friendly ladybugs...I think not

This is what happens when you play with a "ladybug" (those orange ladybugs that are nasty) all morning and then rub your eyes before you go to your sisters' Halloween parade at school. It does nasty, nasty things to you if you have allergies. Needless to say, we made him keep his mask down all night so as to not really, really scare anyone. (Oh, and they are much, much better now.)

Happy Birthday Nathan

I can't even begin to describe the elation I am feeling right now! I got a picture to upload on my blog. I finally gave up on my computer. I'm on Joe's while he is out being the mighty hunter (he and his dad have already shot (is that what you use to describe the arrow hitting the deer?) two bucks. The poor things--they were confused and thought they were getting ready to battle another buck for a doe. Little did they know the lust for the doe would be their last moments on earth.

Anyway, last week my baby turned 3. I can't believe it and it was a more bittersweet day then I anticipated. I'll have to blog about that later because it doesn't involve pictures. Here's some more pics of his special day:

Notice the camo on the gunThank you Uncle Chris & Aunt Kim and Luke, Hannah & Drew!

Saturday's question

We got in a discussion in the car last night and now I pose the question to you:

Do you wash your ears every time you take a shower?

Halloween

It's Halloween and you know what that means......popcorn balls!!! No? Not what immediately came to your mind? Popcorn balls are a Snow family tradition. I mentioned this to Joe several years back and he said "Oh, you were one of those houses." So to put everyone's mind at peace, I will assure you that we are not passing out popcorn balls tonight. We've got the good stuff. Anyway, because I used to have them as a kid everytime Halloween rolls around I get a hankering for a popcorn ball. I was pumped this morning because I found an easy recipe for them and didn't have to dig out my candy thermometer. They are very yummy, but, of course, this is just one mom's opinion. Since I have four kids, I get to have four more opinions concerning any food I make. I'll start with the youngest because in some since he doesn't really count when it comes to food tasting. This is because he is the "Mikey" of our family. You know the kid in the commercial from the '80s "Have Mikey try it....". Nathan will eat anything and the popcorn balls proved no exception to that rule. John ate them without any comment, but he hadn't really had much to eat earlier in the day because he didn't like his breakfast eggs so he was fairly hungry. When school was out, the true test came. Ashley examined it and proceeded with her 20 questions, "What is it? How did you make it? What is in it? Will I like it?...." Her conclusion..."It's kind of sticky mom." This is the girl who will dig up worms in the dirt, so not a real great sign. Good manners, but not real hopeful that she liked it. Sara was next. She immediately dug in. I questioned her and her response was..."Well, I kind of like it. It isn't too bad."

Then about five minutes later she emerged from the neighboring room and stated: "You can have the rest of mine mom."
Mom: "Didn't like it, huh?"
Sara:"No, not really"
My response "Well, you know what that means."
With the roll of her eyes "More for you mom."
Me: "Yes! That's right!" And I honestly have no idea how many popcorn balls I've consumed today.

It's official--I'm SUPERMOM!

My kids along with the two girls that I babysit headed straight downstairs after school while I worked on the after school snack. I usually have it all ready to go for when we arrive home, but, alas, it just wasn't to be today. Anyway, we don't have many rules when it comes to playing in the basement. It's the official playroom of the house. Stay off the elliptical machine and don't turn the lights on and off. That's pretty much it. Well, with Halloween and all the light thing has been a great temptation for them. I noticed a troublesome hush soon after they had clamored down the stairs so I took a gander and noticed that all the lights were off. So I used my mom voice and told them to turn them back on. Now the stair lights and the family room lights are on a different switch. I noticed both lights went back on, but my gut told me to stay put so I did. About 10 seconds later, they both went off again. In my little bit meaner mom voice I once again told them to turn them back on and they all went back on. Still not convinced that they had seen the way out of the temptation, I stayed planted at the top of the stairs. About another 10 seconds later, the stair light stayed on, but the family room light switched off. This time I made it very clear that all lights need to stay on permanently or .... Then I heard this proclamation (in a loud whisper) from my eldest and, I think, very wise daughter "Turn them on! She knows everything and can see everything! She can even see through walls!" Yeah, I have superhero powers...

my excuse this week

I really need to start exercising again. So I scanned over my scheduled and determined that I needed to eliminate the afternoon nap. Yikes--I love my afternoon nap, but that is the best time if I don't want to keep jumping on and off my elliptical refereeing, or, um, training my boys. So I stated my committment to my husband thinking he would be excited and could provide some accountability. He responded with some great hesitancy. It wasn't that he didn't want me to exercise. No, I think his exact quote was "um, well, you get kind of grumpy when you're tired". I have to admit he's right and kind of grumpy doesn't really describe it. I've always required more sleep then the general human. I can take a two hour nap in the afternoon, go to bed that night at 9:30 and sleep until at least 5am. So we decided to compromise. I would "rest" for around 30 minutes and then hop on the elliptical until I had to get the girls at school. It worked great on Monday. And then the massive snore- and cough- athon began at 4am on Tuesday morning and has occurred every morning since. Family colds do a horrible thing to a mom--they wake her up and then she can't go back to sleep and then she can't exercise the next afternoon because she has to take a nap. At least that's my excuse this week....

my love/hate relationship

I find my emotions towards my computer rather interesting. It is hard to find something to compare it to when you get something to work for the first time on a computer. I mean it feels reall, really good. However, an hour later you can be seriously considering throwing this very, very expensive piece of equipment across the room. The latter is how I felt yesterday. I cannot get blogger to accept any pictures. I've tried to download them from my computer and I've tried putting them on photobucket and linking it. I'm convinced my computer hates me. And I certainly do not love it right now.

Good News!

While I was looking for Ashley's hat and gloves I found Sara's lost kindergarten pictures and Ashley's girl scout bag that we thought was forever lost. (I was pretty sure I had thrown it away in one of my closet purge fests...) Now if we could just find Ashley's hat and gloves....

My blog list (is it really a list if there is only one???)

The hubster is bringing pizza home for supper so in his honor I started my own blog list on the right side. He's been requesting to be listed for awhile now. I figure it is the least I could do since he is feeding us tonight. This turned out to be slightly more complicated then I realized. First of all, he has consistently called it a "blog roll". There is no such thing in my list of "blogger gadgets". So after first being confused (and distracted--kids can be that way sometimes), I figured the "blog list" must be the same thing. Once I got Joe's blog listed (the Bullhorn), I got into it and began adding some other blogs. Now it is down right embarrassing to say how many blogs I read on occasion. When I started adding them I realized that you really don't want to see all of them. So I would need to be selective. Once I realized this I began to feel the same awkwardness that I felt when I had to choose bridesmaids for my wedding. You know the feeling..."well, if I ask her then I will have to ask her and if I ask her then I will need to include her, etc" Before you know it you can see why some women end up with 15 or more bridesmaids. So I decided to do what I did with my wedding--stick with family. Then I realized that half my family's blogs are private so I couldn't exactly advertise them. And so that is how we ended up with just Joe's blog listed on my blog list--enjoy!