Happy Halloween!

1.) If those of you who have called and left messages on my cell phone in the last couple of days read this, so sorry about not returning phone calls. My battery died, and I kept forgetting to charge it until today!

Since that is out of the way...on to Halloween pictures.

I hesitate to even show this first picture, being that I really don't like to take pictures of myself alone or posing for any reason whatsoever, but the whole story is kind-of funny. The school's PTA sponsored a Halloween costume contest for the students yesterday (anyone want to guess what that means for a school day? WILD AND CRAZY!!!) and the teachers dressed up, too. Being a new teacher, I will admit that I did a little fretting over the costume because I wanted to do something fun that the kids would enjoy, but I didn't want to spend any money doing it nor be too terribly over the top. So, around 10:00 Thursday night, I was scrounging around through things trying to come up with something. I tried on old dance costumes, thought about wearing my wedding dress and being a bride, and even put together an outfit to be a golfer, when Evan suggested using the feather boa in Kendall's room and dressing up like a real eccentric old lady. Finally, I thought, "I could just be Fancy Nancy, the book character. All the kids will know who she is!" So, that was my attempt.


I rolled my hair, put on some crazy purple eye shadow, a lace dress (that belonged to Evan's Nana), some fancy high-heels, feather boa and sunglasses. I get to school, and my team-mate, Rachel (who is a slice of pizza) says, "Oh, Leah, you look so pretty. What are you going for in that get-up?" I replied with, "Fancy Nancy!" and she gets this shocked look on her face. I then said, "You know, the book character!" She says, "Oh, okay. I know who that is. But just to let you know, in my hometown, Fancy Nancy was a prostitute!!!" Oh, brother! We decided I'd be better off saying I was a diva for the rest of the day!!!

We had some great teacher and student costumes. One whole team dressed up as the Wizard of Oz characters, complete with a real Toto. On our team, we had a student dress up as the best old woman I've EVER seen, and to top it all off, it was a BOY underneath the costume! I must say that I was very impressed with the kids' creativity!

I completely dropped the ball with a costume for Kendall this year. I wanted her to be a flower, and found a costume on Ebay, but never went back to check on it. Honestly, I don't really care that much, because she's not to the point where she can play dress-up in her costumes, so in my opinion, paying much more than $5 for something would be a waste.

We were invited over to Danny and Carey's house for a little fall party, so I decided to dress Kendall in the cute little orange tutu that Aunt Mere sent for her birthday. If I would have thought about it before Thursday night, I would have tried to find some kind of cute pumpkin iron-on patch to put on the shirt. I thought Kendall looked cute in her orange tutu and orange hair bow (compliments of Laura) for the occasion.

Carey is the ultimate entertainer. I wish I had a good picture of her cute table...she had all kinds of fall decorations with candy corn (my favorite being the acrylic box-type picture frames with candy corn glued on the inside.) She is also the queen of coupon shopping, and scored on some hamburgers from Omaha Steaks, and graciously shared those with her friends! We enjoyed hanging out with Danny, Carey, and family, Torey Kedra and family, and Jeff, Rachel and family.

After burgers and dogs, Carey had their basement set up like a little carnival, complete with prizes. She even made the fishing game, where you get a bag of candy attached to the fishing pole!! So cute! Kendall was all over the place, with her main interest being climbing up and down the basement stairs.

After games, we went back upstairs for caramel apples. Carey let all the bigger kids dip and decorate.

What a great time with friends! Thanks, Carey for inviting us over!

Today we are just hanging out...Evan had his last soccer game and is now watching the AR/Tulsa game and we are taking dinner to some friends who just had a baby last week (on Kendall's birthday!). I'm off work until Wednesday and looking forward to some time at home with my family!