Thank you

It's not even Thanksgiving yet, but it is the month to be thankful.

And I am doing just that.

Counting each and every one of my blessings, each and every day.

Long overdue....

To my blogger family and friends,

Thank You! Thank You!

Thank you for your words of encouragement always.

Thank you for sharing your families with me. It makes my day to see all of you (via space), after soooo many years.

Thank you for helping me see the silver lining, even when it is a bit clouded.

Thank you for just being you. You all rock. You are all my rock.

Celtic Day of the Dead

It's Halloween! It's Halloween!

The moon is full and bright

And we shall see what can't be seen

On any other night.

Skeletons and ghosts and ghouls, Grinning goblins fighting duels

Werewolves rising from their tombs,

Witches on their magic brooms

In masks and gown we haunt the street

And knock on doors for trick or treat

Tonight we are the king and queen,

For oh tonight it's Halloween!

~ Jack Prelutsky

Virtually all present Halloween traditions can be traced to the ancient Celtic day of the dead. Halloween is a holiday of many mysterious customs, but each one has a history, or at least a story behind it. The wearing of costumes, for instance, and roaming from door to door demanding treats can be traced to the Celtic period and the first few centuries of the Christian era, when it was thought that the souls of the dead were out and around, along with fairies, witches, and demons. Offerings of food and drink were left out to placate them. As the centuries wore on, people began dressing like these dreadful creatures, performing antics in exchange for food and drink. This practice is called mumming, from which the practice of trick-or-treating evolved. ~ Unknown Source

On Halloween

The thing you must do

Is pretend that nothing

Can frighten you

And if something scares you

And you want to run

Just let on like

It’s Halloween fun.

~ Author Unknown

This was the best Halloween for us by far! The weather was perfect, even though it rained up until the hour before we left. It was low key, with only Jenny and her fire faerie, Kinzlee, joining us. We had a couple pit stops at a few friend's house and thoroughly enjoyed watching them get ready for their night at the bars. Whitefish, MT is plain craziness on Halloween - soooo fun for everyone but can you say, CRAZY! My girls are at the perfect age now, running up to each house whispering "trick-or-treat" and their "thank you"s, while mom and dad watch from the sidewalks. It was perfectly fun....and I am glad it's over.

Now on to the next holiday.... I L.O.V.E. this time of year!!

Power of Prayer

Just a quick note to all my family and friends (and cyber friends!!) to ask you all to add sweet little boy Stellan to your prayers! I don't know them personally, although I read MckMama's blog daily and have followed her journey through her website, My Charming Kids. Her youngest baby has battled sickness since being in the womb. He is in the midst of a battle as we speak. It completely breaks my heart.

Please send all your positive energy, good thoughts and prayers their way! The more, the better! And let's hope that the power of prayer will help little Stellan recover, once again.

Day of the Dead... Pumpkins

In true fashion, we gutted out pumpkins, roasted their seeds, and proceeded to carve our art into them. Ok, so mom and dad did all the gutting.

My sissy girls *teehee* wouldn't have anything to do with it.
Lilianne drew her own face on (which we cut out for her) then, with the help of dad, drilled out the eyeballs. Power tools all the way!

Aspen rocked it this year.... she decided on her own thing - a cat, of course - and cut it out all by herself! Lovin' the independence!

Go figure, Kainaan had to out do us and show off his artistic abilities...which good god, he does possess some mad skills. He, of course, wasn't completely satisfied with his work so I had to go out and purchase a couple more pumpkins... we'll see what he can come up with on those?!

So after lit, we decided that Lili's resembled a horny toad...? I believe all of this guy's blemishes were from her poking and prodding but it made for a beautiful toad!

The Mr. and Mrs. Clark Pumpkins.

My spider seemed to work better once we faced it towards the house - an awesome illumination!

And I feel terrible, but I didn't get a picture of Aspen's kitty cat lit up but is also looked awesome facing the house!

It was just another good ol' family fun filled day! And quite the mess to clean up afterwards. :)

Annual Halloween Bash

Well, once again, the Clarks headed out a week early to celebrate at the (3rd or 4th?) Annual Halloween Bash. Our dear friend, Lesley organized and planned and prepped and cooked for the festivity, as always... But this year, my soul sista Jenny opened up her house to host the chaos. And chaos it was indeed. Organized chaos, of course. :)

This year was a bit more low key actually, meaning there were only around 25-30 some kids instead of the usual 50 or so (can you say CRAZY!?) for a couple reasons I think... weather was crummy and the whole flu thing kinda freaks some folks out about socializing with lots of kiddos. Not us though... :)My little Monkey and miss Piratess were excited!
Oo oo e ah ah!
Aspen only had a couple "aargh's" in her.... she was a bit exhausted from her school week, as always on Fridays. This sweet little girl still takes naps on the weekends to recharge.
Tis Moi.
I went as a gypsy although none of the kids knew what I was and my friend Gregory said I was too clean to be a gypsy, so I began just saying I was a fortune teller.
Us Clarks.
As crazy as we get.
Kainaan, got creative of course... going as the Biggest Loser. This picture doesn't do his costume (or is it??) any justice but he was quite hilarious and it was a great conversation starter!
We took food, even though we weren't asked to. We always do. It's fun for us. And these were way fun to make! Deviled egg eyeballs and cheese stick fingers, oh my! The scene of the chaos...

Lili grubbin' because "sometimes monkeys need to eat". All night long, it was "sometimes monkeys are mean" or "sometimes monkeys have to take naps" or "sometimes....whatever".

She is quite the character!

See! Tired girl taking it all in.

She has become quite the wallflower this year. Haven't decided if she is going to dance to her own tune - be her own person, a leader - or if I need to worry about her reclusiveness a bit... hmmm, still to be determined.

So the best part of our Halloween Bash this year was that the older kids decided to create and put on a Haunted House - mwahahaha! It rocked!! The little kids went first, with their mamas, and the scary monsters kept it a bit low key for them. Then, they scared the living daylights out of the rest of the brave souls that ventured into the basement Haunted House.

My favorite part was this bookshelf of body parts and organs. AND the hand that was casually sitting on the shelf (you don't see it in this picture but it came through the black area there on the top shelf) that would reach out and grab some unsuspecting kiddo. It was so great!!

After this little area, the kids were ushered through the dark basement while goblins rubbed up against them ever so softly and so very creepy until they reached the fateful room of black boxes. Boxes that contained more body parts that had to be identified by reaching their hands in them. Mwahahaha! The kids loved it and I must praise Tanner and his buddies that put this on! They did a phenomenal job and it was perfectly catered to the age of kiddos we all have!

And the only bummer of this fun filled evening - happening a week before the actual Halloween - is that now trick-or-treating seems so minimal in how we all celebrate this wicked holiday. The Annual Halloween Bash is something we all, kids and adults, so look forward to each year that it can never be topped. But no fear, my family and friends, there will be more pictures of my monkey and piratess after they load up on their (un-needed) loot Saturday night!

It ain't easy being green

This weekend, we took hold of several small projects and mostly just kept the kids under our wings as they both are suffering from the sickness.

Last week, Aspen went on her first field trip of the year to Sweet Pickin's Pumpkin Patch. And then she had Thursday and Friday off from school. Good thing too! She came home Wednesday, the day of the cold and rainy/snowy field trip, with a high temp and glassy eyes. Poor thing just cried when she knew she was homeward bound, and then immediately feel sound asleep on the couch when she walked in the door. My poor sweet little (first born) baby...

So with her sick and the fact that Miss (stubborn!) Lilianne has been fighting a cold/cough for over a week, we kept things low key at the Clark house this weekend.

So while small children watched movies, napped, colored and read books, Kainaan and I were able to get a few things done around the house. Kainaan finished putting the trim up in the dining room as well as loads of outdoor work - cutting down trees, burning brush, raking the dead discolored leaves, and standing around the fire pit to keep warm. I busied myself with lots of fall cleaning as well as some outdoor work, cutting back dead discolored flowers and prepping for a better bloom season next year. Hopefully. If Mother Nature will cooperate.

If you look closely at the above artwork by yours truly, Miss Lilapilla, you will see a small gray person under her green crayon. She's got them down, drawing little circle bodies with stick arms and legs and BIG eyeballs. So, SO cute! Kainaan and I were more than thrilled at this discovery, ya know cause "our baby is growing up! and she is so very talented!"

Then Aspen somewhat burst our bubble of this discovery by informing us that "duh! she has been doing this on the easel in their room for quite some time now!"

Guess I should be paying more attention....

Thank god for pumpkins...they are closest thing we got this year to fall color. Despite that it now FINALLY feels like fall outside, the last week or so of single digits ruined all of our fall leaves. On the bright side, there is no more snow on our ground. And that makes me happy - it was just too darn early for that!

You're my only infatuation... Don't leave me stranded in my obsession

Determined to get some photography therapy in, I bundled my girls up in the chilly weather and pep talked them into satisfying my obsession. I promised quick photos (sans coats) and lots of sugar to follow.

Despite the fact that on this very day, actually that night, we hit record lows. Broke a 22 yr. old record at 6 degrees. Minus 10 about an hour north of us. Brrr...!

Don't they just look sweet enough to eat?! Ha! Only after some bribery...
Part of my obsession began with this tutu... Grandma Vicki was so kind as to buy this beautiful handmade tutu for Miss Lil, while her and Aspen were in Manhattan, MT on their "end of summer" trip. It is way too stinkin' cute!
So I threw it on Lili and gave them the go ahead to run around like...well, kids.
My girls really do have that sisterly love thing going on. A lot of the time.
Well ok, some of the time.
Aspen is beginning to be my pretty little fashionista. Daring to break the rules, and looking absolutely awesome doing it.
"OK mom, quit bragging about us..."
I get this look often.
One last run around the hill, in an attempt to keep warm.
I promise no small children were harmed in this making.

Much better. Yet just as adorable.

Because Lili can't be having all the fun...Aspen had to put on the tutu also!

I just love these little monsters!

And these photos are only the icing on the cake, or the sidewalks if you will. Holding some of my favorites in safe keeping for a possible holiday card, if I can't get my act together this year. :)

So besides dragging my children out into the cold, fresh winter air, we had a rather low key weekend....organizing, putting twin beds back into bunkbed form, rearranging, remodelling and pretty much just curling up in front of the fireplace watching movies. Just how I like it.