Halloween Halloween Trick or Treat! ..that's the chant I've been hearing from Rachael for the past month - over and over. Guess she learned it at school. We're switching up costumes hourly now. She came home from school yesterday and announced she wants to be a ghost. And she insists that Daniel needs to be a baby unicorn ("neckhorn" she pronounces it). I have a hand-me-down ducky costume from Jacob. "No, Daniel neckhorn, momma!"

Deren is looking for another car. We contacted a man that goes to used car auctions. Our neighbor has used him on multiple occassions. So keep your fingers crossed. Abby brought me Daniel's carseat and favorite blanket this morning "go bye bye in car." Sorry dear, we're on house arrest..

Here are some pics. I spent half the day on Sunday doing haircuts - the girls, the boys (minus Daniel, including Deren). And I took the halloween pics this morning.

Let's play a game. It's called "Compare Your Week"

I'll go first:
Overall.
We've all either had one cold after another, or one cold that is morphing, but we've all been snotty and coughing for 4 weeks now. Haven't had a good night's sleep since I don't know when.

The Joshua incident.
Rachael's teacher stopped by the house Thurs afternoon. I was supposed to go to a parent teacher conference with her the Thurs prior, but my babysitter (aka Deren) showed up right about when I was supposed to be at Rachael's school in Dallas. So Rachael's teacher offered to stop by the house for the conference. I had taken Abby & Daniel to Target, and was going to vaccuum and straighten up right before she was due to arrive. But the best plans of mice and men.. (or women, should I say). Here's the blow-by-blow: Joshua got home from that school that day and decided potty training was overrated. Right when Rachael's teacher was due to arrive he pulled down his pants, and pooped and peed in the hallway. Then he decided that was totally gross (he doesn't like messes you see.. Ironic, huh?), and he ran to the laundry room, took all the clothes I had just folded off the washer and dryer and started to attack the poop on the floor. Then he tracked through the, uh, excrement, and trailed it across the back part of the house. Can I once again just say "Thank God for laminate flooring?!" So Rachael's teacher was at the front door, and half the house (including Joshua) was covered with, uh, excrement. Rachael's teacher stayed in the living room and played with Rachael while I cleaned floors, cleaned 2 bathrooms, the laundry room, and Joshua. After that, I ran into the living room to talk with Rachael's teacher. While we were talking Jacob, Rachael, and Abby came into the living room, all covered in chocolate, and "THANKS BE TO GOD IT WAS CHOCOLATE!" and not something else! They had broken into the Halloween candy I had picked up from Target, and were shoving chocolate in their mouths as fast as was humanly possible.

For the next couple hours the kids proceeded to run around like little demons, smacking and screaming at each other, disobeying about every instruction headed their way. They were sugar possessed monsters. I told Deren I wanted to leave. He said "Oh, you want to take Daniel and get away for awhile?" I said "No. I want to leave and go somewhere by myself. For a *long* *time*!"

The Abigail incident(s)
..always plural with Miss Abby. She has no concept whatsoever of safety. Matter of fact, she thinks is funny to run away and hide from me when we're out in public. Can only imagine what other people think as I'm standing in stores, bellowing "ABBEEEEEE" at the top of my lungs..

The Jacob incident
Actually, this is second hand. Jacob's teacher emailed me and asked if we had any toy tool sets at home. I said "yes" but that the girls hoarde most the toys and won't let the boys play. Well, apparently Jacob is trying to empower himself at school, because he tries to tackle any classmate that gets near the toy tools at school. I said as much to the teacher (while I was laughing).. don't think she thought it was too funny..

Rachael. Have to brag on her. Other than the chocolate exorcist moments, she's been working on being nice to everyone when she gets home from school. Even though she's tired after a long day, she gives her sissy a hug :-)

Daniel. Has his first sign. He signs for his "crunchies", which he prefers to his baby food that I mix up for him. Tonight it was spinach, kidney beans, rice, acorn squash and apples. He really wanted his crunchies afterwards!

Oh, and the Deren incident.
Well, we got a car in September, a Toyota Sienna. So we were once again a 2 car family. Well, until today, that is. Deren totalled the taurus in a wreck. So it's back to house arrest until we find another car.

So, it's been a banner week. If anyone can beat this, by all means share. The winner will receive whatever chocolate the kids left behind (excluding Joshua, that is rofl!)

I ordered some play silks on Friday, and they got here today. Daniel and Abby enjoyed them. Rachael was too busy preoccupied being Miss Cranky Pants to bother with them yet. She fights going to bed at night, and doesn't get enough sleep. Add to that, she's going to all day PPCD (public preschool for children w/disabilities), and she's often in a foul mood when she gets home. A couple weeks ago I drew the line in the sand, and told her she either says "hi" to her sister Abby when she gets off the bus (she was snarling at Abby every day. And poor Abby, she would be in the doorway jumping up and down because she was so excited to see her sissy home). So today Abby was asleep when Rachael got home, and Rachael took out her bad mood on the new playsilks.

We're home from church today. We all have a cold to varying degrees. At this point we should just home church, I think. I'll put that on my list of 101 things to do but will likely procrastinate on. We made it to church last Sunday. It was the first Sunday since school started that we had kids (and parents) healthy enough to go. We've had stomach bugs, we've had cold bugs, we've had simulataneous stomach and cold bugs. Each year I think "It's got to be better than last year", seeing as how we pass so many bugs around you would think the kids would be developing some type of immunity by now. But no dice.

We are at a loss with Joshua. He's pretty low in the autism spectrum, we're not wringing our hands about that. What has us worried is he has been so UNHAPPY all the time - at home, at school. He doesn't even want to take car rides, which his Grandpa David can testify was high on the Joshua list of loves. We don't know if he needs meds, if something traumatic has happened that he can't talk to us about.. we just don't know. His eating has been worse than usual. He spends his time either crouched in grass outside, shredding grass and leaves, or inside laying down on the couch and miserable. Oh, he spends a lot of time engaged in OCD (obsessive compulsive) behavior. He opens the screen door to a certain point, closes it, opens it to that point.. over and over. He runs whenever you open a cabinet door and wants to shut it just right. Joshua's teacher called on Tuesday to ask "What is up?!!".. his behavior was so "off" at school. Like I said, he's not high functioning, and he has plenty of unusual behaviors under his belt, but being so unhappy and so disinterested in everything. So his 6th birthday was not what I would call happy by any stretch. He started bawling as soon as he got off the bus, and stayed pretty upset the rest of the day (including the running away from the cake episdoe).

Oh, and Jacob's shirt is filthy, I know. I made Joshua a birthday cake from a box mix on Tuesday. We showed Joshua the cake. He cried and ran away (Joshua is a whole other story right now, he's going through some hard times). The rest of us, sans Daniel, pigged out on the cake.

I got sick that night, and we decided it wasn't health food anyway, so to pitch the remaining cake. When Jacob saw Deren throwing away the cake, he yelled "Oh No!" and ran to the trash can and started scooping out the cake. Next time, we'll have to throw it away when the kids are sleeping. But Jacob had gut issues, too, that day (won't go into details) so I think it was a good idea for him to not have any more cake, especially a cake that wasn't made by his daddy.

What a miserable creature I am. I've reverted to extortion for blog posts ;-)

Deren's parents, David & Priscilla, are travelling to Peru on the 25th. To ensure that I get some goodies from Peru, I'm demanding goodies in exchange for blog posts. Is that sick or what? But I may get some nice peruvian wool out of the exchange, so maybe the ends is worth the means? (err.. probably not). Anyway, D&P, how about a "My In-laws saw machu picchu and all I got was this t-shirt" t-shirt! Would serve me right.

But, as promised, via telephone negotiations (err.. extortion) this morning here is a Halloween pic and a cute pic of Jacob. I bought Rachael a witch costume for Halloween. The girls love to dress up, so I figured it will get much use. Deren then came up with the idea that Abby (aka the sidekick) should be a black cat. I bought Abby a black shirt, and she already has black pants, but in the pic she's half-dressed. Deren was getting all nervous. It's a Dora the Explorer pull-up, for pete's sake, not porn!

And then Jacob wanted in on the picture. He thought it was neat to see the image on the digital camera afterwards. So here's Rachael, either crossing her eyes or acting like she's taking a picture of me, Abby, half-dressed, and Jacob, with remote it tow. I'm not going to show all the pics, just the best one (and this is the best of about 30 or so. May as well be trying to take a group pic of cranky cats). Jacob wanted his remote displayed for each pic. It was pretty funny!