Today....

I am obsessed with:

Candy corn.  Seriously, this stuff needs to disappear from my kitchen island.  If you call yourself my friend, please stage an intervention and dump the bowl into my trash. 

My new camera.  

This lotion.  It's about this time of the year that my hands start looking and feeling like those of a four hundred year old.  I've put this on four times today already.

My neutrogena at home microdermabrasion kit.  Oh. My.

You want your face to feel like your baby's rear?  Get yourself this thing!

My autumn scented BBW candle.  I love it!  It smells amazing....but I think this one is a bit of a dud because the last one I lit I could smell from my front yard.  

I found a box of Mr. Sketch markers in my office stuff, and now I'm unnecessarily highlighting things in my planner just to smell them.  If you see me in public with rainbow colored dots on my nose and upper lip, please refrain from pointing.

Sofia champagnes....tiny champagnes with a little straw attached.  It's momma's Capri Sun!!

The tiny cat.  She's always good for some laughs.

I'm obsessed with the idea of eating a double doozie from the cookie company at the mall.  This all started on Saturday when I had to leave a birthday party to shoot a wedding, and realized the cake was a huge cookie cake.  I'm not kidding, I thought about that thing at least twice while shooting the wedding...resenting that I didn't get any!

I've also decided I need:

Tall brown boots.  I love tall boots, but they create quite the issue.  For one, it's hardly ever cold enough here to warrant tall boots.  Last year, I sweated my way through many an event because of camel colored sweater Uggs.  I know they're impractical for south Texas, but I need them anyway.

New aviators.  I had some at one point, but I'm not sure where they went.  I know this aviator thing has been going on for awhile and is probably on it's way out, but I want some anyway.

A silhouette machine.  I salivate thinking about the crafty amazing-ness I could create with this thing.

A flip video.  I know I can take video with my iphone, (and I'm reminded of this all the time by the DH)

but I really want a camera ONLY for video, and one that will fit in my purse.  I'm done with the video camera with the little tiny tapes that have to be transferred and burned (real time, no less) onto DVDs.  Ugh.

A big brown bag.  To match the aforementioned boots, of course.  I love all the buckles on this thing.

A portable light kit.  Looking at this set doesn't make me instantly think of "ease of transport" but it might not be that bad.  I just need softboxes to use, especially with newborns.

To think, this whole blog post started with me googling the nutritional content of candy corn....

Shawn and I were just talking about how much we love this time of year.....it feels so much cooler outside, and of course; there's football.  My kiddos are all about Halloween, so for their benefit I've tried to decorate more for Halloween.

My instinct is to just do generic autumn decorations like pretty fall leaves everywhere....that just doesn't cut it for little ones.  They want Halloween specific decor.

Cale even asked for a "big, sparkly skeleton" to hang in his room.  

I said no.

Momma's gotta draw the line somewhere.

They are IN LOVE with the giant inflatable things they sell at Lowe's....since we have neither the storage, or inclination to own such a giant piece of Halloween fun, we compromised and let them pick out a small one.  They get a huge kick out of seeing it lit in the front of the house when we come home at night.  We also have three little jack o lanterns in the window, for our three tiny ones.  They are the new school plug in variety, which are GENIUS....I like them much better than the old school variety that end up rotting on your front porch.  (although we'll probably do one of those, too.)  Fun times!!  We have our Halloween costumes bought and ready, and have several activities lined up....

Presenting Chewy Louise...

We weren't in the market for a kitten.  

Sure, I like cats, but more of the grown variety...the kind that curl up somewhere in your house, and you never know where they are.  The kind that stalk past you every three days or so, somehow managing to look irritated at you for letting them live in your house.

Like you're not doing THEM a favor.  

I kind of get a kick out of that....how entitled and jerky a cat acts.  

Don't get me wrong...I think tiny cats are adorable to look at.

They're just a lot of work.  

But this one...well, she chose us.

We were putting out some Halloween decorations Monday night, and Shawn found her crying outside. 

She looked SO pitiful. 

No more than two pounds, and skinny as a rail.  

I don't think she would have lived much longer had she not found us.

She came to us when we called her, (like a dog) and purred like crazy.  

Hayden ran up and down the sidewalk outside, screaming "My heart is BREAKING!!"

So after THAT oscar winning performance, how could we NOT adopt the thing?

Hayden immediately decided her name was "Chewy".  Not my particular style, but I am a huge fan of letting kids name animals, mainly because the choices are so random and irreverant they end up being hilarious.

We didn't know if she was a girl or boy at first.

Hayden's suggestion was to put a tutu on her, and if she left it on, she had to be a girl.

Despite the obvious scientific validity of such an experiment, I went ahead and took her to the vet anyway. The vet managed to determine she was a girl, (without a tutu)

So, "Chewy" it was.  (I added Louise after we found out she was indeed a girl)

She's about ten weeks old, and healthy as a horse.  

We are trying to feed her slowly, (per the vet's instructions) so she doesn't gorge herself.  

Girl can eat.  

She clears her little bowl in about four seconds, and then goes looking for the dog food.  

I guess that's a good sign.  

Tiny kittens aren't the easiest thing to take care of, but they're certainly not the hardest.  

(Not like when Wyatt was a puppy, and I questioned my will to live on a daily basis)

She immediately knew how to go in her litter box.  

She loves my kids.

She purrs like a machine, and makes biscuits on all of us. 

She adores me, and follows me around everywhere.

My kids are obsessed with her, and want to bother her all day long. 

Cale can't remember her name, and has called her "Chili Soliz", "Chewy Feliz", and "Chewy Sanderson" which confuses me a little, but entertains me a lot. 

Of course, we've now continued the tradition of "over-naming" our animals, and today we decided she was to be called "Chewbacca Louise Hatter-hyphen-Sanderson".

Around here...

We've been keeping busy, with stuff like:

trying on Bubby and Sissy's soccer gear....

licking queso off our plates.....

eating spaghetti....

getting in dog kennels....

getting the most miles we can out of our remaining pacis....

hanging out at some high school football games....

enjoying a church picnic...

and enjoying the sunset....

...dressing up like a knight....

....and getting some more miles off said pacis....

...taking our baby stuffed elephant to the doctor....

...and sleeping in the hallway because clearly it's a ton more comfortable than your own bed.

Fun with a moustache

You wouldn't believe how funny they think a moustache on a stick is.  Hilarious!  The only thing better than a paper moustache on a stick is a chocolate moustache on a stick, and they still talk about the one time they've seen those. (Thanks, Dee!)
I love these people....everyone had to play with the moustache....and of course, my fourth child; "Zoolie" bear had to be photographed with the moustache, as well.

You'll notice the moustache is a little wrinkly, and wet on one end...there was some confusion at first about how to actually use a moustache on a stick, and the baby may or may not have tried to eat it.