A Spooktacular Knight, a Jaguar, and a Scary Little Monster

It is Halloween time again. I always have mixed feelings about Halloween. Should we participate or should we be one of those families that stays in the house and uses that night to do something fun together. We continued our tradition of celebrating Halloween in a very modest fashion. Or in other words, visiting a trunk or treat and walking around the neighborhood for half an hour.

Last year we went to Lynne's house for Halloween, had dinner, did some trick or treating and then called it a night. This year I made Lynne and Ila come over to my place for dinner and treats.

We had an Ockree family favorite of.....

Chili

and....

Cinnamon Rolls

So these aren't actually pictures of the chili I made or the cinnamon rolls I made, but they basically looked exactly like this. We just kind of gobbled it up before I thought to take any pictures. Both were pretty delicious (if I do say so myself). Then it was on to the trick or treating. 

Sophia was mad because I made her stand in the picture. I'm not sure why Ila is trying to sit on her pumpkin bucket, and as typical, Connor is doing whatever he can to make sure that we don't see even a hint of a smile. I know you are jealous that you didn't get to take these kiddos out. 

The kids actually did great and Sophia stopped crying as soon as I stopped trying to make her do what I want instead of just letting her do whatever she wants. I'm a mean mom like that. 

More pictures. Enjoy. 

 A happier monster.

 Ila's best jaguar pose. 

My very serious knight.

Forget the women and children....it's every man for himself.

There are moments in life where one's true character is known. These are the times where there is no putting your neighbor first - the every man for himself moments. You expect these moments...just maybe not from your five year old.

Allow me to set the stage. It was a cold and windy Tuesday morning at the Ockree house. Tamara had already left for work and Ben was packing the kids up to head to daycare and then on to seminary. He had shut the door behind him only to realize that his keys were still inside the house. Ben checked the door only to find that it was indeed locked. His cell phone, unfortunately, it also inside the house mocking him with the keys. Ben goes to the neighbor's house to see if he can borrow a phone and call me for help, but the neighbor kid says that his parents don't leave him a phone when they leave in the morning or in his words "they don't trust me with a phone."

The great thing about the Ockree house is that we are often forgetful. As such, Ben starts searching for an open window or a way to break into our house. He takes Connor and Sophia to the back yard as he conducts his search and makes Connor aware of the situation.

Ben: "We're locked out of the house and my car keys are inside."
Connor: "We'll just climb up on the roof and get in."
Ben: "We don't have a chimney, so there isn't any way to get in from the roof."
Sophia: "Baby" (Because honestly, we know that is what she was thinking)

Connor runs to the car and grabs a blanket, he then proceeds to line up our chairs in the back yard and lays down on them.

Connor: "Well, if we have to live in the backyard then this is my new room. You people are on your own."
Ben: "We won't have to live in the backyard, Mom will come home eventually and let us in."
Connor: "Well if she doesn't, this is my bedroom now. You and Sophie can live in a different part of the yard."
Ben: "Really?"
Connor: "Yeah, it is actually pretty comfortable here."

Yes...my five year old is this self centered.

On the plus side Ben found an unlocked window in Connor's room, took the screen off, and then Connor climbed in and opened the door for his dad. Crisis averted.

Teaching Sophie.

Today on the way to church Connor was trying to teach Sophia some new words. The conversation went something like this.

Connor: Soph can you say happy?
Sophia: Happy....baby.
Connor: Can you say turtle?
Sophia: Turtle...baby.
Connor: Can you say dog?
Sophia: Baby dog.
Connor: Can you say cat?
Sophia: Baby cat.
Connor: Can you say intentional?
Sophia: Baby.

Turns out that Sophia can say a whole bunch of words now...but baby is still one of her favorites.

The terrible...not so good...very very awful twos.

Both Connor and Sophia decided to enter the terrible twos somewhere between birth and eighteen months. The exact timing is a little vague as I think they had been in the terrible twos for quite some time before Ben and I realized this is what we were dealing with.

Sophia is firmly in the grips of this lovely parenting moment. She is doing things like refusing to sleep, getting into everything, and responding to our scolding with the following:

On the plus side it only took us roughly four years to get Connor out of this stage and more into the "I'm going to try the old terrible twos routine, but you are probably not going to buy it anymore" stage.

Ah parenting. Not for the faint of heart...or those who don't like to listen to crying.

I went to college...I really did.

A couple of months ago my friend and coworker, Lynne, and I had a very important meeting about our very important book sale. This was a meeting wherein we were brilliant. We solved all the potential problems that we had ever encountered with the book sale and thought of new and amazing ideas.

On Friday we decided it was time to have another high powered, very important, totally amazing, gift book sale meeting. Lynne said "Bring your notes from the last meeting, we had some really awesome ideas and I don't remember what they were."

So I dug deep down into my inbox and found my amazing notes from this stellar meeting. They were as follows:


1. Signs
2. Auction Bands
3. Poster
4. BWB
5. Community Wide
6. Flow


Yep....that's it. For the whole meeting I wrote down six things (although, check out that fancy numbering). Those are my totally amazing notes that I took from our meeting where we solved all the problems we had ever encountered with the gift book sale. Wow, right? 


If I was still working in corporate America, my reaction to this utter failure to take decent notes on my part would have been excessive crying, worrying, and new job searching. However, in my secure and safe little library world the reaction was...extreme giggling. My second reaction was to email Lynne the notes, call her up, and participate in some more fits of laughter. 

Our new meeting on Friday afternoon was nearly as brilliant and my notes are a couple of pages long. See, I can learn from my mistakes.