Never Too Big, Never

We dug the fake tree out of the crawl space the Sunday after Thanksgiving and set to decorating. We covered our tree with splendor and it was Ethan's turn to crown it.

He is still small enough to be lifted up to put the angel on the tree, with a little creativity.

One proud father.

And one proud son.

Thank heavens he isn't too old for the tradition, even if he is almost eighteen. Eighteen! I have to go cry in a corner now.

Passed on the first try!!

Her official driver's license will come in two weeks. But this little piece of paper gives her legal rights to drive a vehicle. Thoughts and prayers would be appreciated.

Halloween

We spent Sunday afternoon carving our pumpkins. From right to left we have Ethan's, Libby's, Sam's cyclops, Grace's Doofenshmirtz, Michael's exclamation, and Katie's phoenix. Sam tried to do a platypus, but got frustrated with the complexity and ended with a cyclops. Grace had a similar experience. She wrote on the side of her pumpkin, "Don't ask". If you are familiar with the show Phineas and Ferb, then hopefully you recognize the villain on Grace's pumpkin. 

After the carving the kids got ready to go trick or treating. Libby and her friend took her little brother trick or treating in a quest to score some candy for themselves. I believe they were successful.

After not being able to trick or treat last year, Grace and Sam were going to make this year work! Grace was a ghost bride and Sam was the perennial favorite, a pirate.

 

Grace spent the weeks before Halloween planning the ideal route for her and her friends. Her dedication paid off. She came home with 7.5 lbs of candy. 

Sam went with a different group of friends and scored 6.5 lbs for himself. 

Baby Cousins

I love the babies. All the babies. I don't need a baby of my own but I will take any opportunity to cuddle and play with the babies of others. Thankfully relatives have seen fit to keep me in the babies.

I have a new great nephew. He's turned me into a baby sniffer. The kids think I've lost my mind, but I don't care. I sniff at this poor babies head like it's a drug. He doesn't even mind a little bit.

We are still watching his big brother as well. I love this spider boy.

And he loves meow-meows. He tried to bring this one home with us. Thankfully, it had other plans.

My sister-in-law brought these monkeys over and we had a great time. This little girl is absolutely adorable and a criminal genius. Everything I owned was on top of the fridge by the time they left. It was the only place to keep things safe from this girl.

 Her big brother is much quieter and so happy to play with my kids. We are in love with these two people.

We are in love with all the little nieces and nephews and the great nephews, and the cousins, and any baby that wanders into our general proximity.

Home Sweet Homecoming

Both the teens decided to go to an outdoor, supposedly socially distanced and masked, homecoming dance. The first dance in almost two years!! I doubt the student body observed the social distance rules, but I am glad an attempt was made.

Ethan invited Lily to the dance with him, and they invited Zoe to join them.

Lily's the brunette and Zoe is the blonde.

Libby asked her friend Tate to accompany her. She hosted a get together with a few friends at the house before the party and they all went together (I had been kicked out of the house for the event, so have no photos of all the lovely people), just these two cuties.

Ethan had a great time at the dance. Libby ended up leaving early after having a non-enjoyable time. This seems about right, statistically. I remember enjoying about half the dances I've gone to and HATING the other half. Dances are very weird, emotionally charged atmospheres.

I'm just so glad the teens had a chance to dress up, go to a dance, and have a normal teen experience. Good or bad, I'm just so thankful for somewhat normal.