Trick or Treat???

This evening, things got strangely quiet at the Engeling house. A little too quiet, in fact. A spooky, eerie, something-wicked-this-way-comes kind of quiet. And when David and I, full of trepidation, went to investigate, this is what we found:

I think this picture speaks for itself. Happy Halloween, from Adam.

And because I am soooo behind on posting pictures, here ya go. Rowan is smiling so much, and she talks and coos and it just melts me into a puddle on the floor. David finally caught her with the camera! Doesn't her hair look kind of like Conan O'Brien in this picture? Either that or K. D. Lang....

Also, for those who don't know, David is such a sucker. He brought us home yet another pooch to call our own. This one was (kinda still is) pretty scraggly. Poor guy was dumped out near a rural house David was working on and Dave just couldn't leave him out there to starve. He is so sweet, it's ridiculous. He gets along great with Cooper, and he's awesome with the kids. Unfortunately, something is wrong with one of his front paws. So what did we name him? Well, I'm a dork and was kidding around about giving him a good German name since he looks like he might be part German Shepherd. What about Fritz? Franz? No, I've got it...what about Wolfgang? Then we can call him Wolfie! Ha ha! Yeah, except Kalena and Isaac took me seriously, so now we have Wolfie in the family. It does kinda fit him. If he were a person, he'd probably be a professor of Romanian literature or something. Isn't he cute?

Amazingly, we actually got around to carving pumpkins this year. They never did make it out to our front porch. (David is supposed to put them out there tonight). Every year, I get all ambitious thinking about how fun it will be to carve pumpkins, and then they just rot on the back porch because we never get to it. Last year, we did manage to sprout a giant pumpkin patch though. I think if we'd actually watered it, we might've even gotten some pumpkins. Oh well. The kids did have fun, though! Isn't Kalena's heaband cool? No? Well, don't tell her that. I think she thought she was Joan Jett or something. And Isaac was being "super Isaac" in his cape. If only he were a real superhero, he could magically fly to a potty every time he needs to pee instead of screaming in the car at the exact moment that we are boxed in line to pick up Kalena from school. That would be a super power worth having.....


I also owed some pictures of our Sea World trip, so here ya go. This is me and little bit at the San Antonio Zoo. If I look tired, I am.

Here's David riding some weird little ferris wheel type ride witht the boys. Kalena couldn't ride with them, so she got to ride with a stranger. I guess that's the hazard of too many kids. You have to share them with strangers when you go on vacation.

And here's everybody getting ready to watch one of the shows. Aren't they cute in their little hats? They better be, because those suckers cost me 50 friggin' bucks. All because I forgot to pack their hats on what was arguably the sunniest day of the entire year. Yeah, gift shops are ripofffs. Humbug.
So there you have it. Tomorrow is Halloween, and I'm really excited. I've spent the last two days trying to teach Adam how to say "trick or treat." He does this awesome little shimmy dance and says "ticka ticka ticka ticka." If he can pull that out at the moment of candy exchange tomorrow night, we ought to make a killing. The kid is cute enough that I want to give him candy every time he does that. Perfect strangers don't stand a chance. If he adds his version of "please," they might just hand him their entire candy bowls. He's got the most enchanting way of putting his little hands under his chin with his fingers out and grinnning his toothy grin and saying "ah-bee-dum." I assume this means "please" since he does it every time I ask him to say "please" for something. And he likes to say "bye bye dums." I don't know who "dums" are, but the suckers tomorrow night might be when they fall for his cuteness and give over all their Halloween loot. Muah ha ha ha.

So now I just need to figure out how to get pictures from Kodak gallery over here and I can post Kalena's birthday pics. And when I get some pictures of our newly stained cabinets, I'll put them up too. Just for you Marie. :)

Oooh, oooh, it's Midnight!

Yes, it's midnight dear friends, and industrious lady that I am, I just finished all three of the kids' Halloween costumes. I gotta say, they are totally rockin' awesome. Kalena is going to be a fairy, Isaac is a ninja and Adam is a rooster. I copped out and bought Rowan a little footie sleeper that's like a little black cat with a pink bow at the neck. I got it at Wal-Mart for 8 bucks. I know, I suck because I didn't make her costume too. Whatever. Next year, I guess I'll be up for 4 costumes. I am so tired of sewing. Mainly because every time I would put some part together, I'd realize I'd done it wrong and have to re-do the whole friggin' thing. And you guys know I'm not a re-doer. I'm a "eh, it's not too busted....it'll be fiiiine" kinda gal. I hate doing things twice. But, for the sake of my kids looking very cool on Halloween (and me getting to say smugly to anyone who asks, "why yes, I made these myself!") I sucked it up and tried (mostly) to get things right. They do look pretty cool! Pictures, you ask? Well, you'll have to wait until it's not midnight! Ashley is so right, I am totally a glutton for punishment! Gee, Rachel, not enough on your plate? Why not heap on some more? But at least I'm done now!

Also, I am feeling tons better. I'm still a bit sore and I can't quite bend over all the way, but it's close. I'm back to doing all my normal stuff. Like running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Ewww, that is such a gross expression, I don't know why I just included it. Maybe because it's midnight and I should totally be in bed.

Rowan goes in for her 2 mo. checkup tomorrow, even though she's already almost 3 mos. old. Sigh. Where has the time gone? She's already 1/4 of the way through her first year! :0 (Aren't those little emoticons so handy? Kinda weird that you can make a face out of punctuation, but they are certainly useful..)

And I double-promise (you can't triple stamp a double stamp!) to get the pics I owe up here....so far, I need: Kalena's b-day, our Sea World trip, and Halloween....and a recent pic of Rowan. Anything else? Didn't think so...so I'm off to bed! Nighty night, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite!

Real quick-like

Had the surgery. It sucked. It hurts. I'm tired. Thank God for David. Thank God for Ashley. Thank God for Julie. Thank God for Jonya. Thank God for all my awesome friends who checked in on me and Courtney for sending me cookies. I guess I have a lot to thank God for, huh?

I need to post pics of K's birthday, and of our awesome Sea World San Antonio trip. This, however, will have to wait until I can sit upright for more than 10 minutes.

I'm going back to bed. I'll be there for the rest of the day if anyone needs me. Hopefully they won't, because I doubt I'm going to be much help. If I say anything strange, it's just the Vicodan talking.

The Pooptastic Pooperama

Wednesday morning started like any other....too early for me. But I was in a good mood, determined that I was going to be patient, fun and just really positive for the day. Until I opened the door to Adam and Isaac's bedroom and was hit with a stench that was, well, repulsive. It was the overwhelming stink of poo. My stomach sank into my toes and I inched closer to Adam's crib, knowing what I would find, but still silently praying it was all a bad dream.

Sure enough, there in the shadows I could see the brown smudges. Everywhere. Poo poo everywhere. It seems that sometime in the wee hours of the morning, Adam decided to remove his diaper and THEN poop. I don't think he meant to play in it or make a mess. He was sort of standing crunched up in the corner of his crib, as if he were trying to stay out of the grossness. Well, he didn't do a very good job, because he was covered in doodie, his blankie was just gagworthy, there were smears everywhere in his crib.

What a way to start the morning. All I can say is thank the good lord I wasn't still pregnant or I would've upchucked for sure. I think this one takes the cake for my mommy-gross-out moments. Sure, I've dealt with poop before, just not to this magnitude. I've even handled simultaneous poop/puke moments (those are ALWAYS fun). But I guess the scale of the poop in this particular situation was just a higher order.

I guess I probably should've put a warning on this post since it's rather graphic. If you just sat down to read this blog with a bowl of chocolate ice cream or a Snickers candy bar, I apologize profusely.

But, while we're on the topic of poop, let me just mention something that is really bizarre....every time me and the kiddos go to visit Ashley, someone HAS to poop at her house. It's usually Adam. But today it was Adam and Rowan. It doesn't matter what time of day, if they've all already pooped that day or even how short the duration of our visit. We can literally be there for all of 5 minutes, and someone will figure out a way to squeeze out a poop while we're there. I don't know...maybe Ashley's house is built on a black poop hole or something...(gee, that didn't come out right...)

Enough poop talk for one night already. Have sweet dreams and may all your lives be as poop-free as is healthy and humanly possible.

Catching up

Bad blogger. Bad, bad blogger. I make you all wait in suspense for weeks. Where can I start? Life is so busy. Some days I wish I could just push pause and take a minute and really enjoy what is going on with each of my kids. They are growing and changing so fast. I am beginning to understand why little old ladies always come up to me in the store with sad eyes, pat my arm and tell me to enjoy my kids because "they grow up so fast." I dread the day when I'm that little old lady, watching the mommies in the grocery store fed up to the gills with their little heathens and wishing that I could have just one more day of the chaos with my babies. Life really does move too fast.

Rowan is such a beauty, and already changing so much from the little squished-up, old man, gnomish newborn. Now she's a lovely little chub and smiling all the time. I did my best to catch a pic one day when she was happy, but this was the best I could do:

Here she is in her little bouncer...a little slumpy, but still pretty!











Here are all four of my kiddos. Not the best shot, but at least they're all in one place! Kalena loves to hold Rowan. In fact, she and Isaac fight about it all the time. If one has her, the other one wants her. Even Adam tries to get in on the action. Although he usually sort of flops her over when he holds her, so we try to avoid that one. I really love seeing how much they love her. I want nothing more than for the kids to have a close relationship with one another. Sure, they fight, but at the end of the day, they give each other hugs and kisses good night, and all is forgiven.














Here's our newest family member, little Cooper. He's a great little puppy. He's doing pretty good on the house training, but he is a chewing machine. Although it does help give the kids incentive to keep their junk up off the floor....he's already chewed through the wires to the surround sound and our phone. I guess it's kind of nice not getting all of the solicitor calls, so maybe little Coop has been a blessing in disguise.












We also had a great visit from my Nana and Aunt Susie from Kansas. They got to see the kids, and we had a wonderful visit. I miss them a lot, and it's always fun when we get a visit with them. The kids, even though they don't get to see them often, sure love them a lot. Rowan is actually named after my Aunt Susie (Rowan Suzanne). She doesn't have children of her own, but she would make a great mom. In fact, she's sort of like a second mom to me, and I love her to death. Here we are visiting at my mom's house in Belton:























And of course, there's the Rodeo. Isaac has been asking about it for a year now, ever since we went last time. And every time we drive by the HOT fair complex, he says, "are we going to the rodeo again?" Well, on Saturday we went. The kids had a blast, and of course they looked friggin' adorable in their cowboy gear. Check out Kalena's cool belt buckle! I love it!











As promised, here's a pic of our new kitchen cabinets. I had a couple more pics to show, but somehow Blogger deleted them. Arrrrgh. So you just get the one. But let me tell you, it is amazing. I can't wait to cook a meal or bake a cake in here! I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it....and you know why if you've ever been in the kitchen at our house now. Sheesh.














Oh yeah, and just for fun, here's Adam. Looking mischevous. He's bad. Really bad. But is he cute, or what?