I love big families!

Yup! I am officially announcing that I am expecting child #6. In early July, Dave and I decided that we wanted one more. AND we mean, ONE more. By August, I tested positive on a home pregnancy test. However, I didn't go rushing into the doctor. I had no idea how far along I was because I didn't do a good job of tracking my cycle and it was really random as it was.

I finally scheduled an appointment with my new doctor as I as concerned with some things that were going on with my body. I was having some spotting. And given my past, I was pretty concerned. By the time I was seen by doctor, he performed an ultra sound to make sure everything was fine. It was! Everything looked healthy and showed no signs that I would miscarry. Then the doctor told me that based off of size and development, I was 9 weeks pregnant.

Since then, we have had a lot going on, so we decided to wait awhile in telling everyone. I am now 15 weeks pregnant and should find out what I am having pretty soon (I just have to schedule the appointment)! Anyway, I love big families and I love that ours will be one more bigger around April 26th.

I love Halloween!

It's definitely a crazy thing trying to get all 5 of my kids ready for Halloween. BUT, it is fun too! This year we didn't go out and buy brand new costumes like we have done in the past. Instead, we used the costumes and dress ups that we already had. I am glad that we did!

I remember when I was a kid, that was what I did. I either borrowed costumes from friends or made something up from what we already owned. It was very rare that I had a brand new costume purchased for me. I think the only I can remember that was new was my sparkly clown costume. BOY did I love it! But all the other ones ~ Medusa, 50's girl, Hippie~ yeah, those were from what we had. I loved them just as much!

Autumn chose to be Fancy Nancy. She had fun pulling out all the fancy stuff to make up her costume! And I will admit, I had fun doing her hair all Fancy-Nancy-Like! She had curls, butterflies, flowers, ribbons and a crown~ just all in her hair!!


Joy chose to be a Southern Bell ~ or as most would say, Scarlet O'Hara. Autumn was this last year. It worked out great. EVERYONE loved her costume! They couldn't help but say how beautiful she looked. AND SHE DID!


Gini chose to be a beautiful brunette Cinderella. This is the dress that Gini picked out when we got all the girls princess dresses as Disneyland! This is no ordinary dress. IT IS FANCY!! Everybody commented on how it was the prettiest Cinderella dress they had ever seen! Gini of course, would just giggle and flash her cute little smile and bat her pretty eyelashes.


Kaity was a Cat Witch. This is the costume Joy had last year. I must say that Kaity makes a cute and friend Cat Witch. Everyone said that she must be a nice and good witch, because there was nothing scary or evil about her. SO TRUE! Kaity would giggle and say, "Nu-Uh! I am mean witch!" with the cutest grin possible. You can't fool us Kaity!! (or can you? tee hee!)


Jackson we did actually buy~ At the dollar store! We don't have boy dress ups and there aren't any costumes to pass down to him. So, when I was at DollarTree I spotted a pirate hat, sword and patch combo for $1!! Perfect. He could be a pirate and wear his church clothes. He made a great pirate. He would go around saying "ARRRR" as loud as he could. It was surprising that he kept on his patch and hat for so long. We told him that if he wanted to go trick-or-treating to get candy then he would have to wear it all~ and he did! He got right into it . He was the first to say "Trick or Treat," then say "Thank you!" then say, "Yup! I got lots of candy! I need more." So cute!


I definitely love Halloween!

I love carving pumpkins!

This year is a tight year for us. So, we told our kids that we have to cut back on a lot of things. With it being Halloween, we knew we wouldn't be able to buy all the fun stuff that we buy each year ~ pumpkins, new costumes, accessories, decorations, etc. This meant cutting out my favorite pastime of carving pumpkins.

Our children were pretty sad about this too. Luckily for Kaity and Gini, they had field trip scheduled for school to go to a local pumpkin patch where they would get to pick their own pumpkins. They were pretty excited now that they knew they could carve a pumpkin this year. Autumn and Joy were of course pretty bummed. But Joy asked if she could use her allowance money to buy a pumpkin ~ of course! As luck would have it, when we were at the grocery store, Safeway had a deal to buy one medium sized pumpkin for $5.99 get one free. So, Autumn and Joy combined their money and got two pumpkins. YEAH!! This year we would get to do some carving after all!

We had a ton of fun. Kaity chose to draw her own pumpkin face (as you can see). Happy Jack-O-Lantern face for her. She even named it ~ Roar-y. Gini wanted a cat face for her pumpkin. So we found a simple design that she liked. Catching onto what Kaity did, she named hers too ~ Cute Cat. Joy wanted to draw her own. She came up with a great idea for a design and Dave helped refine a little so it would be easier to carve. Autumn found a scary face that she like and used for her pumpkin.

The girls gutted their own pumpkins~ which is always a gross mess. I actually love it!! We saved all the seeds for Dave to make yummy pumpkins seeds for a desert later. Then the carving began! The girls did a great job carving their own pumpkins, with the occasional help from Dave and I. Jackson was pretty bummed. He kept asking for his pumpkin....Yeah I felt bad that I didn't think about him wanting to do one too!

After we cleaned them up, Jackson helped put the candles in and we put them outside for all to see! Then we went inside and ate some butter and salted pumpkin seeds and cinnamon and sugar pumpkin seeds. YUMMY! What a fun night!