By The Way...

If you have tried and failed to access my Cracker Rose Cottage link, (brother Andrew and fiancee Ally's blog), you might give it a try now. I reckon I just might have the proper link on there now. You're welcome.

Also, we celebrated my birthday on October 25. The big 35. On the downhill slide to 40. Lawdy, lawdy. We wanted to take the kids somewhere fun, but cheap. What did we do? We went fishing, of course. Caught 5 too-small redfish, 8 zillion catfish, 6 decent whiting, 2 silver trout, and a beer, in a tree. (Just kidding about the beer part, of course. You'd have to be a Gill (or have a brother named Andrew who makes you listen to weird songs, thanks bro) to get the "beer, in a tree" part. Sorry, not everyone can be a Gill. The next day, guess who got to clean those fish? Oh, don't worry, my birthday was OVER I was informed. Yup, cleaned those puppies right on my granite countertops, fried them in vegetable oil, made homemade tartar sauce, and we ate every last piece. In fact, we were crying for more. Alas, there was none. We kept the occasion small, but De Grande (aka Laura) made a chocolate cake with two-inch thick icing, ok, at least one inch thick, I mean, it made my children (and myself) weep for joy. My present, and I use the singular form intentionally, was a king-size mattress that I picked out myself. And it is grand, and worth every bit of present-taking-up-ability for all of my 35 years. Love gettin' old, eh?

Our next venture will be, gasp, CHILD-FREE! Shawn and I are taking a well-deserved 10-year anniversary trip to some place. That's how it is with kids. We're just going SOME place. We don't even know yet. We've tossed around a lot of ideas but nothing has screamed GO THERE! Our official anniversary is Nov 14th, but Izzy's birthday is Nov 15th so we will have to come home on the actual anniversary. (Can you believe she will be FIVE!?) Anyway, if you have any suggestions, in Florida or within decent driving time, please let me know! We don't know if we can leave Willie for three or four days, (I dissolve into nothing without him you know) but we will try. Laura gets the grand and most entertaining job of 24-hour childcare while we're gone. Get em to school, dance, homework, reading night, etc etc. She's going to have a lovely time. And I'll be sure to bring her the shampoos from our place of stay as a nice "thank you" gift. I haven't been on a vacation without kids since our honeymoon to London and Paris. And we managed to come back with a Sarah Downing Stephenson. Hmmm, Shawn may not want to go when I remind him of that! Let's keep it to ourselves, shall we?

Sorry for the delay in blogging. My computer is doing weird things, physical memory dumps, freezing for hours on end, saying there is no internet when there is, etc. I happened to turn it on today to see if I could at least download my pictures onto an external hard drive and VOILA, the D&#* things works! So, here is a post of some Halloween pictures. I will try to get this thing working, but in the meantime, if you have anything to say to me, you better call me on the phone. Lord knows I had 118 e-mails to sort through and I was afraid to do too much with anything! Blogging is definitely priority! This might be my worst blogging month yet! Anyway, enjoy it while you can.

TRICK OR TREAT!

We had a great Halloween. Laura and Leify joined us and a bunch of our friends on a hay-filled trailer going around town for a variety of treats. Besides the usual candy, we got french fries, sodas, chicken nuggets, pencils, even toothpaste! It was a bit long for the little ones (and the backs of us grown-ups, hay isn't as comfortable as you might think!), but we had a wonderful time. The weather was perfect, our children were rotting their teeth out, what more could you ask for? Hmmm, a 49-10 Gators over Georgia game? DONE! Go Gators!

Sarah finally got to go trick-or-treating as a cockroach. She wanted to last year, but I wouldn't buy the costume because it was 60 bucks. After Halloween, I got it on clearance and waited for this year. Here she is in all her buggy splendor.

Her antennas were in the way a bit on the hayride, but she had a great time with everyone saying, "Are you a cockroach?!"

Butterflies and Grecian Princesses

Isabelle was adorable in her Monarch butterfly costume. Thanks, Tom Arma! (He makes rockin' toddler costumes, I've got my eye on the rhino one for Willie next year!) The only negative on this costume was that Momma could wear the hood, so Izzy kept having it slip off all night. I should've brought safety pins...

Here she is with her pumpkin sack, ready to go eat some SUGAR!

My Katy was a Grecian princess. We borrowed the costume--thanks, Kira! She used the golden bag my make-up came in as a treat bag. I thought that was very creative of her. She felt great all made-up and sparkly.

The color of that dress really made her eyes WOW blue!

Frogs and Cowboys

Willie stole some hearts with his rainforest frog suit. Thanks, Tom Arma!

Sweet Leif was so handsome in his cowboy outfit. The boots doubled as a candy bag when he got tired of walking and Laura had to carry him!

Adorable cousins, only four months apart if you can believe it!

21 months old and haaaaaand-SOME!