I made the cupcakes and they turned out really cute!
I did take pictures but then my memory card crapped out so I have pictures to share.
All the sudden, at Sarah's school, the camera said "Memory Card Error".
The only way to fix it was to replace the card, so I did and the camera is working better now.
I'll upload the halloween pics today.

We went to Desmond's birthday party (I think Halloween is the best birthday ever!) and then went trick-or-treating for an hour and came home and passed out candy for an hour. The kids had a blast... and now I think we'll have candy in our house until after Easter!

William has had lots of "bloggable" moments lately but none come to mind right now.
They have both changed a lot in the past 3 weeks, especially their speech and vocabulary.
I think Joey will notice a difference in how they speak and phrase things when he returns on Sunday.

Today Sarah has a birthday party and we have a joint wives naming. We'll be naming Marianne Williams, Kathy Banks and Cindy Ortel. If anyone has any stories to share, please do!

I did some looking around on the internets and found some easy to decorate halloween cupcakes.
I'm going to make the Scrumptions Skeletons from Family Fun and then the Eye and the RIP from this picture and maybe someFrankenstein-types from this picture. I thought I'd try those and see which ones turned out the cutest. When I was gathering the supplies today I found out that the base is sold out of black gel so I'll have to substitute brown. I looked for a bag of candy corn too (to see if I could take the easy way out) but there's not a one to be found. I have one bag in the pantry but that's for the T.O.M. Turkey cupcakes I make every year.

I bought a new crock pot today for a recipe I'm making tonight. Lianna and her kids are coming over for dinner. It's a chicken stew type recipe that has 2 cans of hominy in it. I ate hominy growing up as a kid and I'm excited to make a recipe that calls for it.

I went to the dentist today because on Friday I woke up with a horrible pain in my jaw. The dentist said there is nothing wrong with my jaw or my teeth so it is probably muscular. He's probably right because usually, when I have a pain in my body it's muscular, due to my muscular imbalance from my scoliosis. I am really tight on my left shoulder and up my neck so I'm sure it is related. I guess I can't give up my bi-weekly torture sessions, I mean massages.

and I made a random purchase at the commissary today... Tapioca pudding. I had a craving. Do you like it? I think most people don't. I do. I'll be making some soon.....

Well, Joey's been gone 2 1/2 weeks and I've done very few things that are on "my list".
The mundane, everyday things get in the way of the "extra projects" and, I won't allow myself to work on any of my fun hobbies until I get the other stuff done.
I am planning to get the filing and e-bay listing done today so that then, I can make some cards tonight.
There are a lot of baby showers coming up.
Scrapbooking might have to wait until he goes to Misawa in a few weeks.

I'm supposed to make cupcakes for Sarah's class's Fall Party on Thursday.
Any suggestions of something cute and "fall" ish?
Must be easy to decorate...

Yesterday, we went to the Kadena Elementary Fall Festival.
Today, we went to the very small Fall Festival at William's preschool because he wanted to go to the one at his school. It was very small... about 50 people (maybe) there.
Tonight, after baths, we watched High School Musical.
These were their observations....
Sarah said, "They don't go to school very long but they spend a lot of time at school."
At the end, when they win the Championship game and the coach hands them the trophy
William said, "Look Mom - they won the Piston Cup!"
(He's a big Lightening McQueen fan...)
and then, when they were dancing, Sarah said, "Almost everyone has on shirts that you can see their armpits."
I thought all three were funny.

How much is your gas?
The national average is $2.92
Our gas on base, here is $4.06
Yes - $4.06.
THAT IS RIDICULOUS.
The story is HERE. and is nothing but ridiculous.
It's way past Oct 1 and our gas is still at $4.06.
It's almost cheaper to buy gas off-base on the Japanese economy, which is CRAZY.
We do get "Cost of Living Allowance" for being over here but our COLA has gone down since the gas prices have gone up because the Yen and dollar are about even. None of this makes any sense.
This is what happens when you "trust" that other people will make decisions in your best interest.

I bought a pumpkin yesterday at the commissary. We won't be carving it until a few days before halloween because they mold really fast here. My friend's only lasted 2 days, inside the house.
As I was buying the pumpkin, I realize that my poor son will have NO pictures from his youth at a pumpkin patch. He won't get to experience the crafts and hayrides.... chicks and corn mazes that his sister did.
I have Fall pictures of her in overalls every year at a pumpkin patch. In San Antonio, my MOPS group used to go every year. In Monterey, we went with her school. W was only 10 months,but he tagged along and I think I have a few snaps of him there.
So - I'm tempted to take my camera to the commissary and take his picture amongst all the pumpkins. For all you non-military types, that's like taking a picture in the grocery store.
If I do, I'll post it.

We're all slowly but surely getting better... just hoping Sarah doesn't get sick!

So, I've been thinking about recipes a lot lately... how much I enjoy collecting recipes from friends because it's nice to go back and look through them and see familiar names. Also, I find recipes to be very personal. Recently, I had to make food for a mexican themed lunch and I volunteered to make the spanish rice because I knew I had a recipe stuck somewhere from Trisha Rodriguez and I thought it would be a good excuse to dig it out. I loved looking through my old recipes and seeing names of old friends I've come in contact with over the years. People who I think about when ever I make the recipe they gave me but that I haven't spoken to in a long, long time. I have a recipe from Kim (Bahl) Roberts for pound cake with fruit on top, a recipe from Leslie Keck for Ambrosia Cake (which I make often and everyone always compliments me on), and several recipes that I have had for years but have not yet made.... but I will some day. I also have lots of recipes from my Grandma and my mom. I'm glad I have these because my mom doesn't cook like she used to. One thing I wish I had is darabrat's mom's meatball recipe.... maybe some day!

We're trying to get the sickness out of our house. William was sick - stuffy nose, fever, etc, last week. He threw up once. Yesterday, I threw up 5 times and had a splitting head ache all day long. I'm better now but William threw up again last night. UGH - I hate being sick and I hate it when my kids are sick. This too shall pass - right?

We have renters moving into our house in San Antonio on the 15th so we are thankful for that. Joey is leaving for Vegas on Tuesday for a few weeks. I'm hoping to get some scrapbooking done. I haven't done that since Monterey, except for making the digital one for Missy. I thought I was going to go digital but I was looking through my England scrapbooks the other day and I was reminded how much I enjoy working with my pictures and looking through the albums when they are complete so I'm going to get all the Creative Memories stuff I have out and start using it.

I've been wasting a lot of time playing silly word games like this one.
I've been playing on facebook because you can play against your friends.
I'm pretty good at the game, but I find that I don't do well with words that begin with vowels.
I wonder what this says about me?

Busy weekend, as usual.
Friday night we has "First Friday" with our squadron at the bowling alley. The kids, of course, loved that.
Saturday we went out to eat lunch and then took Daddy to the "drop slide" park. I forgot my camera. I'm sure we'll be going again and I'll post pictures. Basically, it's a slide that drops straight down before flattening out. You hang from a bar and let yourself drop. I haven't gone down it but the kids love it.
Saturday night was our coffee. We did yoga, from which I am still sore today (Monday).
Sunday, we had the Steele family over for dinner. They arrived on island a few weeks ago. Mano went through pilot training with Joey so we have known them for 11 years! They were based with us in England and we have, of course, kept in touch over the years. We are looking forward to spending some time with them on Okinawa.
I'm glad to report that we found renters for our house! Yeah! They want to move in on the 15th.
They have 2 golden retrievers so we are a little worried about that but, that's what security & pet deposits are for, right?