Knock, Knock...

Okay, so again I find myself on a Sunday night realizing that I have TONS to blog about! Unfortunately, it dates back to Halloween and I figured with the BIG holidays coming, I better get with the program!!!

So, we spent the night at Jackie and Steve's after their party. Jackie and I went for a run that Saturday (Halloween!) morning and did a little cleaning of the party stuff and toilet paper outside!!!

Here is a cute pic of Baby Henry hanging out!
After we got done cleaning up we managed to get a quick pic of the four cousins (we were missing our little Cinderella as Alyssa wasn't able to make it up!) in their costumes! Nick is the Special Forces Power Ranger, Buka is the Cat in the Hat, Henry is the adorable little dragon and Jack is the black Power Ranger!
We headed home and quickly got moving on carving our pumpkins! We started with the smallest one and worked our way up! We even let Luke draw his own face - with a little help from Daddy!
Nick drew his own face and then Daddy, a.k.a. "the carver" carved it out!!! Nick looks like he likes the finished product!
Jack helped in all aspects of the carving, except for the removing of all the pumpkin "guts" which unfortunately, was my job!!!
All of the finished products...
Luke and I then took a much needed nap before we headed over to Bob and Angie's house! Here are their cutie "angel" and "devil" little girls!!! They were seriously TOO cute! Luke didn't want to pose, so he missed out on this photo op!
We got back home, where Nana and Papa had graciously started handing out candy for us. I took over that job, while Dan and Nana took the three boys out. They didn't last too long as they were back in less than 10 minutes. I did manage to convince Jack to head back out, but only for a few more houses. We did head back home and all the boys had more fun handing out candy to other kids! Here they pose with Nana!!! (Papa and Dan hung out inside the warm house!)
Here is our family pic of the night...with all the pumpkins and even our scarecrow!
Finally though, after the kids came down off their sugar high, they were in bed in no time!!! And I was left to enjoy my Halloween wall, as it has been dubbed!
Hope everyone had a great Halloween, you know, like 3 weeks ago!!!

Black and White

So today after work I had an appointment to get my hair cut and colored. I didn't pick up the boys from daycare until after 5:30, so it was time for us to hit the Golden Arches. As we were sitting there enjoying our chicken nuggets and salad (the boys were SO good and calm, it was crazy!) Jack looks me dead in the face and this comes out of his mouth...

"So, who lived in black and white? Did Nana???"

OMG, I SO wanted to laugh, but instead I clarified what he meant and of course, he thought that when TV shows were in black and white that people LIVED like that...too cute! I immediately called my mom who got such a chuckle out of it and told me to make a mental memory of that and write it down...where else better to write it than to share with the world (or at least a few friends of mine on the blog!)

She then went on to remind me of the time that I yelled out in church, "Mom, how do you make love?" meaning, how do you WRITE "love" as I was composing a letter to my grandma...nice, eh???

A Halloween Hollowing Good Time!

The Friday night before Halloween Jackie and Steve had a bit of a Halloween get together! Thankfully all of the rain had stopped just in time for the party to begin, so we all got to hang outside! Here are the boys chillin' by the fire!
There was plenty of dancing...
And TONS of food...

But some of us were still looking for SOMETHING to do! I don't quite know how this happened, but a few of us found ourselves "decorating" Jackie and Steve's trees!

Here are me and even my mom posing with our "tinsel!"
Jackie and Steve had just planted 6 new trees, all of which were tied to stakes in the ground. Unfortunately, it was very dark and VERY wet! Poor Sandy definitely took one for the team when she tripped over a rope and was SO close to falling into some MAJOR water. Luckily she kept her balance and just stepped into the "river" flowing through Jackie and Steve's backyard! Here are her poor, wet pants!
Here was the "decorating" crew! My cousins Kelly, Sandy, Kari, me and Luke (with tons of Halloween stickers on his face!). (Nana flew the coup before we took the pic!)
Jack, Nick and Luke were GREAT that night!!! The toilet paper in the trees added to their fun! They loved it...and it kept them busy for a good 30 minutes of so!
The adults weren't wearing costumes, but Henry was...wasn't he just too cute as a dragon!!! (Jackie, you looked cute too!)
Again, I honestly don't know how this happened, but we ended up decorating Jackie and Steve's room...here is Kelly and Kari!
...and the finished product!
Dan went downstairs with the boys and surprisingly was the first one to fall asleep! Sandy and her girls were ready to make a little more mischief...but Dan woke up...
Thanks to Jackie and Steve for hosting a GREAT party! Thankfully we spent the night and good thing too, as Buka was partying until after midnight! Here is one last picture of me, Jackie and my mom and dad! We certainly missed Bryan (our brother!) this year as he had to work and was unable to come up for the big party. Can't wait to hopefully see ya, Bry during Thanksgiving!

A Cat at CID...

This past Tuesday and Thursday nights, I have had to stay at work until after 8 pm for parent teacher conferences! In return for our late nights, we got Friday off! It was a perfect day to be off too, as I got to help Luke Trick or Treat at CID! We started our morning off with circle time...

Here are his teacher Ms. Natalie and his classmates, Francis, Buka, Boogie and Ella!
After their morning routine, they all put their costumes on! This was a bit of a fight for Luke and I as he is a TOTALLY different little guy at CID. He refuses to talk, until he opens up a bit around 11, just one hour before class is over, and on Friday he screamed b/c he didn't want his Cat in the Hat costume on.
Luckily, I won that battle (minus the hat!) and he was able to trick or treat with the rest of his class! Here he is with Miss Natalie - prompting his language, and Ms. Katie, his SLP, handing out the candy!
After about an hour of trick or treating...the kids got TONS of candy as EVERYONE at CID participated in handing out candy and the kids got TONS of practice and lots of good language!!! Here Luke is getting ready to dig in! Check out the smile now!!!
He got to eat a few treats then went to gym class, while I went to talk to the Pre-K principal to discuss the possibility of Luke attending there. In a nutshell the program is AMAZING and I'm sure Luke would grow in leaps and bounds...just not sure what we are going to do in February when he turns three yet!!!

After our meeting and Luke's class was over, we ran to the car. Check this out...Luke would not let go of his candy bag. In fact, he held it the entire way home!!! Check out the cheese in this pic!!!
Stay tuned...pics from Jackie and Steve's Halloween Party!!!

Crafty Kids!

Saturday night the boys spent the night at Nana and Papa's house while Dan and I went to a friend's house for an outdoor movie night! It was seriously cool as they had a huge movie screen outside!

Anyhow, Nana and Papa took them to see "Where the Wild Things Are." Luke was a mess during the movie (his first one!), Jack loved it, and my little Nicky D cried, not because he wanted to go home or didn't get his way, but because he was sad about the ending...how sensitive!

Sunday morning they woke up and made origami cats on brooms for Halloween. Yep, you did read that right, they did origami! The boys came home to show me their great creations and asked about other crafts. Thankfully I had some fall Oriental Trading items to make (thanks to Brooke, the special ed. teacher at school for passing her extras along to me!). All three boys got in the action in making a candy corn magnet and a "Happy Fall Ya'll" scarecrow sign!
Here is Nick in action!
And Luke too...don't ya love the tongue hanging out and the fabulous candy necklace for Halloween!
Jack models the finished product!
And Luke tells Dan, "No more scarecrows!" as he leaves his work station!
The boys LOVE this kind of stuff and it really is great to see them work happily together, sharing and actually bonding, and not wrestling with each other! Thanks to Dan for helping, even when Sunday football was on!!!

To Carve or Not to Carve!

So, I am definitely a lucky lady as I still get the opportunity to hang out with my girlfriends from high school every now and then!

One tradition is our annual pumpkin carving party. We always gather at Cara's house (she has the cutest little place...and no kids so it is nice and QUIET!!!). She makes her delish broccoli cheese soup and we bring lots of other edible goodies!!!

Once we finish eating, we bust out the pumpkins, well, at least some of us do! Initially we ALL would carve pumpkins, now, not so much. This year, Cara, Tonya and I were the only ones that opted to wield the knife and do some decorating.

Here is Cara getting her pumpkin ready...
Tonya's "shape" pumpkin, as she called it! Unfortunately we all got a good laugh at it...Tonya stayed true though and expressed only love for this "interesting" jack-o-lantern!
We were chatting about facebook and blogging and my two dear friends, Greta and Cara, who do neither, refused to get their picture taken for fear of it ending up, well, here!!! :) I attempted to snap a few and this is the best that I got!!!
Katie is a facebook fanatic! She was happy to pose for this goofy picture!!!
Our conversation, carving and cheesy broccoli soup were amazing, but the best part was that the six of us were able to get together without husbands and kids and enjoy a comfy night. Months may pass when we rarely talk to each other, but we always have such a great time when we get together, almost as if time has stood still!!!

Here is our group...me, Greta, Sharon, Tonya, Cara, and Katie posed with our pumpkins...mine is the one on the right - with polka dots!!! Love you girls! Can't wait until our next night out!

A Chilly Day for Outside Adventures...

Dan took off Saturday so we could spend a little family time in the great outdoors, well, as outdoorsy as we get - the Pumpkin Patch near our home! It was an outing for Children's Hospital's Cochlear Implant Support Group, of which we are obviously members! :)

We met the HUGE group - 2 tractors full of deaf children and teens along with their parents...some spoke, some signed...but we were all there together...in the COLD! Honestly, I don't think the temperature got above 50 degrees. I think the pics from our last year's pumpkin picking outing included us in shorts and t-shirts!!! What a difference a year makes!

We all loaded on the tractors and headed out to the pumpkin patch!
It may have been cold, but this picture captures the day...it was amazing!
The boys were running all over the muddy patch (and tripping on the vines!)...
But they did stop for me to take this picture! These aren't their actual pumpkins, I know this because Luke picked a super cool green one! Unfortunately, it fell off the wagon (ha!) on our way back to the country store. Thankfully one of the audiologists was on our tractor so she called another audiologist, still in the pumpkin patch, who brought Buka's great green pumpkin back! It was a bit bruised up, so those quick thinking audiologists brought a green replacement back and Luke was none the wiser! Thanks to our audiologists who take care of Buka's ears AND his green pumpkin, Jamie, Jerricha and Janet!
Here are my boys and I with the sun in our eyes...I was never so happy to see the sun, it added about 5 to 10 degrees to the cold, chilly day! Nick and Jack couldn't see because of the sun and Luke wanted to keep searching for his pumpkin...great pic, eh???
While we were waiting for Luke's green pumpkin, Dan and Nick had some apple cider! Nick LOVES the stuff!!!
After the pumpkin purchase we opted to make our own scarecrow. And that is REALLY what we did. We were given a paper full of directions and all the supplies we needed. Thanks to Dan and the boys for creating our scarecrow friend!
Here is Dan with all of the men of the Morra household!
There were ton of great photo opt places all over the farm. The boys indulged me a bit with the pics, but once they saw the fun corral and the bouncers, it was all down hill from there! Look at this HUGE pile of pumpkins!!!
After we put our scarecrow in the car we of course had to run over to the rides...Jack and Nick each chose to use their two tickets on the Jurassic bouncer, while Luke used one ticket for the Scooby Doo bouncer and one for this airplane ride...
We left the farm around 2 and headed to lunch, at the Golden Arches, of course! We then headed out to search for the boys' Halloween costumes. Nick and Luke found costumes quickly; however, Jack couldn't decide. Unfortunately, we didn't have too much time before Jack's 3:45 soccer game so we had to end our search and head to the soccer field. Jack played a great game, but poor kid, he was FREEZING, as was all of the spectators!!! Honestly, I took refuge in the porta potty, well, at least for a minute or two!

After the game we continued our search for Jack's costume and luckily he found one at the first shop we stopped at! We then headed home after a long, chilly day outside. After their baths/showers, the boys wanted to try on their costumes. They were even happy enough to pose by our new scarecrow and pumpkins for this pic! Here is a Halloween preview...my two Power Rangers and Cat in the Hat!
All in all a great day, but WAY too cold for all of the outdoor fun we had planned!