Happy Halloween

So it's kind of annoying that blogger is uploading my pictures in the reverse order that I want them to be...I don't have the energy to move them around so here they are backwards...
We went to the potluck lunch at my work today and mostly my kids just ran around making a mess of things. Lucas was pushing all the buttons he could on the printer (which you can't see) in this picture.

My boss taught Grace how to sign "Peace".

Here are the kids in the garden after coming back from trick-or-treating at Nana's work. Luke was in the shot when I snapped the picture but ended up not in it once the camera actually took it. You can see his hands behind Grace. Then my batteries died so I just dragged the kids indoors before anymore of my flowers were stomped on.

Here were the pictures of them right when they were dressed this morning as I didn't know how long they would really last in costume today. They've done pretty good. All that's left to make it through is the trunk or treat tonight and maybe some light trick or treating to a few favorite neighbors with Daddy.

trash digger, toilet splasher

No trash can nor toilet is safe in this house from one Lucas J. Corser. Thank goodness he's been vaccinated for Rotovirus or I'm sure we would have had a serious case of it by now. Grace got bored with this game much faster than he has. I can't leave him alone in any room!

pumpkins: fieldtrip and carving

Gracie's preschool class had another field trip last week. They went to the grocery store and each bought a pumpkin and then the went to this garden center and saw all the pumpkins they had there along with all kinds of witches, ghosts, monsters, etc. I didn't get very many pictures of the trip because it was really cold that morning and there were so many things for Luke to grab, I didn't have much time to snap pictures.

I don't know what Lucas was doing here but he was being really funny.

I'm just noticing that blogger is uploading my pictures in reverse order... Anyway, here are our pumpkins that we carved at home. The unlit one on the left is Grace's from school that she colored.

That witch hat didn't make it past the next day. Grace loved it so much that she kept playing with it until it was shredded.

Everybody wanted to help pull out the guts. This was obviously our first pumpkin as I was still willing to smile about all the help I was getting.

tag tag

I was tagged twice this week but I am only going to do one of them...I've done the 6 random things previously and since I probably won't get to both tags, I'm just doing one. It's the 8 tag thingy. Here goes:
8 TV shows I like
* Pushing Daisies
* The Office
* Psych
* Chuck
* Samantha Who?
* Monk
* Eli Stone
* Remington Steele

8 Favorite Restaurants
* East Coast Subs
* Olive Garden
* Red Robin
* Red Lobster (especially during endless shrimp!)
* Chili's
* Noodles & Co.
* Mediterranean Deli
* Mimi's Cafe

8 Things That Happened Yesterday
* Thought about working out and didn't (again)
* Finally cleaned my living room floor
* YW presidency meeting
* Laundry
* Read a few chapters of Brisingr
* Went to Costco
* Finished my VT
* Did my Title One work

8 Things on my Wish List
* Re-do the interior of our house
* Find a good condition cheap (or FREE) piano
* Get a maid
* Volvo XC90
* Lose 15 lbs.
* Luke to take his nap RIGHT NOW!
* Find a corner cabinet/armoire for my TV so that all the little fingers in my house will stop pushing the buttons!
* Remember my idea for the perfect Christmas gift for Buck

8 Things I'm Looking Forward to
* Grace to be fully potty trained (she is making progress!)
* Thanksgiving Dinner (in particular the pies and the leftover turkey sandwiches)
* Christmas lights
* The first (and only the first) snow of the year
* Spring
* Twilight the movie (we are going to the midnight showing)
* Date night
* Trick-or-Treating with Grace and Lucas

8 People I Tag
* Anyone who hasn't done this on their blog yet.

shout out

I just have to say that I really love my wonderful husband who is patiently waiting for me to stop blogging so that we can start our movie tonight. He watched the kids twice this week while I was gone to some church stuff and both times I came home and the house had been cleaned up. Thursday he had the kids all bathed and in jammies and this afternoon he was finishing the dishes I had been procrastinating for 2 days. I love you Buck!

Newest trick

Isn't the only reason that we have trees is to climb them? Grace thinks so. Although, she will climb anything she can wrap her fingertips and toes around. She is nuts. But she is also so much fun. Tonight she was mad about going to bed so I was singing "Old MacDonald" to her. I always let her pick what he has on his farm for each verse and this is the order they went in: Cow, Katie, Mommy, Sheep, Sheep (at this point the dialogue went..."you just picked a sheep. pick something different." "okay. a different sheep." so old macdonald had a different sheep), Cow ("you already chose a cow. pick something different") Butterfly.

Last night we took the kids on the "Heebie Creepie" as the Heber Creeper Halloween ride is called. It was fun. My sister's kids, of course, sat nicely next to her and on her lap for the duration of the 35 minute ride while ours climbed all over us and Grace kept climbing up to dangle from the metal rack running along the wall above us or pulling the shade down and getting it all jammed up in the window. This picture was taken before we were even moving but all I can think of when I look at it is "Yikes! I have really hairy arms...time to wax!"

Halloween Sneak Peek

Wednesday night we had a very fun Halloween activity (thanks to Stephanie M) with the YW so I used it as an excuse to give the kids' costumes a trial run. I didn't put on all of the accessories but just wanted to see how they were basically going to look and see if I wanted to change anything about them.
Here's my little pirate.

Grace is Tinkerbell this year. I discovered that I'm going to have to safety pin the costume to her because she is prone to remove it.

One of the games was a donut eating contest and I thought this picture was funny because Luke's like, "Um, I could help you with that donut..."

Here's me with a mouthful of donut. I won (well my round anyway...we did it in 2).

This is a classic picture simply because it is so typical of my kids. It was before the donut game started and I'm tying my donut to the pole while Maria is restraining Lucas from grabbing the dangling gems...meanwhile, Makayla is pulling Grace back in from trying to climb out the window. Nice.

Here's Grace playing a game with the girls that was similar to hot potato but you passed a broom around instead.

This was such a fun night. Stephanie comes up with the best games. Steph, you ought to start hiring yourself out as a party planner! You'd make a fortune!

Never a dull moment

Well, tonight was the first (and most likely not the last) time that I had to pull a matchstick out of Grace's nose. I tried to get it myself but found I needed more hands so I ran next door to Julie's to enlist her help. She held Grace's head, one arm and the flashlight while I held the other arm and tweezed it outta there. It was nice and boogery...yuck! She had been "tickling" her nose with it at Grandma's house and I should have been smart enough to take it away when she announced that it was "bwoken" as we were leaving Grandma's. I obviously was not and as a result will be taking her in to the doctor tomorrow to make sure that the other half is not shoved up there further than my eye can see. Won't I know better next time!

Sunday Drivers

Sunday afternoon we decided to go drive the Alpine Loop. It was beautiful! My pictures don't do it justice. The snow in the mountains was awesome although it makes me slightly sad to see it already...I am a HUGE summer fan! Goodbye warm days. This weekend is supposed to be cold and I hope we don't see any snow here! Anyway, I do love that in just a few minutes we can get out of town and be somewhere as beautiful as these mountains were.


Luke does not need any help to cover himself with bumps and bruises. He couldn't walk on these leaves at all.


We had to stop because Grace had gotten car sick and needed a new outfit...lucky I had her jammies in the car since we were planning to spend the rest of the evening at Nana and/or Grandma's house.


This silly stick was covered with these little burrs that were everywhere in this little area that we stopped because the kids and Buck were covered with them when we got back to the car. I'm not sure where the heck they were walking because I had none.

a new hiding place

I can't believe that October is already 1/3 over. There is always so much stuff to be done that time just flies by. High school football season is nearly over (Yay!) so we will be able to see more of our dad around here. I have finished both the kids Halloween costumes early this year. Usually I am scrambling to be done on the 30th. Grace is going to be Tinkerbell and Lucas a pirate. Thanks to my mom and sister Lisa for letting me bounce ideas off of them as to how to design said costumes because they both turned out really cute! Grace's was the most work and therefore, I am the proudest of it. Stay tuned for pictures of the costumes as the day approaches. I think they are going to be so honkin' cute!
I have been pleased to see Grace actually participating in her dance class. There is some hope yet that she might pull off an actual performance in her recital...it is still TBD though what she will actually do on stage!
Her newest game at home is to climb my linen cupboards and snuggle in "Daddy's pants". I make Buck use some of those shelves for his clothes so I can hog the closet ones. She is so funny about it. I was anxious at first about her doing it but she keeps going up and down on her own so I have become lazy and just let her do it because it keeps her out of my hair for a while.