Halloween 2016

Halloween was on a Monday this year. That just feels a little off. It seems more like a weekend holiday! Several schools had their Halloween parades on Friday, while many stuck with the actual day for parades and parties (Colton's school had theirs on Monday). He went as a "Chick Magnet" for lack of a better costume. Not that he likes girls at all of course. I mean ewwww.

Callahan apparently does feel the same way about girls (Keaton either ... but that is another post). For a triple date, Cal and friends and their dates came and carved pumpkins at our house. This one pictured was Callahan's design ... and a pretty perfect one for a house full of basketball boys!

Pokemon Go even got into the Halloween theme ...

They had a Halloween update for the week preceding the holiday. The "scary" Pokemon, such as Gastly, Haunter, Zoobat, Cubone and even Meowth (a cat, though not black) would appear much more often. Also, distance walked was doubled, and triple points were earned on some catches. Cooper was pretty happy about the incentives, but then he got sick and ended up on the couch for several days, instead of walking around taking advantage of the update.

My Friday Zumba class encouraged us to dress up ...

It was a fun holiday dance edition.

Dancing in costume to Thriller, Ghostbusters, Monster Mash, Witch Doctor and more. Happy Halloween Zumba! #zumba

A video posted by JenB (@jenbsjourney) on Oct 28, 2016 at 10:38am PDT

Callahan and Co also raided the costumes for a school dance ...

Cute Woopie Cushion Callahan!

Colton ended up getting sick the weekend before Halloween too. I wasn't sure if either of the little boys would feel up to going out, or if they would even want to (they consider themselves a little old for it at this point). Colton felt better, and did want to go collect some candy, so I walked the neighborhood with him (and the PokemonGo phone). He would have had more fun with friends I'm sure, but we hadn't planned ahead enough. I didn't get around to taking the traditional "candy" shot. 

Maga's Menagerie

Maga had a bit of a menagerie this year (we can't really point fingers, as at our house there were 20 ducks in the backyard, two kitties and a goldfish inside, but that's not the point of this post!) It all started when pretty Princess got pregnant. At the end of May, she had five little kittens. The little tan one didn't make it :(

The Blackham boys went out a few times to see the kittens and get a little playtime in. 

Nothing cuter than kittens!

Ana had her arms full!

Maga meant to get Princess in to be fixed, but oops ... she was expecting again!

Another batch of babies. This time the daddy must have had a little Siamese in him.

Maga found homes for the babies, but Ana ended up keeping one.

NOT this one - the orange male. Cosmo.

The kittens weren't the only animals around (or I wouldn't call it a menagerie!)

There were the chickens! It started off as an Easter experiment ... oh the little peeping and cheeping during Easter dinner (because the babies were kept in the kitchen of course). Then Maga got a little coop for the birds out back. She let them wander though. They were a little rough on the yard, pecking and scratching flowers and plants. But they laid eggs in exchange. Four chickens, around for a few years.

Then there was the BlackHamster

Can't really blame Pammy for adding this critter ... 

it was a gift from her sisters at the big Pammy Party this year. 

The puppy didn't come until next year ...

Multiple Personalities

I love Facebook. I was late to the party, joining right before my 20th high school reunion. But since jumping on the bandwagon, I've been hooked. As the kids moved to Instagram, Twitter, and now Snapchat ... I remained faithful to Facebook. I just like its interactions better. In fact, in addition to my personal account, I set up a second one, to post about fitness ...

I don't post much about family on this profile. I friend all my Zumba buddies on this account, and follow fitness pages and blogs, and post stats, workout photos, Zumba routines, etc.

... and then why not make it three. I wasn't sure if all my boys friends (those still on Facebook, which admittedly are few) and the basketball parents cared about family photos or fitness stuff, so THIS Facebook profile is all basketball all the time! I post my highlight videos and game scores and such here.

You might say I have a split personality. Three ways!

Recently, there was a little "favorite word" app going around. I'd done this when it circulated before. It gathers your most used words and arranges them in a word cloud. It's fun to see the results ... usually nothing very unexpected, but there can be some surprises. I did it for all three of my accounts and you could definitely see the slant from each account ...