See, I told you guys I really don’t like Halloween.
All this candy sitting here waiting for tonight, and do you think I can avoid it? No. Of course not.
Do you think we bought gross candy, so that we wouldn’t be tempted? No. Of course not.

We went out and got the best stuff out there - Kit Kats, Reeses, Whoppers, Skittles, Hersheys, M&M’s, Jujy Fruits.

So what am I sitting here doing? Yeah, apparently I am replacing all of my missing dairy and pork with 1,000,000 calories worth of candy fat. Love life, really I do. But mmmm….they do taste good.

What is your candy pleasure?

Mine? Reese’s Peanut Butter Pumpkins

Yes, that is what I feel like this year - a Halloweenie. I am not even the least bit excited about it. LOL

I don’t know why I am not more excited about it. This is my favorite time of year (Fall) but the Halloween thing is just … I don’t know.

We took the kids to the pumpkin patch yesterday and I forgot the camera! Anyone who knows me, knows I don’t forget the camera, ever. But, I did. So I didn’t get my yearly pumpkin patch picture so tomorrow after school we are staging one. LOL I’m pathetic, I know.

The rundown of the kids costumes this year are as follows:

Ryan - A Ninja - he was supposed to be a pirate again, but we cannot figure out what we did with last years costume (which we bought big so he could wear it twice!)

Vanessa - A Detective/Forensics Specialist - this one was complicated. She wanted a trench coat, but we have no clue if anyone will know what she is. LOL We are borrowing a CSI shirt from a neighbor. I’m thinking she will be fielding more questions then she would ask if she really was a detective.

Melissa - 50’s Girl - Awesome handmade poodle skirt and all. She’s more like a “Sandy” then a “Pink Lady”.

Brielle - Hippie Girl - and she fits the part with her long hair and I just love the costume!

Jessica - Cheerleader. This girl fits the part too. I’m just glad she is an alive cheerleader, because last year we had a “dead cheerleader”.

So, tell me what your kids are dressing up as…

I am so sorry girlfriend, but I just have to do it. Plus, it is such a GREAT idea that I wanted to tell my readers about it.

My friend Jo is participating in this “Exercise for Comments” thing.  I would sign up now and do it myself (plus I just love the warm fuzzies I get from all the blog love) except next month for me is consisting of this. So perhaps in December I will definitely consider it.

However, to support Jo in her brave and healthy endeavor, I am requesting that anyone that visits my blog, go cheer for Jo at her blog. Every comment you leave will get her to do one minute of exercise. She is doing great, but she isn’t up to that 315 for the whole week yet. We need to help her get there.

Go Jo! We all are cheering you on and hope you do the best you can!

Go leave her a comment (oh, and tell her I said hi and sent you there!).

I spent a great deal of the weekend catching up on some blog reading, but I still have a few more to go. With the start of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in just a few short days, I have to get cracking or this blog will fall to the sharks. Since I started MCM I have seen a growth in my stats as well as my ad revenue which has been nice.  I hope you will consider joining us. Mad Click Mondays started by one of my favorite bloggers Jo, and I’d like to recommend that you all go visit her and tell her I sent you. She rocks!

Here are the rules for Mad Click Monday:

- While visiting other blogger’s sites please be sure to look over the advertisements they may be displaying. If you see something that interests you then please click on the ad. This will not only help your fellow blogger earn a little money but also maybe help you learn about something new. (I do this every week!)

- You are not expected to do a weekly post or link back to Jo’s site, or me, my site, or this post. Jo is doing this for fun and because she’s thankful to those who read her blog (I am too, which is why I joined). If you do decide to link back to ME, please let me know and I will link to you.
- Be sure to email Jo or leave a comment on each Monday’s post letting her know you are doing this too and she will add a link to your site in the Mad Click Monday posts. It’s her way of saying thank you for taking the time to join her. (I will do the same if you leave a comment).

- Jo uses Mr Linky and so do I. (makes leaving your url easier for you) She is also looking into making a button or having someone make one so you can display it on your blog if you’d like. The one on my blog I made, and you are welcome to use it, but please save it to your computer - please don’t link directly to it. Thanks!

That’s it folks! It is so simple. It is just a nice way to play catch up from the weekends and get to know fellow bloggers by reading about them and letting them get a glimpse into you, and your comments. Oh, and just for the record, I have found some seriously cool blogs this way. If you happen upon me that way, let me know!

Yes, free stuff!

Who doesn’t just love free stuff?

Shannon at Rocks In My Dryer is doing it again! Do you remember the Dog Days of Summer Giveaway with over 500 giveaways?!?! It was amazing and quite successful! But now it is time for the fall version of the great giveaway!!! Shannon is hosting this carnival on her bloggygiveaways.com blog.

And now it’s official, I have jumped on the Fall, Y’all Bloggy Giveaway band wagon. For this Give-Away I am going to give away a copy of Disney Pixar Cars Movie!!! Now your child can have their own copy. I will do a random drawing on Sunday, November 4th. This contest is open to US residents only (sorry my International Friends), just make sure you leave your email address if you are not a blogger so that I can contact you! Happy Blogging!

Appetizer
Name a great website you would recommend to others.
I have dozens, but I would have to say that www.families.com has information on anything and everything you could possibly be looking for.

Soup
On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 as highest), how often do you dream at night?
5. I would have to say it is about a 50/50 shot. I don’t always remember them though, so it might be more than that.

Salad
Did you have a pet as a child?  If so, what kind and what was its name?
I had a lot of pets. I had a cat named Doda. I had three old English Sheepdogs named Chivas, Regal and Lulu and I had four Newfoundlands named Boris, Stuffy, Chunk and Koda, I also had an Australian Shepherd named Maggie. Then, I had two hamsters whose names I cannot remember and two guniea pigs - Marshmallow and Butterscotch. Lots of goldfish who’s lives ended tragically and they had to be flushed. LOL

Main Course
If you had the chance to star in a commercial, what would you choose to advertise?
Oh it would have to be some kind of infomercial because I’d love to be like “You have got to try this, it is amazing, just look what it can do!” Either that or jewerly or a pet food commercial so I can play with all the animals.

Dessert
What is your favorite kind of hard candy?
Jolly Ranchers or Cinnamon Disks. 

Visit other Fridays Feast Participants.

I have been on a health kick lately. Part of it is because I am trying to lose weight, and the other part of it is because I realized how many things we put in our bodies that just shouldn’t go there.

The first thing I gave up was Pork. That was hard because Mike makes these to-die-for Pork Ribs, but alas - Pork is the worst possible meat for our bodies. Next to go, but not completely (because I am such a die hard Cheeseburger lover) was ground beef. I am substituting with ground turkey which is by far better anyway. Talk about a yummy flavor.

So jump ahead to the past two weeks. I have cut down on my dairy intake immensely, which has been incredibly hard.  I hate milk, and don’t drink it anyway, BUT It doesn’t help that I love cheese, sour cream and yogurt. No, not all together. Instead of using two piece of cheese on my sandwiches or whatever, I am using only one. I haven’t bought yogurt in about a month and well, I am still using sour cream but less of it and really only on my baked potatoes (yeah, yeah, I know - starch!) I have kind of halved everything. It has really helped because in one week’s time I dropped over 2lbs without doing much!

Now it’s time to find an alternative to milk, since much of what I cook requires it, especially when baking.

Jasmine had a post today over at Our Wicked Weighs, about the evils of milk. I already knew how awful it was and it makes me just so sick that I have been avoiding it for years anyway. You should really read her post.

I was going to reply to her, but while I was writing my response, I wrote so much it could be a post all in itself, so here is what I was going to write in response to what she wrote:

Jasmine,

I have totally been thinking about trying these two different types of milk, so I am so glad to see them on your blog and hear what you had to say about them. I decided to try and cut back on dairy a lot (and yes that even means cheese though I am not giving it up completely).

That said, I already gave up milk years ago because I hated how it made me feel. So I am missing my cereal badly and caved in last night and used skim in an over full bowl of cereal so that I really just had a little something to moisten it with. Uhm. Not again.

I felt like crap afterwards and I don’t think Skim is that different from 2% obviously based on how I felt.  I won’t be doing that again!   BUT, I am going to go get these two and try them out.  Thanks for the advice!

Erin,
My mom gets Silk all the time.  My daughter loves it, especially the chocolate. I have been wondering about that one too and have tasted it - not bad. So now I’m going to be standing in front of all these trying to figure out what I need and knowing me, I’ll just get all three.

To both: Using the one for cooking because it isn’t sweetened is an excellent idea! I am thinking that would be wonderful, and the kids would never know the difference!!

Ok, now that I have written a post, I’ll be gone. (I didn’t post all this because I thought they’d both think I was crazy with a response that long!)

So gals, thanks for the heads up today! I needed a reminder and after my fiasco last night, this post could have been written for me. For those of you who are dieting and/or eating healthier, you need to seriously consider cutting back the dairy and completely eliminating the milk.

Now, if you read this far and didn’t read Jasmine’s post, go read it now!

I feel so eternally blessed when I look at my five children. They are so open to learning, to living and to experiencing everything a child can experience.

I have spent time with them lately trying to expose them to different things.

We have watched The Little Princess. They loved the story of Sarah and her beautiful imagination.

We have watched two different versions of The Miracle Worker: The Story of Helen Keller. They absolutely loved the story and were upset when the movie ended. Desperately wanting to know what happened to Helen later in life, so we will be doing some research on that.

And now tonight I have them watching Heidi. I have four girls totally enthralled in this movie and I think they will be equally sad when it ends.

I plan to also get my hands on Black Beauty, The Secret Garden and even Treasure Island. They might not wish to read the books, but watching the movie is just as good to expose them to our classics. Two of the girls have already expressed an interest in reading the Heidi books.

Next on my longer list is the Little House on the Prarie series. I love how open minded my children are.

I wanted to include a few more photographs that I got back from this past weekend. We are all still so incredibly proud of her.

This is perhaps one of my favorites. Waiting for her turn was so hard. Here she is watching her friends compete.  

Dixie and Brielle with their first win - third place ribbon.

Right before she competed. 

This was her as she took home her second win - FIRST PLACE! woohoo!