keeping things "normal"

it's here!

october is here!

usually our home would have a few pumpkins on the table and the kids would each have one in their room that they picked out. charlie loves pumpkins right now. bats and creep crawly bugs would be hanging on the walls and our skeleton banner would be hung. but not this year. the kids keep forgetting that we wont be here for halloween and ask about their costumes. i've promised them a new costume when we get to arkansas. shhh... dont tell them thats when they will be on sale ;) it makes me sad to be skipping this time of year.

but even though we will be missing out on such a great holiday this year, we are so excited its october!

in two weeks we will be on our way to idaho to see grandma and grandpa, celebrate our 9th anniversary, and jack will be turning 7! how is he 7 already?!?

jack came in singing this song at 7 am on october 1st, while i was, ahem, in the loo. but it was so silly i had to record it. he's so good at making up songs. and of course he cant help but dance too.

 we are trying to keep things as normal as possible. and that means that between all of the paint cans, nailing guns, air compressors, and drop cloths, we still try to do some fun day-to-day type things. 

like having friends liam and louie over for a morning while their mama was at the dentist.

we are going to miss louies adorable smiles and boy does he smell so sweet! and liam's a-maz-ing sound affects when playing with cars and his infectious laugh, we'll miss those too.

we've also kept up with haircuts.

jack has been asking for a while if he could get the "MVP" haircut at sport clips. but because it costs a lot more money and really, what 6 year old needs a head massage and hot towel?? well, this lucky boy was sent a free MVP coupon for his birthday. 

he absolutely loved it!

with the hot towel:

 and after the hot towel, red-faced and smiling:

he kept telling me afterwards how much he enjoyed the "mint scalp treatment and the shoulder massage". so glad it was everything he had hoped for.

the big kids love to help in the kitchen. charlie has finally started to have that desire as well. im in such a hurry to get dinner on the table though, so his involvement usually only consists of getting ingredients out of the fridge and pantry. but the other day, after patiently sitting in front of "cars 2" for the hundredth time this week while mama painted trim, i set down the brush and we made banana bread. and charlie helped with every single step. he loved stirring, mashing, cracking, and mixing so much and kept saying "i coooookeen mommy, i cooookeen!!!"

and because we can't completely pass up halloween fun, charlie helped grandma linda decorate their home for halloween. this, of course, included grandmas creepy skeleton hands. jack used them for a while instead of his own hands and then ellie used them to scratch grandpas back and brush her hair. hopefully grandma washes them before serving spaghetti ;)