Long Night

Saturday turned out to be a long night. Mollie woke up around 1:30 a.m. with a croupy cough. I was able to get it under control with steam from the shower, but she woke up again around 5 a.m. This time I had more trouble getting her breathing back to normal. Around 6 a.m. I decided to call the doctor on call at the pediatric clinic. Thankfully, it was a lady from our church. After following her suggestion to take Mollie outside, we made it through the rest of the night. Mollie's breathing was very wheezy throughout the day Sunday and I was thankful that the pediatric clinic has "after-hours" appointments available on Sunday afternoon. Mollie got a prescription for a steroid and has slept through the night since. She does still have a cold, though.

Uncle Sam Wants Candy

Ben was very excited about Trick or Treating. He practiced all morning. Once the first trick or treaters arrived around 4 p.m., he was ready to go. He's looking out the front door waiting for the next arrivals.

John trying to convince Ben to let him paint a white beard on his chin.

John managed to convince Ben about the beard but failed to talk him into wearing his flag shoes. He said they were for church (where he does usually wear him. Ben has lots of red, white, and blue clothes).

Ben was Uncle Sam or Yankee Doodle, if you ask him. Nana did a great job making his costume. She even made the hat!

Mollie was napping while Ben was getting dressed.

Mollie was a 4th of July firecracker.

Our first stop was next door.

And then on down the street.

As we were walking home, Ben said, "Getting candy is hard, hard work." It was a busy night on our street. We had around 90 trick-or-treaters.

Little Pumpkins

Since we were trick or treating tonight, Ben and Mollie wore their Halloween orange today.

Halloween Memories

John and Jim -- Halloween 1979

Will and Rena -- Halloween 1981

John and Jim -- the pic isn't dated.

Popcorn Balls

One of my childhood Halloween memories is going to Pink MawMaw's house and getting popcorn balls.

My great-grandmother, MawMaw Ganey, who I called Pink MawMaw.

When I decided a few weeks ago that I wanted to make popcorn balls for Halloween, I pulled out the 1990 100 Years and Still Cooking cookbook from Fellowship Baptist Church hoping to find MawMaw's recipe. And I wasn't disappointed.

Ben helped by listening for the first kernels of popcorn to pop and by pouring the sugar, corn syrup and salt into the saucepan.

I halved the recipe and only made six for us to eat. They turned out perfectly.

You have to work fast and the syrup is REALLY hot. I've got a nice blister on the end of my finger to prove it.

As I was forming the popcorn into balls, Ben was freaking out: "No balls, no balls, no balls." He thought I was ruining the popcorn. He changed his mind once he got to eat one.

He didn't like how they stuck in his teeth though. We had to brush them twice.

Bundled Up

After playing outside in shorts earlier in the week, today Ben and Mollie wore jackets and hats.

Pics from Fran

I stole these pics from Fran's blog. I took numerous pics of John driving his car to Florida, but for some reason didn't take any at the Vette show. Here are John and Jim's cars displayed at Vettes at the Village.

Bouncing with Ben and MV in the bouncy house at the pumpkin patch.

Ben and MV at the pumpkin patch.

Pumpkin Picking

On Saturday evening Fran and I took Ben, MV, and Mollie to the Methodist church pumpkin patch. MV, Ben, and I jumped in the bounce house. Ben couldn't stay up by himself. MV had her face painted. We couldn't convince Ben to have his painted. Not even a flag. He said he had one already.

They each picked out pumpkins. Ben chose one for himself and one for Mollie.

Ben was very proud of his pumpkin.


Fran held Mollie and took pictures while I jumped with Ben.

Pumpkin Decorating

I carved my first pumpkin tonight while Ben colored on it with markers. I kept the design simple since I really didn't know what I was doing.

Ben did not enjoy cleaning out the inside.

Ben's side.

My side.

Lit. We got the two little pumpkins from the pumpkin patch with MV and Fran.

Roll Over

Today while I was making lunch, Mollie rolled all the way over from her back to her stomach. I guess I should put her on her stomach more often since she's never rolled from stomach to back, which they are supposed to do first. You can see that she worked up some serious droll on the way over.

Flash Light

MawMaw and PawPaw sent Ben, Mollie, and me Halloween treats. Ben didn't know that light actually comes out of a flashlight. Usually he holds the flashlight to his eye like it's a telescope. None of our flashlights have batteries. This one came with batteries. The picture is blurry because I had to turn off the flash to get the light to photograph.

A Day

There wasn't anything particularly special about Tuesday, but it was a good day. We did laundry.

Played outside. It was hot but very windy. Ben enjoyed playing with the wind catchers.

Mollie liked watching the wind blow the tree branches.

Mollie rolled nearly all the way over onto her stomach during nap.

We finished up the day by making cut-out Halloween cookies: pumpkins, spiders, and a little girl in her Halloween costume (a witch).

Cousins

They all three had fun playing together.

Mary Varner sliding upside down.

Jump! Jump! Jump!

Ben doesn't even notice that MV is brushing his hair.

Janey, Janey, Janey

I have lots of pics of Janey from this weekend. She is such a character. She can climb like a monkey.

She was impatient telling Ben to "go, go, go" as he carefully made his way up the ladder. He's fallen off his ladder before and goes "knees, feet, knees, feet" all the way up now.

Check out her feet!

Janey is actually in the oven and Ben is knocking on the door. Janey ended up with a smashed finger from this game.

She loved the "baby, baby, baby."