Goodbye, October!

October was a crazy month! I know it is that way for everybody but it just seemed like we could never get caught up. Of course there were baseball games, football games, birthday parties, Halloween parties, PTO, and I don't even remember what all else. In keeping with my true character as Last Minute Mom, I managed to put everything off until the last minute which only adds to the stress level and the amount of screaming and whining in our house (by the kids and the mother!) On Thursday, the day before Halloween, I had a staff meeting after work, Reilly had ballet, and Connor had his last baseball game for Fall Ball. In addition, I needed to run by V's Village and pick up Reilly's cheerleading costume and run by Hobby Lobby to get the jars for a Halloween treat for Connor and Garrett's
teachers. Yes, I knew ALL month what Reilly was going to be for Halloween and where to get the costume, and yes, I knew all month that I would be making these jars for the teachers and I already had the vinyl so I just needed to get the jars to be done. These are the types of things that Last Minute Mom does to torture herself and raise her blood pressure. So, needless to say, it is 11:30 on the night before Halloween and not a creature is stirring at the Zoo, except Last Minute Mom and she is busily applying vinyl letters to jars and filling them with candy. In spite of this, they actually turned out pretty cute and you can only see the slight wrinkles in the letters if you look really close. Unfortunately, this is the kind of result that keeps me a Last Minute Mom-because in the end, it usually works out for me. So I just keep reinforcing this bad behavior and I'm sure that now that the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday season is almost upon us, I will be kicking it into Last Minute overdrive. Some people never learn! :)

Garrett had a costume to be an Ice Wolf (some sort of Ninja looking thing with a wolf on the mask) that we had gotten last Friday afternoon. Don't worry-it wasn't early- Garrett had a Halloween party on Saturday afternoon so he needed his for that. Otherwise, I'm sure we would have been at Party City on Thursday, too. After wearing the costumes at the party for all of 10 minutes, he decided that it was too hot and took it off. I tried to tell him (for 20 minutes, at Party City) that he wouldn't like the costume because of the mask but he had to have it. Nothing else would do. We paid $29.99 for 10 minutes of Ice Wolf because on Friday (Halloween Day!!) Garrett decided he wasn't going to be the Ice Wolf that night. Luckily, Mike was able to rig him up a costume as a hunter at the last minute. It turned out pretty cute after all and the Ice Wolf has been consigned to the back of the closet.

Connor was going to be a Georgia football player but he didn't want to have his picture taken so this is the only one I have of him. I'm sure that years down the line he will have some comment to make about there being no pictures of him this Halloween and I will be sure to remind him that it was his fault. We went trick-or-treating with the Bunko Babes and kids and everyone got lots of candy and had a great time. We didn't get a group picture this year, though, because we couldn't get them all in one place at one time. Between us all, we've got a good sized crowd of children!

On Saturday, I took the children to have their picture taken by a friend of mine, Amy, at Hiley Creative Photography. I was worried because Connor fussed all the way to Amy's house because he was going to miss part of the Georgia/Florida game. At the time, we didn't know that it was going to be one of those games you want to miss! Anyway, I just knew they weren't going to cooperate. Well, the pictures turned out so great and I can't wait to get some prints of them. Amy has a few of them posted in the gallery on her website and I couldn't be happier with how they turned out. My children look so grown up in them and they are a great springboard for my November plans to add something that I'm thankful for to each blog post. More to come at the end of this post.

Connor and Garrett had a birthday party to go to at the neighbor's on Saturday night and Sunday we had the party for Connor's Fall Ball team. The party was at Lane's and the kids got to eat and go through the corn maze. The weather was great and it was a lot of fun. We had such a good experience with Fall Ball. Connor had a really good coach and assistant coach for this team and just a good group of boys and parents. It was a nice contrast to Spring Ball and it's got us excited about next season.

Now on to my thankful posts. At the end of each post this month I'm going to mention something that I'm thankful for. I'm not talking about just general things such as family, husband, job, house, health, etc. Everyone is thankful for all of those things but I want to take the time to be more specific and remind myself of all the blessings in my life. Everything gets so hectic and busy and last minute that I don't always take time to put things in perspective. This is my reminder to take time to stop and appreciate the small things that really add up to be the big things in life. I would love it if any of you would like to join me.

Today, I look at those pictures that Amy took, and I am so thankful to have healthy, beautiful children who can run and play, smile and laugh, and even argue and wrestle. So many times, I am rushing around and even though our whole world revolves around them, I forget to appreciate all the little moments and all the things that are special about each one of them. I need to remind myself to cherish these moments because they are growing up so fast and I know it will all be done before I realize it!