk outside and look down the street and see those trees and it made me happy.  I love how the sun makes the trees so vibrant! 

I went out one day to rake our leaves.  I didn't have leaf blower, perhaps I should get one?  I don't have time to rake every day.  I keep laughing every time I pass a lawn service blowing leaves and then see the lawn the next day be completely covered again!!  Ha! 

Have you ever seen anyone take as many pictures of leaves as I have?  Here's another one...

...and another one...

Life is moving along at home.  Here are some pictures that make me smile, too.

On one of those rare occasions that I wear heels on a night out, I immediately take them off once I'm home because my feet are tired and I need to let my toes spread out from being squished together for so long.  I left them out in the living room to find my baby wearing them around the house the next morning.  So cute!

On a lazy Saturday morning...

Taken on Veteran's day.  Tommy wears a star honoring my grandfather and offers a Mass for him at school.  Another smile on my face...

Just a random idea of mine.  I let all the kids have a water balloon and toss it outside.  These simple treats make for a lot of smiles. 

My little one...

Well, hello there...

We also got through Teach/Parent conferences, some field trips and school projects.

Sometimes, I just have to step back and just remember how blessed I am. 

Cookies! Hot Chocolate!

It was a beautiful Fall Saturday morning and a lot was going on.  My kids were trying to raise money for the Gabriel Project (a charity that helps raise money for pregnant women in need) and we all came up with an idea of selling hot chocolate and cookies outside of our house.  I thought it would be so yummy to be walking in the chilly weather and see hot chocolate and cookies!  Oh yum.  We had done it the night before and to my surprise people are very generous!  My daughter made the poster board sign and I did the rest, the baking, the making of fresh hot chocolate, carrying the table outside and making sure she had change for all her customers. 

So we spent our time outside selling cookies and hot chocolate until it was time for to leave for Coach's football game. 

I don't know what it is about jeans, but I think they make my little boys so handsome!

Now Tommy was very excited about today because he was going to his first sleepover.  Not only was he going to be spending it with one of his best buds, it was going to be a camping trip!  He was so giddy, but I was surprisingly calm considering it was the first time my son has been away from home.  I thought I would be so against sleepovers until the kids were older, but for some reason I felt ok about this one. 

I can't resist whipping out my camera on a beautiful day. 

The kids did some biking/pushing.

Have you ever seen a tricycle ridden like that?  Silly boy!

They were picking for worms, too.  I used to do this to when I was their age.  I rather not touch them nowadays.  Don't worry, Anne was in charge of handling food and drink.

Most often, people think these two are twins when we're out and about.

We ended up winning that football game, Tommy had a great time at his camping trip but came home sick (recovered quickly) and we made out pretty well for the Gabriel Project.  A good weekend overall!

Trick or Treat!

This year, it was just the kids and me.  Joe has a huge game this weekend and Halloween fell on the night he has his long meeting.  The last three years, it's worked out well for us trick-or-treaters having Daddy around.  We missed him! 

This was my bunch this year:

Anne decided not to do a princess costume this year.  She is deviating from her 7 year trend and going for something more traditional - a witch.  There were many she  could choose from and she chose a rather stylish costume, I thought.  She was far from spooky - which I liked.

Tommy and the boys are now into Chuggington Trains.  He wanted to be Wilson.  Not many people out there know what Chuggington is, but they know Thomas the Tank Engine.

Patrick loves alligators, however a lot of people thought he was a dinosaur, a dragon or a crocodile. 

Eddie didn't mind being a hippo, a costume that Patrick wore last year.  People really like this costume.  Following these photos was a animal face-off between hippo and alligator.  Each got tired of fighting each other and decided to eat the cute pig.  Just joking.

Bernadette ended up being a pig since it is the only costume I have she fit into.  I thought the best part of this costume was the tail...I didn't quite capture it very well in any shots that I took.  This is probably the first Halloween she had a clue what was going on.  She really surprised me at how quickly she got the hang of it.  She wasn't shy about knocking on strangers' doors and taking their candy.  She got mad at me if I tried to slow her down in any way.  She had a lot of energy for one who hardly had a nap that day.

My kiddos were so excited to go trick-or-treating.  I like to go when it's dark but we went right before it turned dark, around 6:30 pm.  We covered about three blocks, not even, and they were tired.  They were asking me to go home already.  Their bags weren't even filled all the way and their bags were getting too heavy for them!  I had more energy than they did!  I was following five kids around in the dark by myself.  We headed home.

We carved our pumpkins the night before, right after the Redskin's game. 

I love pumpkin carving.  I'm realizing I enjoy doing it more and more every year.  Thank God Joe was around to help carve this year because I can get a little crazy with perfection.  There were so many cool pumpkins out there.  There is more stuff to try next year.

Anne really enjoys doing them too.  She carved her own pumpkin with no help at all.  Very focused young lady.

Patrick decided to carve an alligator on his.  He had such a cute little pumpkin.

Eddie couldn't get passed the scooping of the goop.  Tommy ended up doing an alligator as well.

We were able to get all pumpkins carved before bedtime!

These were the pumpkins on Halloween night.

My pumpkin on the left (I like friendly faces) and Eddie's on the right.

Anne's pumpkin on the left, Tommy's in the middle and Patrick's on the right.

My little piggy wiggy enjoying her candy after trick-or-treating.  I think I ate about 10 pieces of candy during the day.  Yikes!! 

Hope everyone had a great Halloween...