One week to go!

We should be in the home stretch now. We haven't heard anything different, so we should be all set to close on our new house next week. Holy Cow. I can hardly believe it myself. I've never been so excited in my life to clean and paint a house as I am right now. Jacob is getting really excited, too. That's a relief. He doesn't really seem too fazed by switching schools yet, but we'll see how it goes as we get closer. Luckily, we still have about two months left before we have to actually cross that bridge.

My birthday was GREAT! Our dinner was awesome. It wasn't as nice as Yamato's back in Midlothian, but it was still really yummy and a lot of fun. We're definitely going back. And SOON!!! :) Dylan did a great job with the shopping, but he went a little overboard. You would have thought it was Christmas around here, but you're not going to hear me complain. OK, so I complained when I looked at the bank account after he was done spending, but what do you expect? At least he used the coupons I gave him. Yes, that's right - I sent my husband with coupons when he went out to do my birthday shopping. Would you expect anything different from me? Oh, and one of the items he bought came with a free gift card which he was able to use on another gift. That news was almost better than the gifts themselves. :)


All my birthday loot.


I would like to say that it took a lot of convincing to get me to wear this hat. Yes, I would like to say that, but I can't.


Me and the boys. Daniel stole my hat!!! :)


Me, Jacob and Will at dinner.


Dylan & Daniel at dinner. Too cute.


My cake that my loving husband made for me. Jacob picked out the candles. If you look closely, you can see that the flames on the candles are different colors.

Boo!

So, some would say I'm killing all the fun for my kids, but we don't really do the whole trick-or-treating thing in our house. We did for the first year or two, but then I looked around and noticed how everyone is VERY into the scary part of this holiday. And scary when you have children under the age of 14 is just not a cool thing. When Jacob and I go into Wal-Mart or Target (that's almost a daily occurrence in this house!), he points out all the skeletons or monster-type things and says, "Look, they have scary guys." Basically, if it's scary, gross, yucky or something I would have a heart attack if I rolled over in bed and saw it laying next to me, I have trained Jacob that it is scary and that we don't like it.

So, what does the March Family do for Halloween? We get dressed up (only non-scary costumes, of course) and go to a Harvest Festival. It's even better than just plain, old trick-or-treating if you ask me. There is food (yummm... Brunswick stew...), games, moon bounces, pony rides, train rides, hay rides and a petting zoo! And after each activity, the kids get candy. Jacob is still young enough that he doesn't know the difference, so this may get harder as he gets older, but it's become a tradition and we're sticking to it. Quite honestly, I was getting tired of opening my door to see teenagers (and usually rude ones at that) in regular clothing asking me for candy. And after they would leave, I was usually left praying that I was nice enough and gave them enough candy that they wouldn't come back later and smash my pumpkins!

Happy Halloween - no matter how you choose to celebrate it!



That's the cowboy, Jacob, tipping his hat and saying, "Yeehaw!"


Jacob walking in the parade at pre-school.


A better view of the cowboy "riding" his horse.


There goes the neighborhood!!! The boys with their two friends who live down the street.


Daniel, the dragon, and Jacob, the quarterback (Broncos, of course!!!)




Still working on that whole standing & walking thing!