I've Got Lots Coming Up

In less than 2 weeks it's Halloween.  That day is getting to be more and more of a chore.  As my kids get older and more set in what they want to dress up as... gone are the days of picking out something cheap and cute with them oblivious to what is going on... hello to the days of "I wanna be a WW2 soldier, I wanna be a ninja and Can I be an indian?"  Thankfully I have a friend that does great costuming for her kids and so far we've been able to take advantage of her last year selections.  Halloween is fun, but it can also be pricey.

Especially for us, when we have two kid birthdays within that same week.  I still don't know exactly what I want to do for these boys for their day.  Avery's birthday is the day after Halloween which is kinda a bummer... just because they are already coming off of a sugar high from the night before, adding cake and ice cream and excitement to the mix the very next day can have sobering effects.

But with Avery, he is so easy to please all I would have to do is bake him a lovely cake and let him dive in and that would be birthday enough - the boy loves sweets.

Isaiah turns 9 on the 5th of November.  NINE people.  He's halfway to adulthood or at least legal age.  That's terrifying.  Let's talk about something else.

A week following Isaiah's birthday my folks have planned a two week trip to Florida and want to take Isaiah and Huston with them.  Two weeks away from home.  I think I can do it.  I know that they can do it.  I tend to miss them more than they miss me.  The thing is, Steven and I had kinda planned a little trip down to Branson the weekend that they are heading out - we got season passes to Silver Dollar City this year and we were going to attempt to take the kids down to see the Christmas lights (they start in November).  We've heard they're quite grand.  Anyway that plan has turned into plan B.

Plan B is this.  The more Steven and I talked it over the more we thought it would be a better choice for the kids to go to Florida - a great experience with their grandparents, they'd get a chance to meet and see relatives that we don't get to visit with very often - many of them are cousins their age.  The more we talked about it, the more we thought taking just Lillie and Avery to Branson would be kind of a waste.  Yes, they would like it, but Lillie for sure wouldn't remember being there.  So plan B involves Steven's mom coming to live at our house for a few days to watch Avery, Lillie and all the critters so Steven and I can go on a trip BY OUR SELVES.  In all the 9 years of parenting we have yet to go on a solo trip.  We won't know what to do with ourselves.  I'm sure we will love it, and maybe it will spur Steven into taking me to bigger and better places every year.  Either that or I'll miss the kids so terribly that I won't care to go anywhere without them for a long time.  Yeah, I'm laughing about that one too. ;)