Wordless Wednesday: Kids' Costumes through the years

Memories are always fun to look through and think about during each holiday. Here are the kids since 2009 celebrating Halloween.

2009: 

2010

2011:

2012:

2013: (Jacob had pneumonia and it was too cold and wet to take Ben out.)

2014: 

2015:

2016:

2017:

2018:

Any guesses on what the kids are going to be this year? 

2019 Jack-o-Lanterns

Yesterday it was a nasty rainy day here. It was rainy, windy and definitely fall like weather. Other than taking Rebecca to a science day that she was attending I didn't want to go anywhere. I wanted to get some stuff done around the house. Last week I really didn't have a chance as I had a ton going on...including watching "A" everyday starting at 5:30 in the morning until 3 PM. (Usually I only have her in the afternoon). That meant getting up at 4:30 every morning. Lots of running around was needed this week as well. I also had lots of tutoring clients in the afternoon, including a new client. AND Rebecca and I both had 2 evenings where we had a 3 hour class for CPR/ 1st Aid classes. Super busy meaning not a lot of time to do things at home. Yesterday was used as a catch up kind of day....

I did find some time for fun with the kids though. We decided to carve our 2019 jack-o-lanterns. Here is a preview....

We of course started off with scooping the guts and being grossed out.

Then Bill helped Jacob cut out his pumpkin design that he drew on the pumpkin and I helped Benjamin cut his out. Rebecca did her own. 
Bill and I also did one. Here are our lit pumpkins out on our front porch. 

Benjamin did his as a pirate, that is why he had an x for an eye. 

 Jacob did his as a resemblance of his dad.

Rebecca made a kitty cat this year. 

Bill made an Avengers logo. 

I did an owl this year. I love how it turned out. 

This is a tradition that we love to keep. We usually watch "It's a Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" as well, but this year Notre Dame was playing Michigan and Bill would rather watch that. LOL Traditions are meant to change in some respects each year I guess. 

I need to go an finish dinner for the family. So here's to a good Halloween week! 

New recipe: Vanilla Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake

So it has been a while since I have posted a new recipe that I have tried. Don't get me wrong I am still trying to try new recipes when I can but with the craziness of life I haven't always had a lot of time to do so. Well, this past Sunday was my Grandma Rose's birthday. She would have been 87 years old. She passed away in 2009. I miss her dearly. 

One of the things that I inherited from her was her love of baking and making cakes. She made all of our birthday cakes when I was growing up. Being the oldest grandchild I got my share of them. Back to Sunday... I was craving something cakey. I also had a desire to use my Grandma Rose's bundt pan. So I hopped online to see what recipes where out there that could use a box mix but jazz it up. 

I hit gold with this Vanilla Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake recipe by "The Little Kitchen." Oh my word! It was super easy and I had all the ingredients on hand except for the yellow cake mix. All I had was white cake mix. I went for it anyways and it turned out moist, delicious and super yummy! (I will disclose that I forgot to put the vanilla in the mix and it still turned out super yummy!). 

Perfect dessert for a craving and perfect way to remember my Grandma Rose. Enjoy the rest of your Wednesday! 

Choir concert, weekend update and life

Life is marching on full speed ahead. I blinked and it is October 21! How is that possible? I promise that I think about writing on this here space but then time gets away from me, other things take priority and I am left with maybe once a week posting. It is what it is I guess. 

Anyhow, what has been going on this past week? 

Well, Rebecca had her first choir concert as a 7th grader. They did an awesome job and you can definitely hear the improvement from last year. She was one of 6 in the entire 7th grade choir chosen to do a group solo. (Her choir teacher also singled her out for a one day honor's choir workshop, however she already has a commitment that day for her AHG troop so is unable to do it. I think it is cool though that her teacher thinks that highly of her voice.)

Unfortunately, on Tuesday both Rebecca and I woke up sick. Rebecca had a fever and stayed home from school (apparently a few people from the choir concert were sick on Tuesday including the choir teacher, with similar symptoms). I just felt like I had been run over by a truck. Thankfully, I didn't have any tutoring that day-- just babysitting for a little bit. I did cancel my AHG commitment, which meant only Jacob went to his Trail Life meeting as Ben was being punished for writing ALL over his wall on Sunday night after his bath. I have no idea what possessed him to do that, but we went through 4 magic erasers getting it all off. It looks horrible as it took some of the paint off as well, but at least the pen isn't there. 

He also got in trouble later in the week as we caught him stealing money out of a coffee cup on Bill's dresser and putting it in his own piggy bank. That kid is going to be the death of me. LOL 

The rest of the week was kind of crazy. Wednesday I had my niece and nephew for the day as my mom had to work and I am one of the few people that knows how to check Ethan's blood sugar and give him his insulin. 

Friday, my kiddos didn't have school. We went to the grocery stores and I finally got the last of the apples processed from our apple picking trip a couple of weeks ago. 

Also on Friday, Rebecca had to get ready for her AHG campout. She was going on this one by herself as she is now in the Pioneer/Patriot level and they don't have to have a parent going. She froze on Friday night as there was frost on the ground. She came home Sunday very tired, ready for a hot shower and her own bed. LOL

While Rebecca was camping, Bill, the boys and I walked down the street to a fall festival that a local church was putting on. We got the invitation in the mail on Friday (as it is the same church the kids play Upward basketball through-- and the invite included a reminder to sign up for Upward this year!). The kids had a blast. Everything was free! We got to take a wagon hay ride, play pumpkin baseball, the kids played games, painted pumpkins, went in a bounce house, got treats, and we were able to have a free lunch of hot dog, chips, hot chocolate, cotton candy, popcorn and apple slices and caramel. 

Sunday, was kind of a blah day. We went to 8am Mass as Jacob was singing in the kids' choir. Then I taught PSR-- I found a Rosary Bingo game online that was a huge hit. The rest of Sunday was spent doing laundry, trying to get ready for another busy week, etc. 

I will say this past week the trees are starting to turn and Autumn is showing it's full glory. The sunsets have been spectacular as well. Makes the long days a little more bearable as I appreciate the scenes of nature so much more. 

Now we are back to Monday. I have a long week of babysitting (as in my kiddo that normally is 1:30pm arrival is a 5:30AM arrival this week as her dad is out of town for business). I also have to take a CPR/ First Aid class 2 nights this week and I babysit my niece and nephew on Friday (as they again don't have school) and all day Saturday. Oh and as I was typing this up I just added another tutoring client for this week via Facebook. It is going to make for a long week but I will get through it and hopefully be smiling at the end! Hope everyone has a great week!  

Jacob's birthday weekend

Happy Tuesday! I am feeling a little under the weather today so am taking today nice and easy...which gives me time to update this here space of mine. LOL Actually Rebecca is home from school today as she woke up with a headache, sore throat and fever. My stomach is upset and I just feel rather run down and blah. :( Anyhow, enough complaining, let's see what craziness my family has been up to lately. 

Friday was Jacob's birthday. He says thank you for the birthday wishes on my post on Friday. He loves that others who don't even know him will take the time to wish him happy birthday! Friday night Bill had to work so I told him we would celebrate on Saturday night. I still wanted to make it special for him though, so we ordered pizza in (typically I make frozen pizzas). I had gotten a gift certificate to Dominoes good for a Free large 3 topping pizza and an order of brownies from the owner as a thank you for letting him use my garden hose one morning for like 10 minutes (he owns the rental next door apparently). So we let Jacob chose the toppings-- he wanted pepperoni, Italian sausage and bacon. We also got a large thin crust pepperoni that was on special that day for $7.99. So I call that a frugal dinner.

After dinner, Jacob wanted to play outside which we did for almost 2 hours until after it was dark. Then he chose to watch "The Lego Movie" for Friday night movie night. 

On Saturday, Rebecca and I had to volunteer at a Fall Harvest Festival that the non-profit that I am on the board of was hosting. That was a grueling 8 hours on my feet. I was in the concession stand the whole time but thankfully the 2 adults I was working with were hilarious and time flew by as we laughed and talked (and made hot dogs, chicken sandwiches and too many loaded nachos). LOL After we got home, we took Jacob out to his requested place for dinner-- Fiesta Mexicana. We had an enjoyable dinner and they came out and sang to Jacob which he enjoyed. (I had to laugh because Sunday night Bill came into the living room and said we went to Fiesta last night and I just found this $5 off coupon we could have used. I told him I did use one, didn't he know me better than that? LOL) 

When we got home we gave him his birthday gifts of 3 new wrestling figures which he loved. 

Sunday woke up to our first frost. I actually had to scrape my van windows before going to PSR. 

After PSR, we had a mini birthday celebration here at the house. My mom, sister, niece and nephew came over. My brother also showed up. My dad, who had been away for the weekend visiting my other brother at college down at Marietta, came home early and surprised Jacob by showing up. I made vegetarian minestrone in the crockpot and baked up some dinosaur chicken nuggets that I had gotten on clearance at Aldi's and a bag of French fries and that was lunch. 

We also snacked on chocolate lasagna as well (which was Jacob's request rather than a birthday cake.) Jacob then spent a lot of time playing outside.

Overall, I think he had a great birthday weekend celebrating turning 10 years old.