Please, just GO TO BED ALREADY!

The guy and I started putting the kiddies to bed tonight around 8:30. I say "we", really it was just the Guy because I had to run over to my mom's for a minute. We always put the 2 C's to bed first, because they usually fall asleep pretty fast. When I got home from my mom's house, the two little boys were sitting on the Guy's lap watching Donald Duck, or as S says, Dongle Duck. By now, it's about 9:00 and time for S to go to bed. I take him in the bathroom to brush his teeth, he throws a fit because I won't let him use the mouth wash the older boys use. He then smacks his mouth on the counter which causes his lip to bleed. He then has a case of the jelly legs and won't stand up to brush his teeth. I then, take him to bed, while he is screaming and kicking his little legs. He then screams and cries because he wants to brush his teeth. This goes on for about 5 minutes, then mom gets mad and takes him to the front room to have a seat on the naughty mat for a while. When he is finally finished with his fit, we brush his teeth, and I take him to bed for the first of many, many, many times tonight. I say goodnight, kiss his noggin, tell him to stay on his bed, then I leave. About 2 seconds after I shut the door, I can hear S getting out of bed. I take him back to bed and repeat the above steps. S then gets out of bed again. The Guy takes a few turns at putting him back in his bed. I take a few more turns. I think we took the little man back to bed at least 15 times tonight.
I unload and load the dishwasher while the Guy is doing some other things, both of us thinking that S is finally asleep. At about 10:45, I walk down the hall to check on him, his door is open, he is not in his room, where could the little darlin' be? He is in our bathroom, sitting on the floor, leafing through a toy catalog from the Super Target. I was really ticked and just grabbed him and took him back to his bed, but now I sure wish I had taken a picture of him sitting there.

9:00-11:15, maybe tomorrow night it will only take 2 hours to get him to sleep. How could anyone be mad at that face? Come over tomorrow night and you can see for yourself.

So, I have become a little paranoid

Last week on the news was a report about blogging and all the ways people are using pictures or information about your family in ways they shouldn't. So, now of course, I'm worried about any information I have on my blog being used in a way I wouldn't really want it to be used. So, I went through and made some changes to information about me, The Guy and our boys. If that is really disappointing to anyone, I'm so very sorry. Feel free to post a comment with your email address and I'll get back to you. (not)

Carving Pumpkins

So, last year after Halloween, I was at The Walmarts looking through the Halloween clearance section. For 50 cents, I bought one of those books with all the special pumpkin carving tools and the very detailed patterns that turn a fun night of pumpkin carving in to a highly complicated, 5 to 10 hour project. C-1 picked out a pattern of a skeleton that had about 153 very small teeth. The Guy spent quite some time cutting the teeth out of the pattern with an exacto knife so C-1 could transfer it to his pumpkin. Despite The Guys best efforts at negative reinforcement, C-1 did a great job with his carving and his pumpkin looked fabulous. C-2 found a pattern for a pirate ship complete with a teeny tiny skull and cross-bones. I spent 20 minutes cutting all the small details out of the pattern with the knife, then C-2 patiently watched as I, not C-2, carved his pumpkin for him. I must say, C-2's pumpkin looked great when I finished and C-2 was very excited with it, and invited everyone in the house to look at it, over and over again. The Guy helped S carve a cute and simple pumpkin with a regular ol' face on it. Then after the kids went to bed, The Guy carved a "Jack" o lantern for baby J. (He carved J's name in to a pumpkin).
In years past, we usually finish carving about 5 minutes before trick or treaters arrive on Halloween night, but we were really on the ball this year and did our carving the night before. I guess that is why The Guy didn't take his usual 200 photos of the pumpkins sitting on the front porch. I must admit, however, that I am disappointed that we didn't get any pictures of them this year.
The boys all had fun carving and they all even stuck their hands in their pumpkins to scrape out all the guts. That was a first so we are just so proud. Oh, how I miss the days of triangle eyes, round nose, and a big, smiley mouth with hillbilly teeth.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween... Here are some VERY cute boys, ready for trick-or-treat(ing). C-1 came up with his costume all by himself. He was a guy who had been struck by lightning. I was proud of him for coming up with it on his own. We sent away for a novelty lightbulb that would light up in his hand. It was a pretty good effect. C-2 was Batman. S was a pirate. J was a bee.

I feel we were more prepared than ever this year. We actually carved the pumpkins the night before so all we had to do tonight was eat dinner and go outside.