Happy Samhain!! Happy Halloween! Samhain is about taking the time to remember and honor your loved ones that have died. I have several loved ones that have died and they are all truly missed and are still very much loved.

For Halloween we invited 2 of Morgan's friends over to join us in trick-or-treating and to sleepover. We picked up the girls about 1:30pm and they had lots of time to play & be silly. After pizza for dinner we got everyone in costumes and headed out for our t-o-t'ing. We had some rain earlier and the weather started cooling down...it resulted in some serious misty fog! Absolutely perfect for Halloween. LOL! The kids all made out like bandits in the candy department and we had plenty of fun. We were out for a couple of hours. After getting home we checked all the candy and let them indulge themselves a bit after their hard work. OOh and we found out that we get a lot of t-o-t'ers in this neighborhood!

Alex fell asleep on the couch while trying to stay up and the girls giggled their way to bed. They are all sleeping on sleeping bags in the dormer of Morgan's room. They giggled for about another 30 mins after lights out but finally crashed. Good thing as the 3 of them have musical theatre in the morning.

I'm worn out and am going to enjoy a few chocolate treats before I go to bed. Hope everyone had a blessed night. And here's a little love for Grandpa (aka PopPop to my kids), Grandma Agnes and Grandpa Joe, Uncle Ed, Heidi (my childhood best friend) and Bonnie (her mom). Happy Samhain.

Extra hour?? No, not at the Larabie house. LOL! Our morning children don't understand that concept yet. Corey and I didn't stay up too late and only changed our bedroom clock before going to bed. So, the kids get up this morning at their "usual" time and decide to come wake us up, because they are hungry, at 8:30am. Well, of course, that is really 7:30am now. After I'm up I tell Morgan that we didn't change all the clocks in the house so she needs to subtract an hour when looking at them until we get them changed. Her eyes got VERY big and she says "When I got on the computer this morning it said 6:28 so it was really FIVE 28??" LOL! I reassured her that it was 6:28 because the computer will automatically update the time. She was relieved.

Yesterday was Alex's last soccer game of the season. They played great and he scored his first goal!! What a great season...in 8 weeks he went from being afraid and refusing to go out on the field at all to scoring his first goal. :-) My baby is growing up! He was soooo proud of himself. My mom got to come to this game so he had extra family around to be proud of him & cheer him on. We gave his coach a photo album of pictures I took during the season. All the boys got trophies (Alex's first trophy!) and goodie bags from the coach. He says he wants to sign up for the spring season.

Morgan attended a Princess party at the library and had great fun. She dressed up (not as a princess...just in a skirt/top) and we dropped her off before going to the soccer game. Of course both events had to be at the same time. LOL! She got to have tea & cookies, make a magic wand, play some games, etc.

After all of this we did some baking...pumpkin bread (Bobby Flay's recipe) - double batch and a regular batch of oatmeal cookies (for my brother). Then we had dinner, spinach & cheese quiche. My mom wasn't thrilled as spinach isn't her favorite but she survived. LOL!

Later today we are heading over to my mom's house for a family Halloween get together. I'm making Witches Fingers to take over. My brother & his girlfriend are coming over too.

Hope you've had a good weekend! We are.

Saturday morning we had Alex's soccer game at 10:30am. It was rather chilly! He wore black sweatpants and a burgundy long sleeve shirt under his soccer uniform (black & burgundy). He could have used ear covers..his poor ears were so cold after playing. They did great and next week is their last game of the season. We talked to the coach and they won't be having a party (she wanted to) because it is Halloween weekend & so many of us have previous plans. So they will get their trophies & such after the game. I am working on a small soccer photo album to give to his coach. I've been taking pictures at each game so I have at least 1-2 of each boy plus "group" shots during the play of the game. I think we might bring a little something for each boy too.

After the game we played a new card game that we've discovered. It is Phase10 and is very similar to a card game with played with my dad, stepmom & stepsiblings a long time ago...called Frustration. For Frustration we just used 2 decks of playing cards and had a handwritten list of hands that you had to make to work through the game. This was a really cool find for me as it brings back some nice childhood/teen years memories.

My mom came over after she got off work and we made cupcakes & let the kids decorate them with Halloween stencils. We also made a gingerbread Halloween house. Oh my goodness those things are NOT easy!! LOL! Trying to teach my mom had to use a pastry bag for the frosting was a challenge in itself too. ;-) She never did hold it right so I had to give up with my instructions. We made a huge mess, had fun and laughed a LOT! And hey, that's the important part. Our house won't win any awards but we had some fun family time. And I have decided that I am never doing another one...will have to find some other family fun.

Here is a picture of our Halloween gingerbread house.

This is a picture of the side...that is Morgan's frosting rendition of Frankenstein's face on the roof.

After the kids were in bed, Corey and I watched Memoirs of a Geisha. Good movie.

Today it is chilly and we've just been hanging out. The kids playing, performing songs for us, and watching football. I need to hem 7 pairs of pants for Morgan....ack! LOL! Don't want the child to freeze now that the weather has turned. I also need to start the ice sprite costumes for the musical. :-)

HACKERS!!
Ugh! What fun. The server that our site is on was hacked by some delightful, intelligent, productive dipsh*ts from Turkey. It is lovely to see that some people have absolutely nothing better to do with their time, energy or BRAINS then to mess with other people's stuff. Seriously, what sense of satisfaction do you get from hacking into a server that is mainly personal web pages. You aren't "messing with Corporate America" or "big business" or "making a stand for the little guy".

Anyway, thanks to Ted and the hosting company..and I think Corey helped too...we are all back up and running. So a big THANK YOU to Ted, hosting company & Corey. :-)

And a big *ppbbbbblllltttt* to the dingbats that did this in the first place...get a life & leave our's alone. :-)

All is going well here. We had 2 warm days and I think those days are done for the year. Woo hoo! We are back in the cool, AUTUMN weather days...highs in the low 60's and lows in the low 40's/upper 30's...and just LOVING IT! If anyone wants to escape the heat just give us a holler and you can come visit.

Morgan's musical theatre class is almost ready for their performance (mid-November) and we are starting on costumes and hand props. I'm sewing the costumes from an idea I had so wish us luck! LOL! We found a kit to make icicle ornaments (from beads) and are creating various icicle and ice "weapons" that Morgan and her fellow ice sprites need. I'll take pictures when I've finished.

We had friends over yesterday that we met through the hs'ing park day and musical theatre class. Morgan, Autumn and Tayler are all close in age (just turned 8, 8 almost 9 and 9 almost 10). They are so funny together...get along fabulously. Poor Alex is definitely the odd man out though. He really wants to join in all the fun but gets upset that they don't want to do what he wants to do and we get a lot of fussing from him. There are boys his age at park day so we'll have to figure out a boy play date.

We had a little worry with our bunny, Parker a few days ago. He stopped eating anything (even his favorite yogurt drops) and wasn't moving around much. He didn't kick & fuss when I picked him up either. Thankfully he was drinking & going to the bathroom so we watched him for a day or so....within 1 1/2 days he was back to eating little bits & moving around. By the following day he is eating & acting normally. We are thinking he just had a tummyache or something along those lines.

Tonight we had family night at my mom's house. My brother and 3 of his doggies were there as well. We had yummy chinese for dinner (got several dishes & all shared) and then fresh fruit and fruit dip for dessert while we played games. First we played Group Photo and then Phase10. The kids did really good tonight even being up late. Morgan had a mild allergic reaction because she pet the dogs and then rubbed her left eye. Next thing we know she's rubbing it like crazy, it is all red and she had some hives on her left cheek. So Benedryl time! She still managed to stay up late & play cards...although she got loopy for a little while. LOL!

So that's about it here for now. We will be starting some holiday baking this weekend and putting together a Halloween gingerbread house but all after Alex's soccer game. His game is at 10:30am and it is going to be CHILLY! This is their 2nd to the last game of the fall soccer season.

Yea, I've uploaded pictures from the camera, resized them for the web and actually got them up on the web. Woo hoo...go Kelly!! I know, I can hear the gasps of shock. If you will check out the photo album pages linked on the right side you will see what I've put up. Pictures of the kids in September, Alex's soccer, and Morgan's birthday celebrations. I also *had* to make a page for my mother's OVER THE TOP fish bathroom! Enjoy the pics!

The birthday tea party went great. One person (the little girl down the street) couldn't attend afterall but everyone else came. Morgan missed her friend but had a wonderful time and enjoyed being the only child and the center of attention. What princess wouldn't? She received a lot of goodies, had a wonderful lunch and got to walk around downtown Franklin with one of her favorite people, Kristin. She is the friend that took care of Morgan in Ft. Lauderdale when we went over to take care of my mom when she had her knees replaced. Morgan and Kristin have been fast friends since then. She moved up to TN a few weeks before we did and she was with my mom when they found our house. LOL! When we got home she had a package waiting from Scotland and it was the gift that Grandpa Paul & Grandma Patsy had sent for her. It is a bear in a Scottish tartan...I believe our family tartan. It is gorgeous. So it was a great day.

Alex had a soccer game this afternoon so he had a "day with Daddy". A couple of boys on his team were away on vacation so the 4 of them there today got a lot of playing time. Alex tells me he "did great but hasn't scored a goal yet". LOL! He then spent the rest of the afternoon playing with Corey and some of the kids in the neighborhood.

In other news, Morgan lost her 10th tooth and first molar this morning while having a toasted bagel for breakfast. Poor girl almost ate it! LOL! So now there is a big gap on the lower left side of her mouth where the eye tooth & molar are missing. She lost the eye tooth less than 2 weeks ago.

Our temps are back to being delicious so we are enjoying the heck out of it. I'll take as much of it as Mother Nature wants to give us. We saw some nice colored leaves today so I'm hoping to go for a nice drive tomorrow to see what we can see.

HAPPY 8TH BIRTHDAY MORGAN!!
Oh my goodness, today our precious girl is 8 years old! I honestly don't know where the time has gone or how she got this big already. Just last night I was looking at a picture that was taken when she was 8 weeks old and thinking "Oh my gosh, this was yesterday I swear!!" She has her moments but all-in-all she's been a joy. I look forward to the years ahead and watching her grow and mature in a young lady. She tries so hard already that I know it won't be long. Yesterday we took cupcakes to our hs'ing park day to share with the other kids & parents. This morning she opened her gifts from Mom, Dad and Alex. On Saturday she is celebrating with a big girl tea party at Lillie Belle's of Franklin , a local tea house. Celebrating with her will be Kelly, GC (Kelly's Mom), Great Aunt Ilene (Kelly's Aunt), Aunt Tish (Michael's girlfriend), Kat (a friend of the family), and Lake (Morgan's friend). She is very excited about the whole thing.

Alex has a soccer game on Saturday so he and Corey will be doing that while the girls do the girly thing. LOL!

In other news, I have finished putting the 2nd coat of paint on the master bathroom and it definitely looks better. Yea me! Now to start on the master bedroom. LOL! Corey has new projects at work that are keeping him nice & busy there. Alex is doing great with soccer and is having so much fun. Morgan is loving her 3 dance classes and the dance studio. She's very involved with the HP Club and really likes the advisor. They have a lot of projects available to them and Morgan just enjoys all of it.

We had some purely delicious early autumn weather the past couple of weeks. We turned off the a/c and opened all the windows...the temps dropped in the 40's at night and we pulled out the blankets. But then it went back up and we've had upper 80's for several days. The temps are supposed to start dropping today and we are hoping they stay that way! LOL! We want the windows open again!