Eric and Alex went trick or treating with

my friend Mary's son Matt while Mary and

I handed out candy. Eric and Matt

dressed up as girls (they were pretty cute)

and Alex was a scary fire fighter. Sara

stayed overnight at a friends house so

I didn't get any pics of her but she

dressed as a preppy girl. Paul is

working overtime so he won't be

home until Sunday.

Grandma went to California for a few

days so we stayed with Sadie and

Papa. Poor Sadie was so upset she

had a hard time relaxing.

Happy Birthday Jack!

Happy 3rd Birthday Jack!

Grandma's Birthday Party

We celebrated Grandma's birthday on Sunday the 19th

because the kids went to Worlds of Fun with

Demain Jesse and Carli on the 18th. I made spaghetti and

meat balls and here are the rest of the festivities...

Happy Birhtday to Aunt Lolly too! We Love You!

Emma (my niece) carefully placing the ABC

candles on Grandma's cupcakes. She placed the candles deep enough

so that they wouldn't fall out.

(notice the pink a candle)

We all sang Happy Birthday and Emma had

to "blow Grandma's cakes for her"
Just to make sure that it was done

correctly she had us relight the candles and
sing again so she could blow the cakes again.

What a good girl!

We always carve pumpkins on Grandma's

birthday. The boys used stencils

and Sara drew her own.

Notice Sadie sitting right there she was

very helpful! We had to put her on her leash

so she wouldn't eat pumpkin guts.

Emma giving Eric some much needed instruction.
She even entertained us with some of her scariest faces.

Emma's Pumpkin

I'm sure that you noticed that there are

no pics of Grandma, she is like me

she doesn't like pictures.

We got some exciting news from Jeff & Michelle

Emma's baby brother will be here on January 15th.

We will be getting 3 new

babies in the family about the same time.

Jeff & Michelle's, Matt & Beth's and

Melisa & Jeff's we can't wait to meet all of them!

Just a few of my favorite pictures...

Sick and tired

Another exciting week at the Vela house. All of the kids have been sick Alex is having asthma trouble and we had to cancel a camping trip because his pulmonary function is so low. We started him on a new drug three weeks ago he gets 3 injections of it every two weeks so hopefully it will start kicking in soon and we'll see some improvement.

Sara has been getting up every morning for 16 days with a terrible stomach ache then she vomits and feels better a few hours later. We took her to the Dr. 3 times and they did all kinds of blood work and found nothing so today we went to Children's Mercy to see a GI Dr. (He reminded me of the toad in the Frog & Toad books) He thinks that it is acid reflux and the reason that she pukes every morning is because when she lays down the acid seeps up into the esophagus and has created a hole (hence the pain.) He put her on Prevacid two times a day and Maalox at bed time and the hole should repair itself.

Eric has just got some kind of creeping crud and has been home from school for three days. I think that he is on the mend now and should go back to school on Monday.

Other than that we are GREAT!

A day in the life of a chocolateer

Here is what I did today...

I made 6 batches of fudge.

First I weigh out all of the ingredients.
It takes about 45 minutes to cook,
After it reaches the correct temperature we pour it out

on a solid granite table and mix in the chocolate, marshmallows

and in this one peanut butter.

After it is all mixed it starts to set up as it cools and we

shape it into a log. Then I have to taste it to

make sure that it is good, it's rough but someone

has to do it. Thursday I will make 300 caramel

apples. I LOVE my job!

Puppy Abuse

Poor Sadie, mom and dad and the kids all went shopping

and left her at home! She laid in the window and cried

until they came back.

The Pumpkin Patch and Vaughn's Orchard

The kids and I went up to Weston to the Red Barn Farm. It turns out that

quite a few other people got the same great idea.

They were not happy about me making them pose with the pumpkins.

After the farm we went over to Vaughn's Orchard, the kids went

into the haunted barn then we had apple cider and cider doughnuts.

The kids with the "scary guy" outside of the Haunted Barn.

Paul was working overtime so we stopped to see him at the station on the way back to Grandma's to make apple crisp! YUM!

The Blogwagon

I have decided after much thought to jump on the blogwagon. Can I keep up? Will I have anything interesting to say? Will I be better at this than scrapbooking? That is all yet to be seen. I wll do my best...