We had fun trick or treating tonight. Pictures will follow later. But I couldn’t go to sleep without sharing the funniest thing I’ve heard all year.

We went door to door, the kids saying, “Trick or treat.” One of the kids had to share with all the other kids the Halloween poem we all know and either love or hate, “Trick or treat, smell my feet, gimme something good to eat!”

Isak came up to me giggling, saying, “Someone made a really funny rhyme! Want to hear it?”

“Okay!”

“Trick or treat! Smell my meat! Gimme something good to beat!”

There is nothing that is cuter than a kid with no front teeth. Just in time for Halloween, though too early to be able to sing, “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth,” Isak lost his 2nd front tooth this morning.

Some pictures for your viewing enjoyment:

Click on each kids’ picture to see a bigger version.

Anja: Guess what I’m thinking.

Isak: That you want me to be gone?

Anja: Noooo…

Isak: That you want to control the world?

Anja: Nooooo…I’ll give you a hint: It starts with a “magic wand”.

Isak: You want a magic wand so you can control the world?

Anja: Nooooo…I’ll give you another hint: It starts with a “ma-”.

Isak: Hmmm.

Anja: It starts with a “magic”.

Isak: Wand?

Anja: Yes!

Isak: A pretend magic wand?

Anja: No, a real magic wand.

Isak: But ANJA, if you have a REAL magic wand, then you have to control the world!

Anyone who knows me well and/or who reads this blog religiously will know about my disdain for exercise. It is just yuck. I am an instant gratification kind of gal, and exercise does NOT provide instant gratification. AT ALL. I’m all about instant pudding, quick-cook oats, 5-minute rice, microwave popcorn, digital photography. I have a hard time waiting 17 minutes for a frozen pizza to cook. I don’t even let cookie dough bake because that just takes WAY too much time.

You exercise, and you huff and puff and hurt and have a headache and your face gets all bright red and blotchy and you’re sweaty and achy and STILL FAT.

It doesn’t help that I’m a grumpy exerciser. I do not like “motivational people” working out with me. I do not like hearing “just 10 more!” 5 more times. How cruel is that, anyway? “OK, I only have 10 more, than I can run to the store and buy a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and eat it while laying on a down blanket in my bed, watching the Food Network. What? 10 more? 10 MORE? Jesus. OK, 10 more. Then I won’t have to work out for another month. I can do 10 more. WHAT?? 10 MORE?!?!”

I equally hate running with people. I can’t talk when I’m running. I have only enough breath in me to live from one second to the next. Expending any of that precious breath means I will be laying on the side of the road with a corpsman jolting me with portable heart paddles. I don’t even want people to run next to me in silence, because that means they will certainly feel the road bowing beneath me every time my feet hit the pavement, and they will be like, “Ew, that girl is sweaty.”

But for the last few weeks, I have been faithfully (but grudgingly) hitting the gym at least 3 times a week, with the exception of last week with my LEEP. I’ve been going to this class called Ab Lab, which should be unconstitutional because it could easily be identified as cruel and unusual punishment, not to mention I have the healthiest and most peppy instructor imaginable which I am sure you can by now imagine would only fuel my deep, intense hatred for exercise.

I follow up that half hour of torture with another half hour of racquetball. Now, this is something that has surprised me.

See, I lack a vital quality of a good athlete, especially a good athlete who plays with spherical or semi-spherical objects. That quality would be hand-eye coordination. Oh yeah, and balls too. When I see something coming toward my head, every neuron in my brain is screaming “HIT THE DECK! HIT THE DECK!”, so I usually do. Case in point, today when the racquetball scalped me as I was already halfway to the floor in a supine position, quivering in fear.

But somehow, by some crazy change of luck, I have won 5 games in a row (of 5 games played, no less) against a very athletic person who enjoys such things as volleyball, hockey, rowing a boat, or generally just getting up and walking to the printer. I, on the other hand, prefer laying on my bed. All the time. The printer can be dealt with later, like maybe by her since she likes getting up and walking to it anyway. Maybe she can just deliver it to my bed tomorrow.

So yeah, it’s been a few weeks. I haven’t lost any weight and I am still hating it. Except the racquetball part, because although I may be laying flat on my back, I WON.

Sorry I haven’t updated lately. I had a migraine on Sunday that was tamed by my last 2 Cafergots (panic!) but didn’t go away completely, and by Monday it was still there and worsening as the day went on. I started my medication on Monday night to prevent them, so hopefully I’ll go awhile without these.

I got the kids’ Halloween costumes! Isak is going to be a ghost - and most likely a ghost with no teeth! His top left tooth fell out a few weeks ago and then a bottom left tooth next to the front ones fell out a few days ago, and it looks like his top right tooth will be out today or tomorrow. Anja is going to be a princess - I found the greatest dress that I have the feeling she will be wearing well after Halloween. It is purple with a hoop skirt and puffy, sheer sleeves, and an overlay on the skirt part, and a princess crown and a necklace. She is so excited and loooooves to wear the dress already…I’ve had to have her wear it a couple of times so I could hem the bottom. Hem! Me, hem! Thank god for Stitch Witchery!

We had some yucky weather last night, a lot of wind and rain that pretty much tore all the rest of the leaves off the trees. For some reason, this autumn I have been particularly attentive to the change of the season…I’m really enjoying the colors and the fallen leaves and the smell of autumn more than I think I ever have before. It really is lovely. I was walking yesterday and a gust of wind blew up a bunch of leaves into this swirl right where I was walking, and the air was dancing with giant yellow and orange leaves. I will be so sad when the season is over.

Although, with the ending of the autumn season comes the beginning of winter, and that is when we’re moving! I’m very excited about it all. We have some organizing to do in the meantime but things are progressing well and I think our move should go very smoothly.

Yesterday, Niki and I and a few new friends all went to a scrapbooking event called “Croptoberfest”, sponsored by Creative Memories. I don’t care for Creative Memories papers or stickers for the most part, but they are improving those. I do, however, love their cutting tools and pens. And I couldn’t pass up a day of scrapping from 9-5 with a bunch of women with similar interests. So we scrapped all day, and then headed to the Scrapbook Nook in Kent to pick up a few goodies, and then headed over to one of the women in our group’s house to continue scrapbooking.

We stayed until almost 2am, and between the first half and the second half, I got a lot of pages done (for me). I’m usually verrrry slow but I had a few ideas in mind and I was armed with enough supplies to be able to do mostly whatever I wanted. I did get another 2-page layout nearly done but I didn’t have anything for the title so I didn’t scan that one in yet. That one’s a 12×12 layout, all the ones I’m including here are 8½”x11″.

Niki got one 2-page layout almost! done at the 9-5 crop and one more 2-page layout done at the 2nd half of the day. She spent a good 6½ hours on one page, and just as she was nearing completion, I tipped over my nearly full glass of white grape juice directly on her layout. (I can hear scrapbookers everwhere gasping in horror right now.) Niki has commented before that she’s never seen me cry…last night, that was changed! I felt so horrible, but all Niki did was laugh. Thank goodness for forgiving friends. Very, very fortunately (and incredibly), the only thing the juice seemed to land on was one corner of the layout that was just a 6″x6″ piece of orange paper with a quarter of a circle of patterned paper on it. Once the paper underneath dried, she put on a new piece of orange paper and cut out another quarter circle and I swear, you would never know anything happened. What a huge relief.

Here are most of the layouts I finished yesterday. They were all for Anja’s album, which I’ve not done much work on. Isak’s had a full album for about 2 years now but I never really got around to doing much on Anja’s. I’m happy that they both have a nearly-full album for themselves.

Click on any layout to see a larger-sized version.

Lovely Niki shared her talent with me and made me a crown to match the crown on Anja’s t-shirt. Thanks, Niki! And thanks, Heide, for sending the picture!

Isak got a little notebook yesterday so he would stop putting stickers all over our house.

He said he only wanted to put stickers on one page - he wanted to be able to write his deepest, darkest secrets in it instead.

Deep dark secrets? From the most innocent 6-year-old I know? This had to be good…

I found the clamp-on lamp with the dim bulb so he can read in bed at night, and I came in after a half-hour to find him writing in his notebook. This was particularly surprising, as he has (up until now) been very self-conscious about his writing and will only write if I’m there to help him spell things correctly.

Since he still writes so large, it was hard to avoid looking, but I asked him first if I could read it. He said that yes, I could, and I couldn’t wait to read his “deepest, darkest secrets.”

1. I have a lit up lantern.

2. I luve to plea soccr. (SINCE WHEN??)

3. I luve to plea pleastatton.