halloween costumes, round 3

last week's game

round one:
cooper picked a pirate skeleton, complete with eyepatch and sword
ainsley picked a pink, fairy princess with a ridiculous tutu
beckett didn't get to choose - he's the tom arma brown bear
round two:
cooper picked the pottery barn kids skeleton
ainsley picked an insanely cute pink flamingo
beckett is still the brown bear

(these are the costumes we had pictures taken in.)

round three:

cooper picked the red power ranger (the irony is that he has never seen a single

episode of power rangers.)

ainsley picked the green tinkerbell costume at the disney store

beckett is still the brown bear

you name it and we've tried it. this is it. i told matt, who hasn't shut up about the whole thing and how ridiculous i am, that if they decided they didn't want to be a power ranger and tinkerbell that it would be okay. but i also told him that they would not be trick or treating this halloween if that was the case. i know what you're thinking. coop is 4 and ains is 3; i should just tell them what they are going to be. i cannot help myself. i love halloween. this whole time of year, from now until new year's, is just fantastic. i don't see myself ever being one of those moms who waits until the last minute to buy costumes, or decorate for thanksgiving, or shop for Christmas gifts. i am always one step ahead of whatever holiday is lurking.

i am interrupting this train of thought to jump on another train. i made $230 selling "stuff" on ebay, otherwise known as ericabay. matt thinks he's really clever for coming up with this. i have to give him some credit for quick thinking. it is usually not his forte.

i had planned on going to chicago this weekend with some friends, but decided not to when it became more of a crowd than a party. to be honest, i was pretty bummed. i had been looking forward to going for about a month; shopping, seeing wicked, and eating out at great restaurants. it would have been fun. but luckily, i decided to stay home. thursday night, after a nice walk around the hood, we came back to find the kelly kids playing outside. so we sat down and talked with chris while the kids played. ains and alyssa jumped in the wagon and tyler pushed while coop pulled and they went flying down the sidewalk. i literally said out loud, "this is a bad idea," seconds before coop tripped on the bike in the middle of the sidewalk. he tripped, fell, and became a speed bump for the wagon. when he started screaming we realized he was really hurt. it turns out that the wheel carved off the tip of his thumb. matt cleaned it off, while coop screamed at the top of his lungs, and then we threw a bag of frozen peas on it and coop and i headed for the hospital. after two hours of waiting, xrays, and a couple of heated blankets we found out that they couldn't stitch back on the skin on the tip of his thumb because of the way it was cut. the xrays didn't show any breaks, but the dr. speculated that he had probably bruised the bone really bad. so they cleaned it up, ouch, and sent us home.

fast forward to saturday morning at coop's football game. he wore a splint on his thumb, with a spiderman bandaid wrapped around it, and a glove with 4 fingers cut out. it didn't faze him at all and the other kids thought it was cool. he had a couple of great runs. he probably had 40 yds running, but only about 10 of them were positive. he has a tendency to backtrack. he grabbed a couple of flags and had a great time. he's got matt wall speed and erica myers skills so we'll cross our fingers and hope for the best.

i am going to pass on the beckett skin update, as it is thoroughly depressing. and ainsley is officially the cutest little girl that has ever, EVER lived.

the picture posting button is not working right now so i will try to post pics later.

valeri, hello again?