Nine and six days

'Tis the season of birthdays... and thanksgiving of course.  Which is why I'm already almost a week late with Alyssa's b-day post.  Well over half of our extended family member were born in the last third of the year, so lately it's been party after party.  In a rare departure from our family-only dinners of 30+, we also let our newly-minted nine-year old host her first-ever sleepover.  The giggles and whispers from a roomful of sweet little girls brought as much joy to this mama's heart as it did to the birthday girl herself.  Our biggest baby is clearly no longer a baby at all.  We have been so blessed through parenting the easiest infant, the softest-hearted toddler, the most-confident young school-girl, and the most beautiful, mature, nurturing young lady we've ever met.  She certainly has her flaws - the most noticeable being those that reflect the sins and nature of her mama - but even in light of those she is a joy.  Happy birthday babe! 

A few more cute kids...

Or rather, the same cute kids over and over again!  We accidentally showed up an hour early to our home school group's annual trip to the pumpkin farm - which turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  The kids don't particularly like to pose for photos (with the exception of Alyssa who seems to like it a little too much), and they dislike it even more when there are friends around to play with.  A lack of such distractions meant that mama, children and camera all enjoyed the field trip! 

The obligatory costume post

Anyone who's on facebook is surely tired of such photos by now, but since this clearly is a blog for which the posting suits primarily me, here they are!  Themes are obviously a thing of the past.  Someone suggested we might have been going for a past, present, future theme; it was really more about what was in the closet and what was in stock at Goodwill.  The exception of course is Alyssa's outfit which was lovingly fabricated by her grandma and reflects her current fascination with prairie girls (not homeschooling conventions).   Over the past 5 days we've attended no less than 4 carnival-type events, so we have had more than our fair share of cotton candy, dunk tanks, bounce houses, kettle corn, face-painting and everything else fun and fall-ish.  Last night the kids came home with over 17 pounds of candy!  They choose about 9 pounds worth of "favorites" and we took the rest to a candy exchange program at a local dentist (if I could remember which of you bloggy friends first mentioned this I'd give you credit!).  The kids received cash, bags of sugarless treats, and the opportunity to thank many of our service men and women (in person and via thank you notes) in exchange for their less-loved sweets, which will soon be shipped to our military personnel overseas.  It was a really fun way for them to give a little of what they got.  So how about you?  Do you have any great ideas for dealing with the mountains of candy?  Were your kids any cuter than mine?  I hereby give you permission to continue to fill up the blogging world and facebook with scores of costumed kiddos.