A perfect October evening for Trick or Treating! The kids were out in droves so we went through all ten bags of candy I bought yesterday.

Jimmy, Mike and their buddy Kevin headed out into the night together and returned 2 hours later, sweaty and arms aching.

Now, Jim and I are headed out to see my friend Suzan in a midnight theater performance of the Rocky Horror Picture Show!

See if you can figure it out :) This is the magazine holder in the downstairs "powder room" :D

Halloween. It brings back memories of a childhood in Virginia where it got chilly in Autumn, leaves changed to glorious colors and you had to wade through them on the sidewalks as you made your way to school. In the evenings, the breeze was often aromatically laced with the woody smell of a nearby fireplaces.

It's not quite that way here in Texas - it's still usually quite warm in October, the trees change color a bit but the leaves don't really drop until later in the season, and everyone nearby has gas fireplaces. But, I don't let that dampen my spirits!

Now that the boys are older, I no longer have to decorate "G" and can embrace the spooky and scary :D Last year I made some tombstone forms with leftover plywood but we never got around to doing much with them. So, last week we pulled out the paintbrushes and finally decorated them. They really made the front yard much more Halloween-ish.

The boys have decided what they will be - Jimmy is a vampire and Mike has chosen a ghoul. Due to time constraints, I went ahead and let them order the costumes. Nowadays, you can order them for nearly the same it would cost you digging around the house/Goodwill for pieces or buying fabric. Not to mention the time spent. This time it was worth my sanity to buy.

Mike plans to lay in our Halloween display and scare small children...

Today was Jimmy's first flag football game for the Fall session. New team. But Jimmy must have impressed the coach in practice because he started him as quarterback. They scored a touchdown on the first play.
They didn't win the game in the end but Jimmy played hard and got lots of positive feedback.

Jim and Mike just headed on down the road to attend WOW - the World of Webelos camping trip, joining over 300 other Webelos. Jimmy left last night for the same camp - the Boy Scouts troops are the mentors for this weekend and they will be setting up stations for the Webelos to rotate through and learn all types of cool things. Jimmy never attended this camp because we came into Scouts on the tail end of Webelos, so he may learn some good info too.

It's so amazing to watch the boys enter this new stage of childhood. Both of them are growing so fast (but still snuggle willingly so that's okay) and gaining new skills all the time. Their budding confidence is the coolest thing of all. I have to give Scouts some credit there - for creating activities that get them out of their comfort zones. For example, Mike's den is selling popcorn right now. If you fill your page you earn a marshmallow crossbow. Two weeks passed and Mike had not done anything. I gently pointing out deadlines a time or two but wasn't going to take the lead. Finally, he asked me if would go out with him. He was so shy and our first stop was a no but he took it very well and seemed spurred on by it. He sold at the next house. And the next. And the next. That was all it took. Out of 30 spots he's got 25 filled! But, best of all, he's been Mr. Smiles all week. He's radiating confidence because he's reaching his goal. I'm very curious to see how this positive experience will affect his personality in the long run.

So, I'm alone for the weekend! It's WOW weekend for me too! HAHA Which is actually nice timing due to Jim's overseas travel. I get some alone time in the middle of all the travel. Some absolute quiet. I can actually hear the fridge running as I sit here. Without anticipating when the boys will be running down to rummage through the cereal cabinets and slam kitchen drawers ;) A breather is nice!

I worked out a nicely paced day for myself. The gym. The garden center. Dream dinners (premake your meals at their kitchen and take home to freeze!). Maybe the mall. Then this evening I'm heading out to support five of our dance students at their first stage performance! Our babies are growing up LOL It'll be so neat to see women that WE taught get up there!!! Two years ago I would've laughed if you told me I'd be a dance teacher AND do a good enough job to get five beginners on stage. Too cool!

The rest of my time I think I'll clean and organize things so the next two busy weeks are hectic but not stressful. Sounds a bit sad to clean but I'll just crank up the stereo and make it exercise...so I dont' feel guilty eating that slice of delicousness I bought for myself at The Cake Stand bakery :D And no one is going to ask for a bite of it...

McKinney Baylor Hospital To Break Ground Tuesday

Opening Expected Late 2010

Baylor Health Care Systems will break ground on its McKinney facility at 10 a.m. on Tuesday at the northwest corner of of Highway 380 and Lake Forest Drive, according to the McKinney Courier-Gazette.

The full service 95-bed hospital will open in late 2010, with a medical office building adjacent to the hospital expected to open prior to that. The architectural firm of RTKL of Dallas is working on the design of the new facility, which is expected to expand over time from the initial 95 beds.

Officials say the proposed hospital will have an infrastructure that will allow it to grow into a 12-story building with over 400 beds to keep pace with expected population increase.

Baylor Health Care Systems paid roughly $7 million for the nearly 50-acre site of its McKinney facility.

This is literally right up the street. I pass it almost every time I leave my house and anytime we walk the dogs we go along here as we circle the neighborhood. Plus, last I heard they had limited the # of stories to way less than twelve!

Mess until 2010? Grrrr.

Well, so much for that two blogs a week! I must have jinxed myself :)

We've had a lot happening with Scouts, soccer, bellydance and our other enrichment activities. Today we started our 6 week Friday co-op with other homeschooling families. It's such a great activity but it's also stressful since all of us have to teach classes too. I'm doing Nutrition for the 9-12 year olds. My class went well despite the Murphy's Law of getting things together. All my food pyramids were bright red. Maybe the printer was angry? LOL All I know was the .pdfs on the FDA website were colorful and interesting. But they came out of my printer various shades of red. I gave up at the point and just used them anyway! The kids thought it was funny. Jimmy and Mike had a good day and enjoyed their classes so that's what matters most.

At home, one of our favorite activities is to sit down together and read a "classic". I've been picking books that have a boy experiencing various challenges or life moments. Over the summer we read one about a primitive island boy who leaves his community to confront the sea - which took his mother's life, and almost his, many years previous. He was fearful of the sea and felt his father was ashamed of him, considering they were fisherman. Of course, he overcomes his fears and shocks everyone by returning strong and confident months later.

Then we read The Day No Pigs Would Die. That one was really good too. Another time and way of life. But very sad ending as the boy's prized pig has to be slaughtered and the father dies. The boy, only 13, has to step in and fill his shoes.

We also read a book about a teen who survives a plane crash in the Canadian outback. He is rescued but later decides he preferred the solitude of the outback and returns - with plans to visit a native trapper friend. He comes upon an injured dog and sets off to find the dog's people. On the journey to solve the mystery, he discovers his trapper friend, the wife, and the grandmother, have been killed by a renegade bear. When the "mounties" say they can't do much, the boy hunts down the bear (with the dog's help) and kills it to avenge their deaths.

When we got home today, I finished our last two chapters of our current book, Where The Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls. I warned that the ending was traumatic. Jimmy is very sensitive to that sort of thing - the series he is reading right now had him very angry at the end of the first book. The main character was killed and he was ready to ditch the whole set because it was so upsetting. I encouraged him to continue, "they won't do that to you again in the same story" (I hope not!!!), and he is now almost done with the 4th book. I think he read book 2 and 3 last week. That the fastest he has ever gotten through a series.

Anyway, we piled in the recliner and began. And then we got the box of tissues. And cried. And blew our noses. And cried some more. The last two chapters were heart wrenching. We were all puffy faced and stuffed up by the time I finished the last page. Then we sat quietly, remembering the characters' journeys and absorbing the story's messages.

But this is the sort of thing that I love about homeschooling. I don't know where we'd find the time for these moments if we were the typical public school family. But today, the boys and I were graced by sharing the ending of a memorable story of trust, faith, friendship, determination, love, loss, change and healing. All good things for boys to learn and appreciate as they grow into young men.