Halloween Mart has a HUGE selection of halloween costumes, and I just found a fun contest over at Two Moms In a Blog for a $100 Gift Certificate to their online store. Head on over and enter! If I win here are a couple I think are really cute…

Or maybe it would be funny to do…

That might actually be kind of funny… Ryan loves mustard and Christian & Dane love Ketchup! Christian loves red too, so Dane would probably have to be the hot dog…. Of course Dane loves yellow so he would want mustard. LOL Good luck in the contest!

Weight Watchers – Matt is joining me in the Weight Watchers program. I am so excited as I think that will really help me stay accountable, and as he gets older I do worry about the amounts and types of foods he eats…. You can read what he thinks about it here: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=172975371 We’re just doing it on our own – not going to the meetings. I’ll let you know how it goes… today went well. I’m hoping maybe this time we can finally stick with it – it was just really hard in summer.

Dane woke up last night with the croopy cough. He is our only kid who has ever really gotten that and he seems to get it at least a couple times per year. I was supposed to go to Bible Study and garage saling with a friend this morning, but I ended up staying home since I wasn’t sure how sick he was. Well, he ended up being active and fine all day… but I still have his humidifier running since it seems to always recur at night. Hopefully that will help him not cough much tonight. I think Matt and I are finally pretty much over our colds. YEA! It’s about time!

So anyway, since I stayed him with Dane this morning my day was all thrown off and I totally forgot to go to school to do computers this afternoon… I picked the kids up afterschool and Christian’s teacher says “We missed you this afternoon…” and I was like… for what? Then she says computers, and I about died – I felt so bad! She said it all worked out, she had another lesson she could teach instead… but still. I told her they should have called me – it only takes me 5 minutes to get there. How embarrassing. I think my schedule just got off since we were home all day. I had even told my friend that I was planning on going garage saling with last night that I had to be back in time to do computers. She stopped by this afternoon after school and found it quite funny that I had forgotten… although she says she did that once too.

Christian got to go to a friend’s house after school, which was great as he is always sad that Ryan gets to do things and he doesn’t. Ryan goes to a birthday party tomorrow morning, so perfect timing that Christian had something special today.

Ryan got his progress report today, it was very good. A+ in Religion, A+ in spelling, B in reading, A in Math and pluses in everything else. I’m good with that! He’s doing great. Christian didn’t get a progress report, but he seems to be doing fairly well as well. Most papers have E (for excellent) on them, except for handwriting which is usually S (for Satisfactory). I have noticed even within the last week that his name is getting better and better. He is able to write it a bit smaller and with more control it seems. He still loves school so that is great! We feel so blessed to have a nice small quality Lutheran private school just 3 miles down the road – we couldn’t ask for anything better.

Dane’s newest thing is play with me, play with me, play with me… He used to be pretty good at entertaining himself, so I’m not sure what happened… but he seems to be taking on the only child characteristics now that the older boys are off at school. Of course we enjoy playing with him, but at some point we have to accomplish something during the day. He’s so cute though and I know these last couple of years at home are going to fly by too fast.

Tomorrow night we get to go to a hayride / appetizer party so that should be lots of fun. The rest of tomorrow is our typical Saturday cleaning day.

Anyway, Matt is downstairs watching a movie and I think I will go get caught up on my recorded T.V. of the week. I have been addicted to the Discovery Health channel lately.

Have a fun weekend!

We are in the Wall Street Journal today for our Menu Planning Services. Here is the link to read the story. http://online.wsj.com/article/cranky_consumer.html

Allright… I totally need a haircut, I don’t think I have had it cut since… UMMM I don’t remember – sometime last spring. I called this morning to make an appointment and my busy stylist doesn’t have any openings until Oct. 10th. Anyway, it is getting long and raggedy. It is about 4-5 inches past my shoulder at the moment and although Matt loves it long I am getting kind of tired of it. Since I have thin hair when it is long it just seems to make it look blah. I don’t think I’m going to color it for awhile because it was getting so thin on top too- (I think I’m going bald in my old age… LOL Maybe I will be shopping for wigs in a few years) so I’m letting the dark and grey shine through for awhile I guess…. Although I do think picture two is pretty cute, but it would probably take some highlights to make it look cute… Anway… Here are some options. Vote for your favorite in the comments section. And remember… vote on what you think would look good on me – not just what you think is cute on the model. LOL

Option 1: (Matt’s & Ryan’s Favorite – I’ve actually had this cut before…)

Option 2: (I don’t know if I could pull this one off or not, but I think it is cute!)

Option 3:

Option 4:

Option 5: (This is on an older lady then myself, but I don’t necessarily think it has to be an older haircut)

And now that I think of it… it is probably good looking at these that my appointment isn’t until the 10th so my bangs have a bit more time to grow out – they are getting there, but they’re not quite as long as option 1 yet.

I had a much better week this week. No major business snafus and actually some productivity was abounding. Next Wednesday we have the Better Business Bureau visiting. I applied for membership so I can put their logo on my websites, but lo and behold, before they can do that they have to visit the company. LOL I informed her we were a home based business and she said – oh yes, we visit many of those – it’s just protocal. LOL Essentially she wants my money so she has to come do her little sales talk I guess. Would be easier if I could just mail in the check, but I guess that is how it goes. So now I can say I have had a personal visit with the Better Business Bureau. I’m not sure if I should be excited about that or not…

Let’s see. Monday was a regular Monday – I had my church Bible Study at night, which is always enjoyable and it was my time to lead so I had to actually remember to show up.

Tuesday nothing major – I think Matt had a meeting at church. I think this is the night we worked in the garden pulling out a lot of the old plants too. Oh, and our very pregnant kitty found a way to break out of the shop and leave to go have her kittens who knows where… so I guess we won’t be socializing this batch.

Wednesday I spent a big portion of the day at school. In the morning the “Creation Museum” was visiting and the parents were invited to join in on the fun. Then it was my week to help with hot lunch, so I stayed for that and got home around 1:45 – just in time to turn around in an hour and a half to go pick them up again. Oh and of course a trip inbetween all that home because Ryan forgot his homework. Matt had another night meeting.

Thursday Christian totally peed his pants at school… I mean he had to go BAD – he was wet from chest to toe and I am informed there was a puddle on the floor as well. This happened at lunch time and I asked him why he didn’t go to the bathroom and he said he was scared his teacher wouldn’t let him go during lunch… His teacher said he is supposed to go right before lunch, but for some reason he doesn’t like to use the bathroom in the hall that they use during that time… He preferes the little bathroom in the classroom. So I’m not sure what is up with that. We tried talking about it but didn’t really come up with anything. Hopefully he won’t do that again. In the evening we had school open house.

Today the kids got out at 12:20. Matt had the novel idea to use the giant extension ladder to cut this huge branch out of the tree to hopefully improve our internet connection… I am extremely thankful for two things… 1.) He thought to tie the top of the ladder to the tree and 2.) I wasn’t holding the ladder for him as I was initially planning on doing. The branch that he was sure would fall the other direction fell directly into his ladder and if it wasn’t tied he would have plummeted 40 feet or whatever it was (high…) to the ground. and… if I was holding the ladder I would have been hit by a huge branch. That was exciting. The ladder is a bit bent, but other then that no harm was done – besides scaring me half to death. Tonight Matt had a wedding rehearsal and then he came home and picked us up to go to the wedding rehearsal dinner. It was a casual cookout at the groom’s parents house – very fun. Tomorrow is the Camoflauge themed wedding at 3:33 p.m. at the park… It’s Matt’s first wedding – should be interesting. It isn’t supposed to be real warm (high of 66), but at least it isn’t supposed to rain. It’s typical midwest fall weather – be next week we are supposed to be back up to mid-high 80’s. It pretty much does this through October before it gets officially cold. I had to actually pull out pants for the boys this week.

I think Sunday we’ll just collapse… except I guess we do have to show up at church in the morning and we do have youth group at night.. well at least the afternoon can be reserved for collapsing. I treasure Sunday afternoon naps. I’m still not quite used to getting up at 6:30 a.m. every day… Although I am doing pretty good at eventually getting out of bed by 7:00 and successfully getting the kids to school on time. Then, I come home and jump in the eliptical machine for an hour while I watch t.v. Lately I have been really into the Discovery Health Channel for some reason. There are some interesting shows on there. Now if I could just get back into a healthier eating routine again I’d be good. I have good intentions, but not enough will power some days.

Dane has been a bit sneaky lately. We keep waking up in the morning and he is in bed with us. We never notice when he climbs in in the middle of the night though. I guess Matt noticed him there last night at 2:00 a.m. so essentially he is sleeping with us half the night… HMMM well at least he isn’t waking us up! And actually… truth being told – I like having him there to cuddle in the morning… but Matt isn’t so fond of his new routine. Apparently he takes up more of his side then mine… I have him trained well. LOL He is also VERY excited about his birthday. Every day, several times a day he asks if it is time for his birthday yet. So cute! He has decided he definitely needs a battery powered car thing… Matt wants to get one with some traction so he can ride around on the dirt track (and the 4 acres once the corn is harvested) just like his brothers do on the 4 wheeler. He is such the typical youngest child – spoiled rotten and incredibly adorable… Matt and I are constantly saying to each other – he is so cute… He’s getting so big though! It feels kind of weird that he is going to be 3 and we don’t have another one already born… (Not that I am planning for one)

Well, I think that is pretty much it for updates at the moment. Have a great weekend!

I just took the the American Accent Quiz and lo and behold… I still have a west accent. I haven’t totally been converted to the midwest yet… HOWEVER… I don’t hear the accent around here anymore like I did when we first moved… You can take the quiz too by using the link at the bottom of my results.

Christian’s teacher sent this home from school the other day and I thought it was so sweet.

WHOSE CHILD IS THIS?
Author Unknown

“Whose child is this?” I asked one day
Seeing a little one out at play
“Mine”, said the parent with a tender smile
“Mine to keep a little while
To bathe his hands and comb his hair
To tell him what he is to wear
To prepare him that he may always be good
And each day do the things he should”

“Whose child is this?” I asked again
As the door opened and someone came in
“Mine”, said the teacher with the same tender smile
“Mine, to keep just for a little while
To teach him how to be gentle and kind
To train and direct his dear little mind
To help him live by every rule
And get the best he can from school”

“Whose child is this?” I ask once more
Just as the little one entered the door
“Ours” said the parent and the teacher as they smiled
And each took the hand of the little child
“Ours to love and train together
Ours this blessed task forever.”

The noblest work that has ever been given,
for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.