Slender Man

Calvin has recently become fixated on Slender Man. I have no idea what this means, except that Calvin says he is "horrifying and awesome at the same time." He has nightmares about him, but then he'll talk about him all day and draw pictures of him and dress like him. I have strange children.

This is what Slender Man looks like according to Google:

 

 And here's Calvin's version:

And the added "girl version" according to Autumn:

Creepy, right?

Then they sat down and drew pictures and made signs:

And Calvin posted signs like this all over the house:

 

The signs say creepy things. But he had so much fun when his dad was running around the house looking for them because he had to find them all before he died. He laughed uncontrollably.

I do not understand video games or Slender Man or 98% of the things Calvin gets excited about, but it's fun that he's so creative and into his weird stuff and loves, more than ANYTHING, to play strange themed games with his dad. I'm glad they have each other.

Here Kitty Kitty!

The Pennsylvania Grandparents gave Autumn a kitten for her birthday that moves and purrs and paws at things waved in front of its face. It's a cute cat (and my kind of pet!), but I didn't realize its true value until Nicky discovered it this week.

It's perfect (purrr-fect. ha!) because Nicky has about a ten second attention span when it comes to toys. But this one moves around enough that he'll get excited and chew on it and hug it until it stops moving. Then he'll play with it for a bit longer, and just as he's decided it's boring and he's ready to move on, it will start to purr and move again, which grabs his attention all over again. It's awesome! He'll play with the cat for 30 minutes at a time. Autumn loves the gift, but Nicky can't get enough of it! Thanks for the gift that keeps giving, Grandma and Grandpa!

Aysha's Baptism

This morning we got up early (for a Saturday) to go to Aysha's baptism. As we drove there, Calvin yelled, "I don't wanna get baptized. Please don't make me get baptized!" I said, "It's your choice. You don't have to unless you want to." To which he promptly responded, "okay, I choose no!"

During the baptism Grandma told a story of how the Holy Ghost is just like Pinocchio's friend Jiminy Cricket who helps us make good choices and can't go along with us into bad places. She asked why the Holy Ghost doesn't have a body. Autumn yelled, "probably because he's just a puppet!"

We haven't seen a lot of the family since Thanksgiving because everyone's been sick and busy, so it was a lot of fun to see everyone and spend time together. We took family pictures. I'll post one when I get a copy from Alicia (hint, hint!), and after the baptism we went to Grandma's house for brunch. The kids ended up staying and playing for hours because we couldn't drag them away. Grandma brought them home late in the afternoon, complete with felt hats she'd sewn for them because they asked her to. I need to get a picture of those as well. But until then, here are some of my favorites from the day:

Grandma and Grandpa with a bunch of little girls:

Calvin and Miriam playing with my phone:

The church clothes* the kids all got from Brown Grandma for Christmas:

 *Funny story. When Calvin opened his new suit on Christmas, he said, "What is this?" I said, "Grandma got you new Church clothes." He said, "Ugh. Didn't you tell her that I hate church?" So yeah, we're teaching our kids so well. I had asked Grandma for new church clothes because they needed them more than toys. She didn't get to be the fun grandma this year.

Cute/blurry picture that Calvin took of Nicky: 

Pizza at the Park

It was kind of a crazy day with appointments, talks with a lawyer about our will, packing for me and the kids, trying to get the house decent. Calvin was 20 minutes late for school, Autumn 40 minutes late, and I was an hour late for an appointment. Mariah babysat the kids while I ran around for a little bit, and when I picked them up, I invited them to go get pizza with us.  

Calvin worked hard to win a free personal pizza certificate from school for reading, and he wanted to use it before I left for Barcelona in the morning. He was so excited about his little prize:

 He kept saying how adorable it was.

I didn't realize that it was a take-out only store, so we grabbed our food and Mariah took us to their favorite park. The kids ate for about thirty seconds before they were off running to play.

 Nicky was freezing:

He was happy once we were back in the warm car:

After pizza and the park, we ran home and I spent the next few hours packing the kids' stuff. The plan was to take it all over to my mom's house so that in the morning, I would only need to drop the kids off before heading to the airport.

When we finally got to her place, it was pretty late and she suggested that they just stay there. I didn't feel ready yet to say goodbye, and I wanted one last night with them. But as we made a couple of trips back and forth to get stuff, and Jesse helped me drive the car back to leave it with my mom for the kids, I realized that they'd be better off where they could get a good night sleep and not be dragged out of bed early in the morning.

They were happy to be there and excited about the coming week with their grandparents, so I decided to leave them.

We recorded them goofing off as they sang happy birthday to their dad:

 

And then I kissed them each a dozen times and left them tucked into bed at grandma's house. It was much harder than I thought it would be.

I packed until 3am and ugly cried at least twelve times about how much I already missed my babies.

The Pumpkin Patch

Today we went to Jakers, the local pumpkin patch that we go to every year. This year they had added some new things, and it was a lot of fun. The kids had a blast. The only downside was that their dad wasn't there this year. We missed him lots, so we took a bunch of pictures.

I thought Autumn looked super cute and fall-ish for school today, so I snapped a shot:

At the entrance:

 The slides. They loved how fast these were and that they landed in a big pit of corn:

 Baby on the hay bales:

Climbing on top of the maze: 

 This year they had a big kid maze and a little kid maze. They loved both. The big kid maze was really tall, so they could run around and get lost in it. The smaller one, they could climb on top and look at it overhead. Both were a hit.

 The "climbing wall":

 Pretty view:

The big pit filled with dried corn:

 Calvin making a "corn angel"

 Then we took a hay ride. This was my favorite part of the day:

 Darling little faces that I adore.

 I LOVE this picture. After lying in the corn pit, Nicky had three kernels of corn and some straw clutched in his little fist. He would not let them go.

 View from the tractor

 See the creepy driver? He had a mask like the Scream mask, but it was made of burlap. He would follow the kids around and freak them out. After the ride, he came up to Calvin and started pulling on his face, gently stretching his eyes and cheeks, etc. Calvin looked really apprehensive, but didn't stop him. Autumn screamed and ran every time she saw him. When we were leaving, I watched him take out a pocket knife and make the throat cutting gesture at a 10/11 year old girl. I thought that was a bit much. Overall though, he was a spooky, fun addition to the pumpkin patch.

Also, see the pretty rainbow? It sprinkled the whole time we were there, and this was the lovely result.

 On top of the world:

They had a cute petting zoo with half a dozen little animals. The kids' favorite was this ginormous pig. I fear he's going to escape and eat a child:

When it was raining so much that the baby was soaked, and I was worried the kids were going to get sick, we picked out our pumpkins. Of course, as soon as we were ready to leave, the rain stopped again, but we had been there for a while and the kids were ready to go.

Calvin hauling the stash to the car:

Cute kids, proud of their pumpkins:

We were freezing, so we went to the nearby Wendy's and got warm cheeseburgers and chili to take home. The kids were excited and devoured every bite. On the way back, we passed a six-car accident that we must have barely missed. It was right by the entrance to the pumpkin patch we had left less than ten minutes earlier. I was thankful that we'd missed it.

All the way home, the kids kept saying how much fun it had been and how much they'd loved the patch and loved their pumpkins. It was one of those days that it was good to be a mom.

But then it was good to be home in the warm house, just hanging out: