blessed beyond measure

In spite of my non-fondness for Halloween and the party-pooper rut I'm wallowing around in, our Halloween traditions held strong this year. We... made time for a cherished holiday custom stuffed treat bags for class parties did, er, something with pumpkins reassured both boys over and over that ghosts are not real and picked out rather minimalist costumes. The boys have been a bit hard to stand leading up to their class parties on Friday. And that's before they ingested obscene amounts of high-fructose corn syrup. By the time they got home from school on Friday, apparently they couldn't wiggle enough to get the energy out so they both just shouted everything they needed to say instead of talking. All except for when Aden pulled me down toward his face and whispered in my ear, "We didn't do any work today. Hee hee!" Aaaaand with that, off we go to collect more candy. Hopefully there will be a little Hershey bar in there that I can snatch up ...

My exploration season game is weak this year, y'all. I could easily point to the reasons. Or embrace humility and admit that sometimes I just can't be the mother I wish so much that I was. So even though my heart really isn't in it and we've fallen behind a bit, I have tried to produce a few fall fun memories for the boys. Aden was begging to spend some time at our church playground. Easy-peasy, blue eyes. We decided to take a short hike into the woods behind the playground, and found a beautiful and serene outdoor sanctuary. How did I not know this was there? Breathtaking. Trey was begging for a corn maze. The one near our house shut down. The next nearest one I knew of is a good ninety minutes away and expensive as heck. After digging some online, I found a small "farm" smack dab in the middle of Lynchburg, fairly close and fairly inexpensive. It was definitely kid-approved, as it consisted mainly of bounce h...

Try this on for size. Take a hundred elementary school kids, give them pages of age-appropriate, numbers-based, scavenger hunt-style activities, and then let them loose in a real live functioning grocery store. Really let that sink in. And embrace the nightmare. It's called Math Night. And honestly, it's more of a dream come true than a nightmare. A local grocery store opens its doors to the boys' school, feeds dinner to the families, offers kids goodie bags of all kinds of freebies, gives away gift cards, and then lets the kids burn off energy while tricking them into learning. That's one heck of a grocery store, y'all. Oh, it was the absolute chaos you can imagine. I very purposefully dressed the boys in easily recognizable colors, a move that proved priceless over and over. And the poor, annoyed non-PTA people that had chosen the worst possible time to do their weekly grocery shopping. Gritted teeth and smoke signals coming out their ears, air-writi...

After taking about a two year break from Play-doh, the boys have rediscovered some of their early-childhood joy. Or, more like Mama was going through a closet and the boys happened to spot it at the waaaaay back. Then proceeded to simultaneously chide their Mama for hiding it from them and dance around touchdown-style. Anyway, they must have had food on the brain at the time because the Play-doh creation session turned into an episode of Chopped . That's right. Of course Aden only lasted one round. That sounds bad, but it's not because he got chopped. His brother insisted that each round last the same amount of time as they do on the show. A bit much for the active child. But it was impressive, their patience and creativity. Like using the seat of a pushed-in chair as an oven. And Trey demanding that I deliver criticism along with praise in my judgments. It was a nice moment. And these days, I desperately need nice moments. Aden's appetizer: "Eggs with t...