The Bunch Celebrate Halloween and T Gets His Braces Off

 

My body outline was a gingerbread man!

We celebrated our Halloween on the 30th this year since Halloween fell on a Sunday and we were crazy busy with Church that day. The kids are too old to trick or treat anymore, but they still enjoy dressing up for a halloween calendar picture. This year we have been watching Brooklyn 99 (most of the episodes are family friendly, but not all so they don't watch every episode). They decided to dress up as detectives Jake, Rosa, and Amy from the show. They also like to have a halloween themed movie day. It is a tradition to watch Hocus Pocus every year and in the days leading up to halloween ,we watch halloween episodes of our favorite shows.  I usually make some of their favorite foods and we just take a day to relax and enjoy our time together. We do spend a lot of time together everyday, but holidays are very relaxed. There are no chores, school, or extra responsibilities. We just live in the moment and enjoy it. I often wonder if when the kids all leave if D and I will still watch Hocus Pocus and celebrate halloween like we do now. I mean we have been doing it every year for over 20 years. It might just feel too weird to NOT do it!

The detectives.

We had fun with it.

T makes the photos have personality.

Not sure what they were doing, but A found it funny.

Detective Rosa and Amy

L looks like me now with dark hair. Hers is a wig though.

L found out the results from her solo tryout at church and, unfortunately, she did not get the solo this time. I am just super happy she even tried. She seems so confident and outgoing, but in reality she is terrified of speaking in group settings.  I hope she tries out again in the spring. She stills really enjoys being in the choir with her friends. She sang with the student choir on halloween and she had to be there for both services which meant D and I had to get up extra early and feed the animals in the dark, which is never fun and be ready to leave the house by 7:15 am to have her there by 8 am. L set an alarm to be up at 5:45 am so she would have time to get ready! The cameramen in the first service showed L about 5 times on the tv.  It was basically the L show. I think it was because she was the only one who looked somewhat awake! The cameraman from the second service only showed her once. She was excited because at rehearsals on a day they sing in worship they have a pizza party during rehearsals that evening. 

She is the only one who looks happy to be there!

After almost a year and a half of wearing braces, T got them off this week. He was so excited! He plans to eat everything he had to avoid for the past year and a half. He has his first basketball game this weekend and is super happy he doesn't have his braces on. All his games are kind of far, but this weekend's tournament is south of Dallas and I am really NOT looking forward to that since we will probably be sitting in rush hour the whole way back and we have two days we have to be there in a row. I am not sure how they will do.  T and another boy are the most dominant players and I am curious how they will look against other teams. I really hope some of the other teams have bigger players otherwise T is going to look like a 16 year old masquerading as a 12 U player! The new boy on their team is even taller than T, but unfortunately isn't as strong of player.  I am happy that T isn't the only freakishly tall boy on the team anymore. 

Look at that several thousand dollar smile!

A is basically done with her college classes. She worked so hard at the beginning of the semester that now she is pretty much done and just waiting for the professors to open the final test, which they won't do until Dec 3. She has one 2 hour credit class that apparently thinks it is a 4 hour credit class and it has been ridiculously hard. It has twice as much work easily than any of her other classes. It frustrates me to no end because it's only a two credit hour class! The tests are super hard for A and she struggles with some of the questions. She says her goal is just to pass that class, but I know her. She wants to get a high grade. I just hope this professor doesn't teach another class. She is crazy!

Since we moved here over 5 years ago, we have had several "deck" bunnies. The rabbits live under the deck and have cute little babies and repeat. They also live out under the shed, in the garden, in the horse pen, under the trailers, and pretty much anywhere else they want to. Maisy has killed her fair share of rabbits, both young and old. She is sadly a very good hunter. She can snap their necks with great precision. D says if we had to we could still eat the meat because she does it so well. I never plan on doing that! The deck bunnies frequently mingle with our chickens and they share pellets and scratch. In fact, if we let the chickens out in the backyard the deck bunnies will come out too since they know if the chickens are out that it is safe. One morning this week when A went out to clean the chickens and let them out she was very surprised to find a deck bunny in the nesting boxes! The girls must have gone out later than normal to lock the chickens up and I assume deck bunny was inside eating pellets and was locked up too! We are not sure if went into the boxes and slept with the chickens or just went up after the chickens came down in the morning, but it was quite the surprise. The poor thing looked terrified! I doubt it will enter the coop again anytime soon!

We really want to know if this is where it slept all night.

Poor baby. Mom was probably worried!

Yes, Christmas is in full swing at all the stores!