How to embarrass the dog, two ways!

Poor Hayley, she gets no respect. The boys insisted she needed puppies so she has a little of pups they insist on following her around with. NOW, we dress her up for Halloween too! Love my three little superheroes. I don't think they would intimidate any evildoers!

Our house is ready for Halloween too, are you?

We fell into Fall

Not happily, fall has arrived in West Michigan. We went from 84 and sunny on Monday to 45 and rainy on Friday. Not such good beach weather.

We did manage to get a last day of beach fun in on Monday and the water was a glorious 72 degrees.

Tuesday, the boys had a day with Grandma Cindy and Papa Terry as I had dispatch training. They spent some time at North Shore beach and played. They had soccer in the evening, which is always entertaining. We raced from soccer to Grand Haven Twp Fire Station for their annual open house and had some fun checking out all the rescue trucks. We didn't last long, the winds kicked in and it got chilly.

Yesterday we road tripped to Rockford and went to the original Rosie's Diner, home to all the tv commercials with Rosie and the quicker picker upper Bounty. We got our pumpkins too and have been having trouble explaining why it's too soon to carve them yet.

Today is rainy, inside fun with playdoh. We're making a big pot of chicken soup for dinner.

We have definately hit the defiant fours and new depths of parental frustration as the boys test their limits and boundaries and seem to have no fear of getting in trouble. We'll continue to try getting through it but it's sure been hard this week.

The boys did make it over to Grandpa Mark's this morning after church and found bounty the pirate left them for Halloween. (For those who don't know, there is a pirate who visits Papa and Grandma's house and leaves the boys regular treasures to find. It started last spring with a treasure map and hats and outfits for the boys who had to follow the map to the beach to find buried treasure boxes. Ever since then, the pirate has been visiting to leave gold covered chocolate coins and other treats.)