Halloween

This Halloween was rather strange... I didn't trick or treat, and we didn't carve pumpkins. However, I did finish my Elf costume! William, Nicholas, and I all were Lord of the Rings characters!

The pictures were taken on Dad's camera, and they wound up with Grandma (since Dad is staying at Grandma and Papa's house during the week while he's commuting until we move), and she edited them and put them on facebook. Of course, these aren't all the pictures, but let's just call it a teaser, shall we? Someday I would like to do a true photoshoot. :)

Frodo, smoking the Longbottom Leaf of Hobbit fame as he stares, ponderously, into the distance. (Note that the Ring of Power is around his neck!)

< Frodo, in a very epic pose. :)Nicholas wore his Easter outfit from last year (I was the one who pointed out that the vest was quite the Hobbit style!), a cloak made by Mom, and the Ring of Power (from Ben's Lord of the Rings Risk game) around a chain.

Strider, a Ranger from the North

Elendil, king of Gondor and Arnor

Aragorn, son of Arathorn

< Aragorn, prepared to charge into battle. William saved up his money to buy a real (albeit unsharpened) sword- a replica's of Aragorn from when he was still known as the Ranger from the North (in other words, not the sword of Narsil). It is a very nice sword. William wore a "chainmaille" shirt found at Goodwill, a fake leather tunic made by Mom, jeans, Mom's boots, and a homemade cloak. He stole my Evenstar for the costume, and I also made him "The Ring of Barahir" (aka Aragorn's ring).

^The only picture of my cotume you'll get to see for awhile! I made the costume (jewelry included!) entirely by myself. Well, Mom helped me figure out the sewing pattern and she sewed the collar on. But other than that!

Okay, so Ben was just too funny. He sat there with the thing of candy, and would randomly start talking or moving. We got several screams!

Three our four people read the "Mean Ogre" sign. They read it aloud, and as they were finishing, Ben cried indignantly, "I'm not mean!"

The funniest incident was probably with a few teen girls. I didn't get to see this one, but from what he said...

The two girls walked forward and read the signs.

"Should I grab some candy?" (in a tone of surpressed horror)

"I don't know, its probably a person tricking us."

"I dunno, it doesn't look real."

"You get the candy."
"I don't want to."

"Is it real?"

"Let's throw a rock at it and see."

As you can imagine, Ben was rather concerned that they would chuck a rock at his head. Instead, they threw a bag of candy at him and then ran away without getting the bag or the candy from Ben. !!!

Marcus was originally going to be King Theoden (or at least, a king with a sword and all, us Tolkien geeks named him Theoden), but he wouldn't wear the costume. So he was a firefighter instead.

Adelynn was the most darling little pink bunny rabbit EVER!

Happy Birthday, Ben!

 

 Here are some late pictures of Ben's 13 birthday party at Grandma's. I had to steal these pictures from Grandma's Facebook- I had taken them with Grandma's camera. I didn't see any pictures of him with his new iPod Nano... (its awesome! *dies*)

  

 Blowing out candles

 

Getting ready for cake!!!

Ben is a teenager now!

Ben's 13th birthday was yesterday. He had a sleepoever Friday night and then as a last-minute thing we went over to his best friend's house as a family (his best friend's family also happens to be good family friends with us) :)
More to come later. And by the way, Ben is camera-shy (or rather he just makes weird faces or sticks his hand on the lenses) so I don't have many pictures. I'll put up what I do have later. Sorry about the boring, picture-less posts!

Say What?

My brother is sitting next to me as I am typing (we have the old computer next to our family computer) and is playing Pinball. He is sitting there talking gibberish in a strange accent that is a mix between English and Spanish. And Yoda. And Gollum. Appearently, the balls are having a sort of battle trying to take over someone's mind.
Say what?
Mom just walked by and gave us a funny look. lol :):):):):):):)

Poems

Yesterday (Saturday) my volleyball team had our tournament! We lost :( We had alot of fun, though! Not much else has been going on, so I have no new pictures for you. However, I have two poems- not by me! On the way down to Springfield for the tournament, Dad issued us a "poem challenge". We had to write a poem about the sand fairies. For this to make sense to you, I had better explain what the Sand Fairies are. Awhile back, we were all outside playing in the sand and building piles and such. Since we were using dry sand, the wind would knock little bits off the edges of our castles. Dad said that that was the Sand Fairies. These fairies are too fast to see, but you can see the bits of sand that their feet knock around as they run. Adelynn spent a long time making castles for them. She was so funny! Dad told her to try and catch a sand fairy. She asked how. Dad pointed to a small bucket and told her to try to capture one in that. Aghast, Adelynn stared and said knowingly, "You can't trap it! The Fairy Queen will put a spell on you!" Nick did not know what to think. He came up to me and said, "It's just the wind blowing the sand around," and then very quietly, "Isn't it?" William played right along and built a whole little world for the fairies. After a while he got bored and decided that he needed a battle. So he made the spiders be attacking the fairies! "Attack of the spiders!"
Anyway, I am getting side tracked. The point of this post is to show the awesome poem that William came up with. Ben wrote a neat poem that he did not finish, and I made a poem that was not very good. Maybe I'll post those later. He did not use stanzas, so I am just writing this the way it was on his paper.

When the Sand Fairies Came Out To Dance
By William Rackers
On the most common of days, with the gentlest breezes, the sand fairies came out to dance! Oh, how fair and fast they danced. They danced so fast even those with the "sight" could not get more than a glimpse of them. The sand all around was flying everywhere! going, "pow tow zow tow fow now"! And I could just hear the music so wild and fast: dum dee dee dam dum dee dee dam dum dum dum dee dee dam, over the sand hills we go dee dee dum. They flew over the little sand hills: dum dam dee dee dum dee dee dee dum dam dee dee de dum. How long they danced! How long! How long! They danced through the night! The the sand fairies' King stopped and said, "My people, we have danced through the big people's sleep time. Sadly it is time to stop" "What! We dance so fast the big people can't see us! Even those with the 'sight'!" cried the crowd of fairies. "Silence," yelled the king, "They can still see the sand flying under our feet! They will wonder! And we can not dance through the day too! So dance to your beds if you want! Just go!" The crowd subsided and went. But a few started dancing to bed.

It was interesting to see the differences in each of our poems. We each expressed our own ideas of the sand fairies in our own way. Anyway, later, while I was playing my games at the tournament, Ben wrote an awesome poem. He is really big into blacksmithing at the moment, and wants to make stuff for movies when he grows up. Here is Ben's poem:

By Ben Rackers
There he stood behind the fire
Doing the trade he learned from his sire
Forging a sword
To give to his lord
And all of the nobles beside him
So there he raised his hammar up high
And let it fall to the height of his thigh
Forging a sword
To give to his lord
And all of the nobles beside him
Drawing it long and making it stout
Drenching it in water and taking it out
Forging a sword
To give to his lord
And all of the nobles beside him
Polishing it upon a great stone
And using the stone to make it hone
Forging a sword
To give to his lord
And all of the nobles beside him.

I have such a miserably hard time writing poems with rhythm and rhyme. Ben does it so beautifully. And William is so full of great creative ideas. If he would only write it down more, we would have books full of great poems and stories.

Ben's Second Awesome Poem

OK, watch out world, Ben wrote another poem. This is a continuation of his last week's English lesson, in which he had to write a poem in the style of one that was in his book. I did this same course last year, and I think that the poem I wrote was about a cherry sucker in a bag of candy (weird, yes. I know). Well, I think that Ben's way beats mine! Read away:

A silver-clad knight and an enemy force
With their pikes and swords and bows
But yells he does a fearsome cry
And falls upon his foes
And falls upon his foes, my son
While like a bird unbeat
Here and there his great sword flies
The foe now at his feet

But lo, their numbers were far too great
For one man to beat them all
But nobly the knight fought on
Until he had to fall
But when he had to fall, my son
He didn't die for naught
For he took with him the enemy king
The One which he had sought.

Does that leave you at a loss for words, or what? I dunno, but I think that Ben might be fighting me for the post of biggest-writer-in-the-family. That is just super-awesome!

Not nearly as interesting, but still pretty cool: I took a picture of Adelynn at the first snow of last winter. Papa Archibald took the photo, turned it into black and white, and put it on Flickr. He says:

You can put on your blog that your photo of Addie in the snow on Flickr has reached 237 views with 21 comments and 9 favorite votes, if you want. Here's the link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tim_a/2760147411/in/set-72157606792003309/

Check it out! And look at the rest of Papa's photos, too. He takes some awesome shots!!!

Ben's Poem

Ben wrote this for English class. I think that it's awesome! He had to write a poem following the same rhythm or rhyming patterns as another poem, I think.

An Archer Song
by Ben Rackers
A great archer and a far-off branch
An arrow that draws back
And bends the strong and trusted bow
Then strikes the smallest crack
Then strikes the smallest crack, my son
While like the branch that's free
Down the good bow snaps and falls
It's last day on his knee

Ben and Will's Birthday

I am catching up- this is Ben and Will's birthday celebration with Grandma and Grandpa Archibald.

Wonder and astonishment

Posing

Nick inside the present's box

The boys are thrilled with their present- a ramp

Ben rides his bike over the ramp

Nick has to have his share of the fun!!!

The box.

Will was the first- and so far only- one to master the art of riding the Ripstick on the ramp. I keep getting stuck at the top...

Pictures of me on the unicycle are not very good. I can ride it half-way up the ramp- but I haven't been able to get onto the flat top of it.

This is just too cute- Marcus found Grandma's empty beer bottle and started gnawing on it.

Ben's VBS Bag

This picture was supposed to go in with my other post, but I forgot it. Ben was a VBS crew leader for the first time this year. He got a leader bag to keep all the "leader stuff" in. He decorated it with Sharpies. It was pretty cool. Not the best picture, though.

Pirate Attack!

Benjamin the Deadly (or just plain Ben) has been making some wonderful pirate ships lately! These are the first drawings of his that I have seen with such wonderful shading and detail.

This ship doesn't have a name yet, but it is Ben's favorite because of the variety in the sails.

The Dragon Slayer

Blackbeard's Revenge

The Dragon Wing

And this is a picture of mine. They are Elven clothes designed for my story. I am thinking about illustrating it, if I actually ever finish it. Anyway, these are the only ones I've colored. I like the rose one the best because it is a new style that I have never drawn before. Recently, when wondering what to sketch, I decided to look at the fancy modern dresses and re-design them (on paper, of course, because I can't sew for the life of me, at least not yet) in a more modest but still stylish style.

William is training for a mile-long race. He has run a mile in 8 minutes. I'm jealous- he can run alot farther than me!

Ben's Birthday

Ben is 12 now. Happy Birthday Ben! (his birthday way yesterday)

This is the cake I made. It is suppposed to be a Lego, but I did not realize until after I made it that Legos have two rows of bumps on top, not one. Oh, well... And the red lego wall is for Redwall, Ben's favorite series of books.


Playing DS. Yes, they always watch everyone play it. It is hard for me to get a turn without at it least one of them sitting down next to me, intructing me what to do. :)

He may not like his clothes, but he sure likes the homemade wrapping paper. (We didn't have any B-day paper, so Mom and Dad made football paper)

Ben opening his present. That thing is fun!

Wii Fit in action.

Viel Glück auf deinem zwölftes Geburtstag, Ben!

Happy 12th Birthday, Ben!