Another fun-filled Newcom weekend. 

My gratitude for weekend:

• no major potty accidents all weekend
• Kara coming and baby-sitting for us Saturday night
• beautiful weather
• good neighbors 
• My husband working very hard on the halloween costumes/accessories

I ended up having to work on Saturday so that I could be off this coming Saturday for E's 2nd Birthday party. We are having his party a week early because Gma & Gpa Newcom are coming back in town this Wednesday (Hooray!).  Then Saturday night we went to a Halloween party thrown by my overnight Pharmacist, Yvonne. It was a great party and great to get out of the house without the kids and mingle with adults and margaritas.

As you can see, I didn't have a fancy costume. Ryan and I went in "pajamas" and Ryan attached a twin mattress to his back so it looked like we were lying in a bed. I really didn't get any good pictures of it. Darn.  I wore my SERIOUSLY? shirt which was quite a hit, however.

OK, now to the kiddos.

E's new thing (besides Choo Choo's because that is more of an obsession right now) is his "Baa Pac". I bought this for him back in June when we went to IN but he didn't want anything to do with it. I found it in his closet while putting clothes away and he put it on and wouldn't take it off the rest of the night.

And the next morning.

He just walks around pointing to it, "My Baa Pac". It helps that it has Cars on it. Anything Cars, Trucks, Buses, or Trains — he is absolutely obsessed with right now.

Unfortunately though, he wasn't obsessed with the UPS truck Ryan made to match his halloween costume. He wouldn't even sit in it for the Halloween parade through the community yesterday. 

Wonder Woman got stuck driving it….which she wasn't very happy about. BUT she was very popular with all the boys in the neighborhood. Here's the one shot I got with E in the truck….note the crowd of people surronding  them.

The UPS truck did get a lot of attention at the parade. Every kid (except our own) wanted to drive it. Go figure.

(I haven't seen my UPS driver roll around in my front yard before….but I suppose its possible.)

And after numerous attempts to not only get all 3 kids picture taken but to get it in front of the UPS truck….this is the best I got.

Hopefully the UPS truck is more desired come Friday night. It will be a good time either way…the kids loved to be in their costumes!

After dinner we hung out with some of our neighbors, Cindy & Russ. On this occasion she showed me her shoe collection. 

Seriously…..this cannot go unblogged. 

Seriously.

And there was more….I needed a wide angle lens to get them all in.

Gotta love it. Happy Monday everyone.

You may be looking at this and thinking, What on earth?

Well, Ry rigged the hummer to tow the wagon. Typically this is how the story plays out:

On this beautiful October morning, however, Daddy decided to get a ride. It was pretty hilarious for everyone. And I will confess that I got a ride as well. (But there are no pictures to prove it!)

On a side note: You may have noticed E's new hair-do. I started to spike it up with some gel.

STINKIN' CUTE!

came in the mail today.

Just as I was thinking…."oh man, I'm one month closer to being 31 years old now!"

Ahhh. Nothing can take that pain away like a new purse from Ms. Spade.

From my older yet fabulous sister, Lori. 

Thank you.

Uuff. Monday.

I am now back to week #1 in my work rotation. Week 1 is by far the worst week. I don't have my Tuesday off and I only have one 8-4 shift. That means that Ry has to do dinner and baths by himself 4 days this week. Uuff.

This also mean I have to do some diligent planning when it comes to dinners. Easy stuff that makes dinner, dance class, soccer practice, homework, tempers, time-outs, baths, and bedtime that much easier.

• Monday: Lasagna (already baked…to be reheated in microwave)
• Tuesday: Hot dogs & mac/cheese (all microwavable)
• Wednesday: pre-sliced honey ham cooked in crock pot
• Thursday: (my 8-4 day) Parmesean crusted Tilapia
• Friday: Tostados (meat/rice premade…to be heated in microwave)

I'm really looking forward to getting staffed (aka: I will have the same pharmacists working with me everyday instead of floaters who could care less about my store). That will be an enormous relief.

The rest of the weekend was good here in the Newcom house. No potty accidents and generally good behavior all around. Saturday morning we had Krys's soccer game. Still the same…..she has no desire to play whatsoever.

The highlight of the morning was the cool crisp temperature which gave me the oppurtunity to dress E in one of his new shirts. Love it.

Saturday night Ryan headed out with Ian while Kara came over to hang out with the kids and I. They were all very excited to have Aunt Kara there. We went to Fralo's for some pizza. It was a gorgeous evening and the kids had a great time.

E really liked the pasta sauce that came on the side of his spaghetti. So when I saw him drinking it I did what any good Mother would do…..grabbed my camera to take a picture.

Sundays lately have been consumed by church. Ryan and I are taking "turbo" classes to become Small Group Leaders. That is held from 11-12:30. X has Christmas Choir practice during the same time so we end up going to the 9:30am service then going to our extra stuff (leaving E and Krys in their Sunday school class for 3 hours) only to get home around 1pm. Although its all good stuff…..we'll be happy to get back to our 8am service after the holidays.

The best part of yesterday was E's clothing. I folded his laundry while he ate breakfast. I noticed that Krys's new shirt I had just bought her was in E's laundry…..I set it aside.

Ry came along (while I was in the shower) and put away his clothes (including Krys's shirt) then got E dressed.

In Krys's new shirt.

Ry claimed ignorance and the fact that it was with E's laundry. I tried to argue that the shirt has bright pink in it and that I wouldn't normally dress E in pink. Either way….E didn't want to take the shirt off. He liked it.

So he wore it all day. Hilarious.

This is him attempting to eat bark from the ground. Yum.

Gotta love Krys's hair everytime she goes down the slide.

Oh, so good to be at home with not much to do for a weekend. We needed it. 

*And if you are wondering why I have no pictures of X–she avoids my camera like she does broccoli. Even when I force her to look at me she either gives me a mean look or a fake smile. Go figure.

I planned a "surprise" for the kids yesterday.

After school (for them) and work (for me) we headed down to Hondo, TX, about an hour outside San Antonio. There was where the "South Texas Maze" Fall festival was held.

I packed a picnic dinner of peanut butter & fluff sanwhiches, popcorn, and rice krispy treats. The good stuff. I think my picnic would have gone over better if they weren't all dying to get up and start playing.

You may notice in the bottom of this picture E's monogramed lunchbag. Love it! (Thanks Devon)

Once we let them start playing they were in heaven. Our first visit was to the slide. 

I'm sure it hurt their butts every time but they never stopped. Krys would make her trademark "Ahhh" noise which sounded hilarious amplified by the tube and the bumps.

E loved it too. (And look at that handsome little man with a new haircut!)

We pryed them away from this and went to the "corn-popper". At first I thought you had to be a certain height to go on so I had Krys stand against the board to see how tall she was. X, of course, wanted to show Krys that she was taller and promptly went to the 48" board. I love how E just followed his big sisters and stood against a board too.

Ok, seriously, this was so much fun to watch.

E had a hard time figuring out how to walk on this thing but laughed the entire time.

Krys could surely jump but her 30 lb body didn't cause a whole lot of ripple. Which is the ultimate goal….to jump and make others pop like popcorn.

Once X figured this out, her and E were really having fun.

E really wanted us to come join in the fun. Which, granted, may have been fun but I was happy taking pictures.

The kids tried to take part in everything they had to offer. This haystack provided about 3.5 minutes of fun…..but I liked a couple of the pictures I got. You can see the "I'M 4" necklace is back. It was mine when I was 4 and my mom gave it to Krys back in July. She promptly broke it (on accident). But thank goodness for Grandmas because she got it fixed and gave it back to Krys when she was here a couple weeks ago.

As it was quickly approaching dusk, we decided to head into "The maze". I was hesitant to see how the kids would do but they loved it! There were 5 stops inside the maze that you could answer questions to and the answer would direct where you go. Such as: In Charlotte's web, who was Charlotte? A) a pig (go left) B) a spider (go right) C) a girl (go back). There was about 10 different categories of questions to choose from. We, obviously, chose the tiny tot questions.

E actually followed the girls very well. He only had to be held for a little bit during our 30 minutes in the maze. And…….we had to take turns being the line-leader. There was almost a little drama over that but got settled thank goodness.

 I'm so glad we did this. Friday night was a gret time to go. I can't imagine how busy it is on a Saturday night. When we were coming home (and stopped at Walgreens to get my car) Krys said, "Mommy-that was a terrific surprise, thank you." She has such a heart of gratitude. I love it.

My normal wake up time is 5:00 am. Today X woke me up at 7:03am telling me her bus just went by.

Crap. Not how I like to start my day.

But it's improving by the minute as the little kids contine to sleep. While I like getting them to school early, I like them being rested and not grumpy so much more.

Yesterday (on my precious day off) I had to drive to Austin to sit in front of the State Board of Pharmacy and represent my pharmacy. Over two years ago (within my first 3 weeks of being manager) there was a misfill done by another pharmacist that got reported to the board. They finally got around to hearing the case yesterday.

I was asked by the corporate attorney to go to report to the board all the changes and improvements I have made trying to lessen our punishment.

I felt like a did a pretty good job, however…. this particular pharmacy has been on probation by the board 3 times previously for failure to counsel since 1997 and frankly I think they were sick of seeing us back on the chopping block.

We ended up getting "sentenced" to a 3 year probation. 

Totally sucks. No other way to say it.  3 years is a long time…..E will be in Kindergarten by the time my pharmacy is off probation!!

Speaking of E….

He was quite into the mickey mouse in the newspaper the other morning.

Our little man is so big reading the paper (even though its upside down).

at this year's costumes:

…..Stinkin' cute!

I'd like to say that the theme of the Adoption party wasn't sugar but to most parents I'm sure it seemed that way.

We rented a cotton candy machine, snow cone machine, 3 in 1 giant moomwalk castle, and hired a professional balloon artist. 

First, the cotton candy machine. Seriously. The kids loved it. I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Thank you, Alejandra for assisting with the Cotton Candy production. We clearly had no clue what we were doing!

The moonwalk was awesome. X and Krys were elated to get up from their "resting time" Saturday afternoon to find this thing in the back yard.

And every child that came into our backyard immediately took their shoes off and ran inside this thing. It was a total kid magnet.

I was very happy to see that Krys was helping her brother into the castle.

The snow cones were also devoured by the children. E especially took a liking to the high fructose corn syrup.

Finally, our balloon artist. I was fearful he may not be as good as I was paying for him….or that the kids wouldn't want balloon artistry. I was wrong on both. He was awesome and the kids stood in line to get a balloon made. He was there for 1.5 hours and had a line the entire time.

And just like that – the party was over. In the end, I was thrilled with how it turned out. I heard X say at one point, "This is the best day ever!"

The exact reason we pulled out all the stops on this one. We wanted her to remember this when she thinks back to her "adoption time" instead of all the visits to court and foster care and such. 

Thanks to everyone who came to help us celebrate and share in this special time of our lives.

On Friday, X participated in the school's "Bike Rodeo". She had to ride her bike through a series of different tasks to demonstrate her biking ability.

Being the type-A parents that we are, we had her practice nearly every day last week on a chalk-drawn course in the cul-de-sac. At one point I stood out there with a clipboard directing her practice. As Ryan drove home from getting the little ones from school he saw me and said I looked very drill sargent-ish. It was really all in fun though, I promise!

So both Grandparents were town by Friday morning and we all went to the school to watch her. I'll admit: I had high hopes of her winning.

Her first task was to ride as slow as possible through 2 lines about 3 feet apart from each other without falling off or stearing outside the lines. 

As you can see, she is heading in the right direction when she starts:

Somehow, however, she immediately started riding outside both lines on the left hand side. I didn't get any pictures of this because I was too busy being an over-controlling mom motioning and telling her to get inside the lines.

I did try and redeem my outburst by telling her it was just for fun and it didn't matter. She then proceeded to totally ace the other tasks.

 Meanwhile, Grandpa was having a good time with E so I could take pictures and chat with other moms.

I'm working on not being a perfectionist Mom. It's challenging.