FORTY-FOUR

Salem, ever watchful of those chickens.

2020 week forty-four

Salem, ever watchful of the giant neighborhood cats. Though Roscoe obviously can't be ruffled. 

Salem and the crab hat.

We woke up one morning to this lovely bit of fun Salem had in the middle of the night... He dragged the entire litter bag out from behind the litter box, scratched it to bits and spread litter everywhere while also knocking over his water dish onto much of it. 

V's teacher sent me this photo during recess this week. V was getting so amped up for Halloween. She was very excited to tell me that she got the whole class playing vampires together. 

I brought home a motivation survey to take with my kids, not surprisingly, Theo is not motivated by adult approval. And a bit worryingly, V is very motivated by peer approval. 

All the kids loved my witch hat on the day before Halloween. 

How I have to walk with Theo in every store. 

2020 has been lame so we followed suit and just rummaged for costumes in our closets. 

The dozen or so cousins in the area got to do a very special candy scavenger hunt on one of the cousins' streets. Auntie Mel and Auntie Sera did a great job setting it all up for everyone. 

A few weeks ago V saw these butterfly wings at Target. We have a rule that we don't buy things from the store unless we know ahead of time what we want and we bring enough money for it. I told V if she could wait until the day after Halloween, they would be on sale. This girl waited so patiently, and on November 1st we went to Target and got them for half off. She didn't take them off for the rest of the day. 

We had a three-day weekend, so we took that opportunity to go up to Oklahoma because we love it, and to get Salem fixed. The kids were so pumped by their 2nd ever Happy Meal in their lives. 

As soon as we let her out of the car she danced around Uncle Melvin's clinic parking lot, quite the happiest butterfly you've ever seen. 

The clinic has had a hard time getting their customers to adhere to curbside only services...

At the cousins' house they had a few baby goats! Matt didn't know this baby goat was using his sweater as a diaper during this photo...

We also got to go to Uncle Melvin's mom's house to jump off hay bales, 

and ride fat little ponies.

This is the face you make the first time you ever see a dog scooting to itch it's rear...

The kids got to go on a long beautiful ride while we walked and could barely take in how beautiful it all was.

Theo is my best boy. He takes such good care of little ones. He noticed his cousin had ran out of strawberries, so he sat himself down and cut up some strawberries for her. 

After the kids ran around the pasture for two solid hours Monday morning, we learned a bit about Dia de Los Muertos and made our own sugar skulls. 

Auntie Erica had the best idea. It was much easier than anticipated and so fun. The kids were really disappointed that I refused to let them just eat these extra large sugar cubes...

Quotes:

Theodore

Matt- "I miss the kids this morning. Give them a hug for me."

Me- "If it makes you feel better, Theo got his blackberries taken away this morning because he was hiding them in his lap to trick Vera into eating all of hers first so he could 'win' and be the only one with blackberries."

V- "You never play with me!"

T- "I just like legos!"

V- "Do you like legos more than me?!"

T- *long pause* "Uh. Yeah."

Veronica

Reading the back of her Skittles package "Africally flavored. Forty Carloses per saving."