Football marches on...

I'm going to blame football for my inability to post anything lately. Yes, football has still been ruling our lives. Perry's team once again moved on to post season play, culminating in a trip to the state championship game.


The championship game took place last night at the Edward Jones Dome (where the St. Louis Rams play). We have lots of football fans in our family, always up for watching a good high school game. This is Carson and my nephews Spencer and Cliff. The boys wanted to sit as close as possible and we literally got front row seats.

Others in our group decided not to sit so close to the action and found seats with a higher view of the field. This is my sister, her husband and her mother in law. Shawn is either not a waver or really into his nachos.

My brother, sister in law and dad sat behind us. We all raided Perry's closet for shirts. Good thing he had a lot of team t-shirts!

I have to admit, it was exciting being so close to the players in such a big stadium. These kids have worked so hard this season and this championship game was so deserved. Both teams had a 12-1 record for the season. Our team, however, was predicted to lose by 20 points. We played the other team in the championship game in '06 and lost 53-0 (B.R.U.T.A.L. game to watch).

This was an EXCITING game. I think Spencer was about to have a heart attack at many points! As soon as the other team (Blue Springs) scored, we would score right away on our next possession. The score was 7-7, then 14-14, then 21-21 until Blue Springs jumped to 24-21. Emotions were high as we waited for the predictable TD when we got the ball back. Not only did they score 1 TD, but they scored another one right away bringing the score to 35-24. The fight was on! So much for being 20 point underdogs!

The Hawk had a busy night cheering with the crowd.

There's my hubby! The team doctor (in the black suit), kept getting x-rays sent to him on his iPhone (he was on call). Is that not so cool?!? Fortunately, our team didn't have any serious injuries that required Perry and the doc to run out on the field.

And we finally reached the point where it was clear the game was ours. The kids were sooooo excited! It's the first time a team has won back to back state championships in Missouri (Perry's team won the championship last year as well).

It was a great end to the season. They have some great kids on the team and they so deserve this title.

.

But, I'll be happy to have my husband home on Saturdays now that football is FINALLY over. Oh wait, we're heading smack into basketball and wrestling season. Ugh.

Ghosts and Goblins

Or something like that....

Here are the kids before heading out to Trick or Treat on Friday night (our town has a parade on Halloween so the kids trick or treat the night before.)

Elise is very protective and proud of her pumpkins. She picked out the two little ones and gave creative input on the carved design.

And I'm not entirely sure what Carson is dressed up as this year. This is actually Costume #3. Costume #1 was ditched at 8:45 the night before his school party in favor of Costume #2. Costume #2 was worn to school but ditched the moment he came home. Some friends called to invite him to join them trick or treating and that's when Costume #3 materialized. Turns out the mask got too steamy during the actual treak or treating so he basically went as a 10 year kid. At least he's still interested in trick or treating...I know we may not have too many of those left in the future.

Elise's Halloween party

Let the party begin! For the record, Elise was a wizard this year. She was more about the outfit than the character, though, as it involved a sparkly cape, sparkly hat and sparkly boa scarf.


Elise's school has this great Halloween tradition of walking through the historic, part of town past some amazing historic houses, to our district's main office (in a renovated old Victorian house). It's a great walk and the kids have fun showing off their costumes. An added benefit - they get a little tired out to offset all the sugar of Halloween! :)


Because of the insane amount of rain this year, the parade was moved inside. Wasn't quite the same, but fun nonetheless. (This is our last year in that school, none of the other schools in the district do this walk, so I was looking forward to one last time before Elise moves on....sigh.)


Elise did this during the parade. She was very intent on watching each kid. I asked her afterwards what she was doing...she was counting the number of kids in each class. OK...

Next came the class party time. Elise loved the craft and I put my camera away and chatted with the other moms.

It was a fun time. We quickly sped across town and caught the last 5 minutes of Carson's party but I didn't even time to whip out the camera to embarrass him.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

This is what happens when you give 10 year olds a video camera....

Carson and his friend have these new cars they enjoy racing but they wanted to take it to a new level and make a video. I let them borrow my Flip camera and this is the result.

Please note that I'd asked them NOT to run the car through high water as I didn't want to hear any belly-aching if it didn't work afterwards (even though they are billed as being waterproof and running them through creeks seems to be one of the big selling points).

Nice to know they listen, huh?

If you want to give the boys a thrill, please give the video a rating. They are getting a kick out of seeing how many times it's been viewed and how it's been rating (that 1-star rating didn't sit well!)

Here is the direct link (for rating purposes).

Happy Birthday Spencer!!!

My nephew Spencer turns 10 today!!! Happy Birthday, Spencer!


Think word is out that he likes football?


His party was at one of those giant trampoline places.

Carson was pretty pooped afterwards!

My sister and brother-in-law who are doing a fantastic job parenting 4 amazing boys.

Pumpkins!

First, I'm a lousy blogger these days. Lousy at putting up posts and lousy at commenting on the blogs I follow. I'm reading, just not commenting much.

We had company this weekend! Perry's folks, his sister and our niece came to visit. Elise only has a handful of girl cousins (and nothing but boy cousins on my side of the family) so she was pretty excited to have Jennifer to play with all weekend!



Believe it or not, this was a sunny day for us. We've had nothing but grey skies, rain and chilly weather lately. OK, it was downright chilly when we went pumpkin picking but not raining.

I love pumpkins. Love the warty ones.

Love the brightly colored ones.

Love the colorful (and warty!) ones.

Carson was determined to get a huge pumpkin. The rule was he had to lift it by himself into the cart (and I wasn't paying over $20!).

The kids spent lots of time searching for just the perfect pumpkin.

And a better mom would have dressed her child in a cuter outfit for pumpkin picking. (In all fairness, the kids both had soccer games earlier in the day and Elise's team is pink...hence the pink shirt and pink pants. The purple sweatshirt was an afterthought so she wouldn't freeze....she really needed a MUCH warmer outfit, though!)

.

And...a better mom would have taken a picture of the pumpkins that were picked out. Sigh...Perhaps that will be another post.

Games

We've discovered a great new company that makes family games. The company is called Simply Fun and if you are ever invited to a party, I strongly encourage you to attend. (One of my good friends just signed up as an consultant so if you want anything, let me know and I'll hook you up.)


This game has become one of Elise's new favorites. Perfect for a rainy Saturday afternoon with no friends able to come play.


This game is called Walk the Dogs and involves setting up and collecting various breeds of doggies.


And Elise takes the game very seriously.

After many rounds of Walk the Dogs, we moved onto Picky Sticks (or the porcupine game as Elise calls it).

Be warned, if you come to my house, my girlie might just rope you into a round of Walk the Dogs!