My prayer for our children:
Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle
~Romans 12:9-10 (The Message)
Follow this link to Baloney's blog and add your own Perfect Sunday Pairing!
I opened my window
and pushed out the screen.
Had to capture a picture of the
blazing fire outside my bedroom window,
while it's still burning.
Hot!
Perhaps that post title sounds a little racy.
Just trying to be a little creative here.
The local aquarium has HallowMarine
and the zoo has Hallowzooeen.
This is the Hankins' family version! Hankoween.
One blogging challenge is how to make the same types of pictures from annual events fresh and interesting every year.
I am blogging my FOURTH Halloween! I am excited about that fact, but aware that Halloweens 2006, 2007, and 2008 could look scarily like the Halloween of 2009, just different costumes.
Traditions:
We always go to a Halloween party with my sister and her family before Halloween, followed by a grab bag of Halloween parties and decorating cookies at Granny's house. Finally, we have the visit to Granny's on Halloween Eve and then Trick or Treating in the Mackey's neighborhood, followed by a quick strike back in our own neighborhood. It is just about the most fun a kid could have. And with the weather this year, I was feeling the fun... it was absolutely gorgeous... plus there were no heavy winter coats messing with the presentation of my kids' costumes.
Speaking of that... what is up with my kids' choices of costumes?
I guess Luke's choice was pretty typical for a 6 year old boy... he always wants to be mean or scary... this year he was Cobra from the G.I. Joe show....? I have no idea who that is, really. Could be a character of a serial killer for all I know.
Then Ellie chose to be a nerd. I told her she didn't have to dress up to be a nerd. She could just go as herself. Ha ha. She was cracking us up with her suspenders, taped up glasses and pens in her pocket. She collected her Halloween candy in a backpack. Here she is with her cousins, Ana and Hallie. Look how DARLING they both look, and then, there's my nerd. One thing she does have is personality!
And Kami got this totally original idea to be duck tape girl. Duck tape seems to be "the thing" this year... the girls at school are making duck tape bracelets and covering their notebooks in duck tape. If you didn't know already, duck tape (as opposed to duct tape) comes in a plethora of colors. Even plaid. Kam fashioned her costume out of some old clothes and orange, pink and purple duck tape. The costume was actually about $ 40.00 cheaper than the Cobra dude that Luke dressed up as.... she also has a silver duck tape bow and a striped duck tape cape. Here Duck Tape Girl is with her friend Goldilocks at a Halloween party.
I thought my girls both looked cute and their costumes were just right for each of them. However, for just once could they possibly look like my sister's children? Just once, put on a frilly skirt and revel in their girlishness? Pleeeease?
I call them the three pretty princesses, because that is what they are. Gorgeous. Adorable. Princessy. Precious. And such a contrast to my nerd, my duck tape girl and my... um... cobra man. 
Take a look at an up close contrast: the nerd and the ballerina. Sigh. I've given in to it. 
Don't get me wrong... I adore my kids just as they are. I am not going to squeeze their fanny cheeks into a frilly costume they don't want to wear. I might consider it though! ;-) Costume choice is just a funny part of our Hankoween.
So is all the other fun stuff, like getting Boo'd. Did any of you get Boo'd? That is when someone comes and leaves you Halloween treats at night. They ring your doorbell and run away. Then, you return the favor to someone else. My kids got Boo'd and they Boo'd some friends. These lovely teeth above were from one of our fun boos. 
Like the eyeball cookies we made this year? Ellie called this her "Here's Looking at You" cookie. 
Possibly the cutest Halloween costumes I saw were the Oompa Loompa and Willy Wonka, which further proves my point. My kids don't have to be frilly, just coordinated! That would work for me! I am not getting bitter... just sayin'....
Eating some severed finger gummies. Oh so yummy.
The spookiest house in the neighborhood... visiting it is a Hankoween tradition.
Kami and her purple skittle of a sweet friend. 
This picture just kind of sums up our Hankoween. The preciousness of time with friends and family. Showing love and attention to others. Having a zest for life and breathing in each second.....
.... even if it is with my Cobra man, my nerd and my duck tape girl.
Leave it to Ellie, our Halloween nerd (more on that soon) to notice a miniature green spotted bug crawling lazily on a lavendar mum at Granny's house on Halloween afternoon. 
Ecclesiastes 3:11
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
He stands imposingly in the doorway.
Broad shouldered, darkly staring me down.
Accusing. Glaring. Denouncing.
A few years back, before kids, I asked Tom for a dog.
I wanted a Yorkie, like the cute, little, sassy girl Yorkie I grew up with, Cinci.
Tom bought me a dog.
Sweetly, he hid the puppy in the laundry basket and asked me to grab him a towel. To my surprise, there the black dot of a Yorkie lay sleeping.
It was so cute until it grew into an enormous boy dog, at 15 pounds, much heftier than the average Yorkie.
To this day, we still wonder what those AKC papers are printed on.
Although Cosmo (named after Cosmo Kramer from Seinfeld) wasn't what I was expecting AT ALL, He has turned out to be a pretty good old boy.
It didn't start off on the best paw.
He flunked puppy kindergarten because he hates other dogs.
He chewed my Brookside starter house into smitherines.
He acted as though he would rather jump in a volcano than interact with other animals.
He always walked around with an apologetic look in his eye.
He didn't really understand the idea of spunk.
He ate up one of Tom's baby pictures that was really special to me.
I wanted to strangle him at that point.
But things got better. He started becoming a good boy.
His timidity towards other dogs meant that going outside was only a place to do his business, never to dig holes or harrass kittys.
He got over his chewing stage and barked at all the appropriate times.
His big body meant a big bladder. No accidents or potty problems like those 5 pound Yorkies have. 
Though devastated when our first child was born, he grew to love the kids. They love him back.
He makes us laugh with his quirky ways.
He wears sweaters without complaint, even though Tom takes up for him and secretly peels off the sweater when I'm not looking.
He is never the agressor, yet never rude. Just silently pleading to get him the heck out of dodge.
The boy would never run away. He stands outside the door desperately waiting to get back in.
And look, can you see that he still has that humble look of apology? Like, ahem, I'm so sorry to bother you here, but I'd like to come back into the house now. Thank you.
Quite like an old English fart, he is. We call him neurotic behind his back. But he really is a good boy.
In his old age, I am starting to notice his health going downhill. He can't see too well and pees in weird (though still acceptable) places.
Last week he peed in the garage. And even when he does something he shouldn't, he is still a good boy. 
He peed in the shape of a heart. Good dog.
Once again, we went to the pumpkin patch in Bixby.
We enjoyed the usual elements:
mounds and mounds of bright orange pumpkins.
Cute little girls in kitty cat shirts.
Interesting farm animals. Lots of 'em.
Bags of feed for .50 cents apiece. Pony rides: $4.00. 
Scarecrows and other photo ops. 
And something new for us this year: mud. See it on the pumpkin?
Look at the ground. It was impossible to avoid the sludge of muddy soup.
The mud on this boy is just a small sample of the total amount that covered him by the end of our visit. 
The pictures don't do the mud justice. The upside? Not many people decided to brave the mud like we did, so we had the whole sloppy place to ourselves. I tried to ignore the fact the mud won; it took me an entire day to get the boots, the blankets and my car free from the caked on baked on mud. The kids didn't care, in fact they had fun in spite or because of the mud!
