Five for Friday

Five for Friday posts are my favorites because they are filled with little bits of random happenings, which totally sums up my life...

1. Brian surprised me with these beautiful orange roses "just because" the night before my mom and sister came for their Halloween visit...

I was delighted not to mention shocked to receive something so unexpected...

2. Is it normal to have a favorite insect?

I adore praying mantises...This little lady was hanging on my door about 3 weeks ago (just before the leaves started to change)...
Last year, I rescued a praying mantis and made her our "pet" and she lived for about 2 weeks in our potting room. She drank water from the end of a toothpick and liked to sit on my hand. Her eyes were always watching...
I found several chrysalises in the spring...I wonder if the one in the picture is one of her babies grown up?

3. I'm all about being open with my quirks. I have a rather embarrassing thing to admit about myself... I'm a sucker for infomercials! The products they show always seem so handy and they convince me every time...(In addition to the Space Bags, Sham Wow and Magic Putty, here are a few other things that have caught my gullible eye).

The neckline slimmer seemed like the answer to my newly forming double chin. Surely, it couldn't have anything to do with the amount of food I eat, right?
The purchase of the neckline slimmer has provided Brian with hours of teasing material...

The Total Gym...

was purchased at a weak moment a few weeks after Ellie was born...(around 6:30am after being up most of the night with a crying baby). I was feeling fat and frumpy and the Total Gym seemed like the answer to all of life's problems...)--Incidentally, it has become the most expensive doorstop we own!

The swivel sweeper...

I had big pipe dreams of my kids fighting over who was going to get to vacuum the floor after meals. I thought since this was light weight, it would be perfect.

A girl can dream, right?

4. Reilly and I had some ridiculous argument Wednesday morning.

After she left to go to school, I went into the girls' room to put a few things away when I noticed this hate note prominently displayed on her desk....

Apparently, she wasn't having the same feel good feelings about me as she was the day before...I've been officially crossed off the dream team list...

Holy mood swings, already!

5. I saw this hot air balloon yesterday when I was waiting at the bus stop with the kids. It was so close that I actually thought it might land in our front yard like one did about 5 years ago. I ran up the street like a crazy woman to grab my camera...

Riding in a hot air balloon is on my list of things to do someday...

***When was the last time someone gave you flowers "just because"?
***Have you ever purchased anything from an infomercial?
***Is riding in a hot air balloon on your bucket list?

South Carolina recap--plus nudity!

I returned from my Grandma Aikin's memorial week at the beach a little over a month ago.


My grandmother had a huge love for the beach, so my mom and uncles felt that it would be appropriate to rent a cottage at Sunset Beach, SC where we all used to go in the summers when we went to visit her.

My mom and my uncles invited everyone who was in the original group to join in. Since the focus was to be on honoring her memory, the invitation was meant only for the original group of us. (No spouses or children)

It was the first time in years that my immediate family has all been together without spouses or kids. It was great that my sister, Joanna, who now lives in Denmark with her husband, was able to fly in for the occasion.

Brian was able to work from home for a few days, which allowed me to make the trip to South Carolina solo.

It started out great! (Except for the fact that I left my cell phone in the car and he had to have me paged to retrieve it)...

But what a treat!....THREE whole seats all to myself...

as well as a great book to sink my teeth into...


My mom and Aunt Toni picked me up from the airport and later that evening, we all went to an Italian restaurant for dinner...


Katie arrived later that night as did my cousin Jon and his girlfriend. My cousin, Christopher arrived with his girlfriend the following day. (We were all surprised to see the girlfriends show up as this was a personal, family event.)


The next few days (with the exception of Friday which was the memorial) were spent enjoying the beautiful beach house...

smelling the ocean and feel of the powder sugar-like sand...

singing "get the shelly, get the shelly" to the tune of "cinderelly, cinderelly" while watching these little busy body sandpipers forage for crabs...

oogling over cute dogs...

self portraiting in the waves...

drawing in the sand...

eating shrimp cocktail on the beach... (this was something that was on my mother's bucket list to do, believe it or not)

building sand people (courtesy of my sister, Nella)...this is supposed to be a likeness of my stepfather...(eee-gads!) Are those man boobs?

searching for (and scoring!) sand dollars...

walking down to bird island (to find the kindred spirit mailbox...there are several notebooks inside where people write their thoughts)...

and accidentally stumbling on this disturbing sight one morning...!

WHAT THE?!?!...Are you kidding me? This is a family beach, people...!

My mom presented each of us with this book that she and Katie made up with stories and memories of my grandma...She also had made up a guessing game that had "Betty" related trivia questions..

We hosted an open house memorial for my grandmother at the Windjammer Village's clubhouse (the community where she used to live).
All of her friends and neighbors came to pay tribute to her...

It was a really nice afternoon...

My mom made up this cute poster and had it displayed on one of the tables...(Betty loved chocolate, hated cantaloupes, had beautiful fingernails, loved to travel, always wore an apron, loved tomatoes and corn on the cob, and always had a smile...)

After the open house, we went to the pier where she used to wave at all the passing boats, and each took turns spreading some of her ashes...

Here is my family...Nella, me, Seth, my mom, Katie and Joanna

(Joanna is looking away on this picture but it's still a good picture of everyone)

This is a picture of everyone who came to the memorial (my cousins' girlfriends were not in the picture)

Sisters...

Late Saturday evening, we all went down to the beach to spread the remainder of my grandmother's ashes...

my mom and my two uncles (Steve and Doug)

I never used to think that cremation was right, but after this experience, I'm all for it...

Her ashes were able to be scattered in two of the places that she loved the most...

After dinner, my aunt Toni and uncle Steve planned a "crazy card game".

I'm sooooo not a card person, but I played along to be a good sport...

(this picture is for Brian as he wouldn't believe that I actually played cards without picture proof!)

The top prize was $100 so we were all playing our heads off...

(I guess it would help if I actually knew the order of the cards (Ace, King, Queen, Jack...is that even right?)

My mom enjoyed rubbing it in that she was winning...

It was so fitting that she one the grand prize...

She put so much effort and thought into making this trip special, she really deserved it...

There were a few hiccups here and there...I guess anytime you get a lot of people together with different personalities, political views, religious beliefs, etc. there's bound to be tension from time to time, but all in all, we were able to celebrate my grandmother's life and give her a warm and happy send off, and that's what matters most...

Oh Rats!

In my wildest dreams, I never thought I'd agree to getting rats as pets.

Our hamster died about a month ago and Jake's been bugging me replace him with another rodent.

My friend, Terry, raises rats and just had a litter born about a month ago. She chose two of them for us and my mom brought them with her when she came at Halloween.

Jake was so excited...(and surprisingly so, I was too!)

They are very cuddly and love to nestle in hair...

The tail creeped me out at first, but I don't even notice it anymore...
From everything I've researched, rats make wonderful pets. They love human companionship and have great personalities...

So far so good!

***Am I nuts?

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

The fall is totally my favorite time of the year!

It's chalked full of fun traditions that we look forward to each year...

A visit to None Such Farm to see the pumpkin people is one of our favorite things to do...

The last few years, we've been taking Brady and Emalee with us. Emalee was sick this year so she wasn't able to come with, but we still had fun...

Curious George and the man with the yellow hat...

Iron Chefs..

Farmer with lamb...(be still my heart!)

Michael Jackson...

Go cart kids...

the Princess from Mario...

I love the way our yard looks with leaves scattered around...

Scenes like these...

these...

and these stop me in my tracks...

My mom, sister Katie and my neice, Josie came for their annual visit to our house to join in on the Halloween festivities...

On Friday morning, we went to the elementary school to see the Halloween parade...There were so many creative costumes (chinese take out costume, fortune teller, flower pot, bag of garbage...etc.)

I couldn't stand Jake's costume...that mask is heinous! It made me want to smack him. I wish they had a no mask rule at school...I guess those days of cute fleecy, zipup elephant costumes are over...(sigh)

After the parade, we took Josie and Ellie over to None Such Farm to see the pumpkin people...The girls had fun running around and just being silly.

I hadn't noticed this pumpkin scene when I took the older kids a few weeks ago...It is John and Kate plus 8...how funny is that?!

For Ellie's Halloween party at school, I attempted to make cat cupcakes. They didn't end up quite like the picture in the magazine...I'm terribly inept in the baking department...(and this was even from a BOX!)

Ellie's costume this year was a Hershey kiss, although from certain angles, she looks like she came straight from the vatican)...

After dinner, we all went over Winding Brook Farm. My mom took Josie, Ellie and Reilly on a mini hay maze while Katie, Jake, Brady and I went on an extreme WALK OF HORROR...

It was definitely scary, and I had to keep reminding myself that no one was allowed to touch us. The scariest part was being chased by a man with a chain saw...!

On Halloween morning, we began carving our pumpkins...(8 total)...

The kids each drew a pumpkin face onto a piece of paper and my mom, Katie and I attempted to recreate it on a pumpkin...

After the soccer games for Jake and Reilly, it became clear that Reilly wasn't feeling very well...I took her temperature in the afternoon and it was 104!

I dreaded telling her that she would not be able to go trick or treating that night. She was hysterical! I felt so bad for her but it all worked out in the end. I promised her that we would go trick or treating for her and she got to watch a movie in bed. She seemed to cheer up after the promise of her own bag of candy.

We usually go trick or treating with our neighbors, the Days. Jake still got to go with Brady, but with Reilly being sick, I just went with my neighbor Lynda, her daughter Bella (whose around Ellie's age), my sister, Katie and Josie.

It started to rain shortly after we started out, but it was super warm, so it wasn't so bad. Ellie started complaining about being thirsty about 20 minutes into the whole thing, so we only lasted about an hour total.

Here we are right before going trick or treating...(I'm wearing Brian's party pooper costume just to be a good sport)

I wish I would have taken a picture of the candy that we got...(it was the lamest candy year EVER!) Not one single tart piece of candy in the lot! I don't know why I'm so obsessed with trick or treat candy...I'm a grown woman and can very easily go out to the store and buy my favorite candy (Twix bars, sweet tarts, nerds, sprees, dots, smarties, etc.).

For some reason, it just doesn't taste as good as OTHER people's candy! Plus there's that element of surprise...

Anyway, this was a big chocolate year, and although I like chocolate, it's not my favorite...Oh well...my already big bottom (and growing) doesn't need anymore temptations, so I guess it was just as well that we struck out this year with our candy stash...

We had a great time with my mom, Katie and Josie...it's nice that we have this Halloween tradition each year...The kids all had a great time (even though Reilly got sick)...

Ellie ended up getting sick yesterday, so I'm homebound with her until she's fever free for 24 hours...That soup I made a few weeks ago sure is coming in handy these days...

***Is this your most wonderful time of the year?

***What is the most creative costume you saw this year?

***Did you get any sweet tarts in your Halloween candy stash?