Toothless and Halloween 2009

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but a lot has gone on.  Not getting into all of it, Jamie is working again, and things are looking up.  I've been in awe of God's provision while he was out of work.  He's always been faithful to provide.  Thank you to our friends and family who continued to keep us in your prayers and loved us when we really needed it.

I have another little one losing her teeth.  Jasmine woke up one morning excitingly announcing that she had a loose tooth.  That evening at dinner, it was clear to me that the tooth had probably been loose for a few days and needed to come out.  So I did what my dad used to do for us...I grabbed the dental floss, and tied it under the tooth, and cut the nerve.  Jasmine was squirming and whining with her eyes closed as I held her tooth in my hand.  I told her, "I'm done.  Here's your tooth.  See, that didn't hurt, did it?"  She was very surprised, and said, "No, it didn't hurt!  I lost a tooth!"  We don't do the tooth fairy thing at my house.  I give the kids a dollar, and they get to keep their tooth.  Below is a picture of Jasmine with her tooth and "compensation."

If you've read my blog before, you know that we don't do anything for Halloween.  This year was no different then the previous years for me.  Of course, the kids notice Halloween is creeping with the items popping up at the stores and tv shows being geared for the holiday.  I'd promised the kids that I'd get them a treat, and they could wear some of their dress up clothes that day, but that's all I'd planned.  One day we had to run to Walmart for Jamie to get something.  Just he ran into the store as the rest of us sat in the suburban.  He returned with a pumpkin.  The kids were so excited.  I told him if he wanted to carve that with the kids that it would be his project.  A couple of days later, I went ahead and picked up two more pumpkins so they could all experience pumpkin carving.  Jamie told me he'd never carved a pumpkin before.  He cut a hole in the top of each one, and I got the girls started on cleaning out the insides.  But Jamie so conveniently disappeared for this part.  Because the girls couldn't get everything out (they were literally taking out each seed individually), I ended up getting stuck with cleaning 3 pumpkins.  Then Jamie magically showed back up.  He told the girls that he'd do a cat...and he did a really good job on it.  I then drew a silly face on the next pumpkin, and Lily & Jasmine drew the face on the last pumpkin.  Lily wanted eyelashes on her pumpkin, so I cut some out of felt for her.  I don't know why, but she said it looked like a bride to her.  So, I grabbed some scraps out of my craft supplies, and made (a very pathetic looking) veil for their pumpkin.  Then I had to make a bow tie for the other pumpkin...

...And our finished product was a Goofy Groom...a Blinking Bride...and their Kitty.

I'd already bought the kids more than enough candy.  I didn't plan to take them trick or treating at all.  But Jamie had talked to my dad early that day, and my dad invited us over for dinner. Jamie decided we could take the girls to the houses on my parents street.  I pulled out some costumes from earlier years, and we managed to get them dressed up.  I didn't dress Levi, though.  But I did manage to get a shot of him enjoying a Kit Kat that I'd gave him...

And here's my attempts to get pictures of the girls in their costumes.  I wanted to take the pictures outside, but that ended up being a bad idea.  One of the neighbor's kids was outside playing with his basket ball.  He noticed the girls and was hollering at them from across the street, "Hey! Are you going trick or treating?  Where are you going?"  I couldn't get all of them to look my direction...until the last picture in which you can tell they were ready to be done with pictures.

We made our way to my parents house, and took the girls down their street to trick or treat.  I was a bit disappointed because there was only about a dozen houses handing out candy.  The girls didn't mind though...they didn't know what to expect. 

When we got back to my parents house, we ate dinner, and then the girls got to help their grandma hand out candy to other trick-or-treaters.  They had so much fun.  And their grandma had a little pumpkin for each of them and a pez dispenser.  They kept saying, "This is the best Halloween ever!"  I'm glad that it all feel into place like it did.  It was a lot better than what I'd had planned.  I'll end this with a few pics of Levi with his pumpkin, and the jack-o-lanterns that the kids grandparents had carved.