October craftiness

Emma got the ball rolling this year, as I was content to sit on my laurels and do nothing.  She had a Halloween dance to attend and decided she wanted to be Little Red Riding Hood.

I found material at Joanne's for $3 a yard and it took something like an hour,

so it wasn't that big of a deal, but then one thing lead to another.  Next my friends were all thinking of making or had made these bags for treats that they found on Cluck, Cluck, Sew. 

Since we are throwing thing away by the truck loads and consolidating as much as possible, I thought, "what a great idea!"  I could throw away all those big chunky plastic pumpkins that they have taken every year and take up almost a whole plastic tote on their own and replace them with a very small bundle of cloth bags.  So I went to one of their homes and had everyone help me make my first bag. 

I always have to do things with lots of help the first time, then I am good to do it again, and improvise from there. 

I added a band at the top and tucked the straps in between the two layers instead of stitching them on the outside.

I finally finished 4 bags, 3 days later.  Trunk-or-treat was just the next day.  Max wanted to be Robin Hood- check, already have that costume from past years.

Sam is too old to go trick-or-treating, but not old enough to be in the going to parties crowd, so check for him, too!  (He did say he would throw a ninja costume together by himself today to do the trunk-or-treat.  Mom will be at work.)  But Joseph was being a pain.  He wanted to be Link.  Which was fine last year, because we just used the Robin Hood costume and added a few things.  Unfortunately, the Robin Hood costume is being used this year.  Then I had a light bulb moment.  Rob had just thrown out his army greens (They don't wear them anymore.)  Now Link's green is a different color, but I said, take it or leave it.  He took it.  And after only an entire day, we went from this

to this! 

Not bad, hu?

My little $200 machine did that.  I had to add the green stitching on the shoulders to cover a couple oopses!  Hopefully, I can continue to channel this craftiness for a little while longer- I really want to replace the kid's ugly, ugly Christmas stockings and finish Emma's quilt for Christmas!  I have my finger's crossed!--- Of course that's not the best way to sew!

A Good Thing for Emma

Being cut from the high school soccer team was pretty tough on Emma.  She has been our little athletic girl all her life.  She finally decided to sign up for rec league soccer, instead.  She got on a team that won about 1/2 of the time and then lost big time the other 1/2.  They one time lost 10-0.  In soccer, that is a crazy score!!  The great thing about the team was, they valued each other and they had fun even while playing hard.

Operation Socks

 When they started loosing badly, they made it more fun, by doing cartwheels and doing the baby carry (the goalie put the ball in his shirt and just carried it all the way up to mid-field before they stopped him!) 

Operation B.O.B (boobs over ball- soccer term to help them kick with power)

Nobody yelled at anyone else about how horrible they were doing or who should have done what.  In that atmosphere, Emma blossomed.  She was an animal her last game!

Last game

I was so impressed.  The other team was full of guys who were on the JV boys team who wanted to play a little extra.  They were really good.  (The varsity guys team is rocking the state this year.)  They also were a little too physical against a team with at least 1/2 girls.  One guy even got a yellow card after he knocked Hannah down, again!  Soon after, Emma put her foot out, got the ball away from him and knocked him down in the process.  She also scored a goal with it.  The other team's coach was like, "Dude, I think you just lost some of your manhood back there."  It was awesome!  When she was on the School team, she was yelled at often and there was a lot of cattiness going on.  In the end, she never did anything with the ball, but get rid of it as soon as she had it.  She never did any footwork and she didn't try real hard to get the ball.  She didn't score once, during the whole season.  But with this team, she was their second highest scorer.  (Second only to David who came from Germany, having played on a German league, but who came too late for summer training and only made it to the try-outs.  They wouldn't even look at him.  See how crazy the politics are in this place!  Unreal!)

Operation Warpaint

So thankful for fun teams and people who remember what sports are all about!

Grandma and Grandpa come for a Visit

Grandma and Grandpa decided to take a massive road trip and dropped in to see us.  I am sure we wore them out and they were ready for a nice lazy drive in the end.  We took them to 2 football games, several soccer games, Rob took Dad to work to see his experiments,

we took them to museums

 and shopping and church and out to eat at favorite spots.  And that was all in 3.5 days.  They were troopers.  We got Mom one of those driving carts, but it was too slow for her.  It was a good time seeing Grandma and Grandpa!

What do you mean 2 more week?

This is the time of year when we are so done!  So, so done with all these sports.  We love that our children participate.  It keeps them active and healthy and out of trouble, but it keeps us driving and not much else.  We are tired!

Since gas is $4 a gallon these days we are paying somewhere around $16 a day in gas.  Besides having to do homework in the car and homework in the morning while we eat breakfast and doing loads and loads of laundry every day.  We have to eat around 4:45pm, but since I am still helping with homework and trying to get people ready, unless I have been proactive and made a crockpot meal, it's fast food time, again!  By this time of the year, I dread 2:30pm when my children start showing up home from school, because I know that the race has begun!

Luckily, this is the time of year when it's almost done. 

 Monday was Max's last soccer game.

Today was Sam's last home game and tomorrow is his last, last 7th grade football game.

Emma's last soccer game is on Thursday.  Joseph's last football game is Saturday....At least that is what we thought until this morning when Rob went to the gym and talked to the quarterbacks Dad.  And his comment was, "only 2 more weeks!"  Wait- what!  Yep, the regular season ends on Saturday, but then there are play-offs, don't you know?!  Collective groans escaped our lips!  Luckily, it has been a hard year for our children as far as teams go- Emma's and Sam's teams have about a 50-50 record, but when they loose, they loose big.  I am talking huge!!  Like 10-0- in soccer!!  Max's team may have won once or twice, but Joseph's team hasn't won a single game all year, so we are positive that the play-offs are really just a one game thing for us!  So we are back to the thought of... Just 2 more games!  Sometimes being on the loosing team has it's advantages!