None of the Above

There's a saying that goes, "If you wanna hear God laugh tell Him your plans."  My life must have been like comedy central to Him last week! I can't tell you how many times last week I found myself thinking, "Okay, new plan!" I was supposed to baby-sit Monday. He ended up going somewhere else. I had huge, awesome plans for my trunk for trunk or treat. Didn't happen. My sister was supposed to come visit. Her babies got sick. We were working on the playroom trying to repaint and refloor it to have ready as a guest room if my family wanted to stay out here instead of driving back and forth to P.C. We got the room painted, but Josh had something come up Friday so we couldn't get the floor in. We were gonna buy the new couch for the room. Had to order it. It's supposed to be here the very day my sister has rescheduled her visit. :) I spent most of  Wednesday cooking chili and baking a cake. Sarah won the cake at the cake walk and there was so much chili at our fall festival that I brought my entire batch home. I lived off of fun size candy bars and
caffeine and that seemed awesome at the time, but now I am detoxing and thinking it was not so great. Does anybody else wonder when Halloween became as much work as Christmas?

Now, I will share my week with you in pictures.

First, we had our trunk or treat. The girls and I were Chipettes. I just happened to look like one with a bloody nose. Please give me some credit. I taught three dance classes in this costume before I actually got to the trunk or treat.....

I literally had 20 minutes between my dance class and the trunk or treat to get Eli and Kate ready and decorate my trunk. Eli had a total meltdown and did not want to wear his costume. He has issues with people looking at him. Bless this poor little preacher's kid's heart. He just wanted to wear his FSU jersey which was fine because it matched Josh's trunk. For the record, my son would wear that jersey every second of his life if I would let him. We are taking him to his first FSU game this weekend and the other night he was laying in his bed wide awake. I went in to tell him goodnight and he said, "I'm going to wear my FSU shirt to the game and maybe a jacket." He's my child. Gotta have the wardrobe planned. :) Anyway, back to that night and Josh's trunk. I'm not showing you a picture of mine b/c it totally looked like I threw it together in 20 minutes. Josh also pretty much threw his together, but it looked way better than mine.  He even made up a game to play in his.

I also thought I would share that this was our first fall festival with our new church and NOBODY else dressed up. Are y'all embarrassed for me? That's what I thought......

Thursday was playroom day. We had gone to town Tues. to pick out paint and the floor so we'd be ready to go. The first job was pulling up the old carpet. It was not too hard as the puppies had already chewed a good portion of it up! Can you believe that? I guess we should've thrown some old shoes out there instead or something. Anyway, I had to say a little prayer that none of our neighbors would drive by as Josh and I were dragging out the old carpet in gloves and masks. I'm sure we were quite a sight. It was a moment. I gazed lovingly into Josh's eyes and asked if he ever imagined we would be dragging old carpet around together. He assured me that our marriage has put us through many things he never expected. :) Here is our playroom before....

Well, I didn't get a picture before we took out the carpet so it's not a total before shot. But you get the idea. We've since painted it a red color  (flame!) and trimmed it in white. I love it. It turned out even better than we hoped. Josh keeps saying, "Just imagine how good it will look with a floor."   :)   I was away from playroom redecorating duty only long enough to teach an hour long ballet class and to eat supper with my Mom and Phil who had come over. Phil was planning to help Josh put the floor in because our PLAN was that we would have the whole room painted and it would be dry by the time they came in the afternoon and then they would finish the floor before the FSU game that night. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Aren't we funny?  Guess who got to put the second coat of paint on by herself? Oh well. My Mom helped the girls clean their room so I got uninterrupted quiet, painting time and the girl's room got cleaned. Score! (If only FSU had been so lucky that night.....)  I was some kind of exhausted and ill by the end of the night, but Josh came and did the second coat of trim and I repainted the dresser and bookcase so we did TOTALLY finish the painting. Hallelujah! I will show y'all an after shot.....as soon as we have one. :)

The next morning the kids were participating in a parade to the high school for DARE week. I had really mixed feelings about my kids learning about drugs, but I remember that program from elementary school and it must have worked. I never had any desire to even try drugs. And I grew up in the Spring Break capital of the world. Anyway, that is another post for another day. The parents were invited to join th parade and Sarah really wanted me to come. Kate and I ran by the Pig to get some lunchables and headed to the school. The kids were already lining up and I could never find Sarah, but we walked up right on Eli's class. So we joined them. Bag of lunchables and all.

I wasn't really sure what this was all about. I was expecting the kids to walk to the high school for a rally or something. No. They literally marched the halls of the high school yelling, "JUST SAY NO TO DRUGS! JUST SAY NO TO DRUGS!" Well, that's what they were saying after the teacher corrected those who were saying, "DON'T SAY NO TO DRUGS!" Just a little bit of confusion there. I should mention here that when we entered the hallway and Kate saw all of the high schoolers lining the wall.she completely froze. Would not move. Eli's class marched on and she wouldn't come. I finally ended up shifting around my huge Mama purse and the grocery bag with the lunchables just enough to grab her with one arm. In case you haven't noticed from my pics, Kate is a healthy girl. She is solid. And heavy. We finally caught up with Eli's class. I was really impressed with how sweet and encouraging the high schoolers were.

Back at the school Kate and I decided to have lunch with Sarah since we marched with Eli. We took our lunchables to her room and hung out with her class. I got to chat with her teacher and she thanked me for some goodies I had sent. Then she asked me how old I am because we knew we were close to the same age. She told me I look much younger and am so pretty. I told her I will be sending her more goodies!! She's my favorite person now. :)  She also talked about how sweet and smart Sarah is, which is always good for a Mama's heart. I know I haven't really updated y'all about how Sarah is doing, but just so you know she made one B and the rest A's on her report card! Her B was only two points from an A. We are really proud of her and Eli who also did awesome with all E's and S's. I feel so blessed for Sarah to have such a wonderful, new teacher. (And I felt that way even before she said I look younger than my age. :)

                                      Kate had so much fun visiting Sawah and Ewi at school! 

While we were eating I got a text from Josh that his Dad needed him to finish his bread route for him. The kid's had a half day that day so I don't know how we thought we were going to do the floors anyway. Since that plan didn't work out I decided I would take the kids shopping for some fall clothes since we had awaken that morning to much cooler temps and Sarah had NOTHING to wear. I'm not sure what happens after I go shopping with my kids. Somehow I always experience amnesia and forget just what that experience is like. Oh well, we braved it anyway. The hardest part of shopping now is that Kate has to stop and examine EVERYTHING and tell me, "I want that for my birfday." That child is going to be sorely disappointed come her birthday, but I just have to say, "Yes, for your birthday" to keep her moving. We actually found some great deals and I'm so excited Sarah has some pants that fit. She must have tried on 15 pairs and finally had success with 3 of them. Two of the pairs come in other colors and I am already planning to go back and buy them in different colors because I am that excited to have some that fit. Is it just me or do they not make clothes like they used to? Eli had to get a staple of his wardrobe, a long sleeved Star Wars shirt. He has two short sleeved ones, but he really needed one for fall, too. He has to have something to wear while I wash his FSU jersey. :)

When we finished shopping we talked with Josh and he was almost done so we headed to meet him at Big Lots. Sarah and Eli were big helpers...

After Josh finished at the warehouse we went to eat at Beef O' Brady's. I picked the worst table ever. The sun was just in the position where I had to squint if I wanted to talk to Josh. I got a Bar-b-que bacon cheeseburger (to top off my week of superb nutritioinal eating) and it was the.best.thing.ever. We got home that night just in time to put the kids to bed. We had been gone that long. I was kind of relieved it worked out that way. Sarah and Eli's classes were helping with homecoming events and I had decided not to volunteer when I thought Jenny was coming because that was going to be our only free night. Well, when I found out she wasn't coming I really struggled with not volunteering. The school kept sending home notes practically begging for help. They may as well have written EMILY FIDLER, we need you! That's just how I am. But Josh had strongly encouraged me to pass up that responsibility with everything else going on. I was grateful I had since we ended up being gone all day and night!  So, out of all the options of things I was trying to get ready for, we did something completely different!

Saturday was also full. I had my morning dance class then headed home to do some serious cleaning. My focus on the playroom, and the fall festival, and shopping had left my house seriously neglected. I worked from the time I got home until the time Sarah and I had to head back to the dance studio to get ready to perform Thriller at the town festival. What an adventure! Twenty something girls between the ages of 5 and 18 doing hair and make-up to look like.....zombies!

Oh my word, they had so much fun. They got way more into the whole zombie thing than I expected. Not sure if that is good or bad. :)  This was the first performance for many of them and man did they get an intro to costuming, make-up and character performance! They did so awesome and made me super proud. This was actually 3 classes combined and they had learned their parts seperately, so Sat. was the first time they danced together. We danced twice, once in front of the city hall and then again in front of a new boutique just for girls called Splurge. They were having their grand opening.

                                                Awww......look at my little zombies...... :)

In between performances the kids trick or treated at the local businesses with Josh, and T and Dandy. I hadn't really thought this night out very well. At the last minute I realized Kate's Chipette outfit wouldn't make much sense without me and Sarah so I just put her in one of my old dance costumes. Eli officially never wore his knight costume. My Mom had been given a huge pile of costumes that she brought to my house and Eli decided he wanted to wear one of those instead. Again, not part of the plan, but oh well..... :)

While we were waiting to perform the second time Josh had my camera. He videotaped the first performance. Then, he had orders to take pics of the second performance. I got one picture, the first one of Sarah up there. And a picture of the store sign. And this.....

Well, that face says it all y'all! Ha! Not really. The truth is, last week was INSANE, but it was lots of fun too. Most of the time I felt like this....

And I did it dressed as a cowgirl, a Chipette, a pirate, an FSU fan and a dance teacher to zombies. Not many people can say that........