Carving our Pumpkins

There's nothing like waiting till almost the last minute to carve our pumpkins! We finally found some time where all of us were together right before dinner tonight. Lauren and Kristin were goofing around with one of those non-sharp carving knives.Lauren got started first. I'm glad she's old enough to be able to do the whole thing herself, didn't have to help her one bit.

I cut the top off of Megan's but she surprised me by carving her own face. She made me a little nervous using the knife but she did it and managed to even keep all her fingers.

For Zach's pumpkin I cut the top off and waited for Paul to help him with the rest. I thought Zach would like taking all the seeds and stuff out of the pumpkin but he wanted nothing to do with it. He just watched as his daddy did it all.

Kristin didn't want to cut her top off either but she did do the face. She was the last one to finish and was still working on it as Paul was grilling our dinner.

Zach didn't even want to pose with his finished jack-o-lantern, probably because he didn't help with any of it.

Lauren was all to willing to pose with hers.

Megan was in a mood. Her and her pumpkin look a lot alike!

Her mouth was cut out but she didn't push it through so I did finish that up for her.

Kristin, the last to finish.

By this time it was dark outside so I decided to light 'em and take a picture of them tonight. Starting from the left the jack-o-lantern's are Zach's, Megan's, Kristin's and Lauren's.

Now we have some spooky decorations for when we have trick-or-treaters come tomorrow.

Halloween Parade & Party

Halloween is always a fun time at preschool. All the kids came to school already wearing their costumes and the parade began shortly after drop off time. This was a good week for Zach to be line leader! They came out and paraded around the circle... See my little firefighter? That's his teacher right behind him.

After parading around the circle twice they then went off to the side for a class picture. Here he is standing with "his guys."
One more picture of Zach showing his whole costume. I wanted him to wear the hat he got when the fire fighter's visited his school since that one matched better and it had an elastic band to hold it on. He insisted on the red one though.

So the parade is over and all the parents leave. The kids then continued their parade inside where they went through the church office and even trick-or-treated at each desk.

The party didn't start until 11:15 so of course I went back and what a cool party it was.

The kids got a cupcake, pretzels, crackers, smarties, a Halloween pez and a juice box. The pez were a huge hit with the kids. We somehow managed to bring the pez home but he did eat his whole cupcake and all 3 of his smarties.

All week Zach has been looking forward to today. Thursday morning when I woke him up he asked me if it was his party day and I told him no, that it was tomorrow. He said to me, "this is taking too long!" He really enjoyed today and in two days he gets to dress up for the real thing. I can't wait to see his reaction when he sees how much candy he's going to get trick-or-treating in the neighborhood!

A Fire Truck, Flowers and a Net

Fire Truck
Today at preschool we had a visit from a fire truck, not for an emergency, it was a planned fun visit for the kids. Well, it was fun for 4-yr-olds but not for my 2-yr-old class. There was only one kid in my class that was interested in it, the rest either didn't care or were too scared to go anywhere near it.

Zach's class was sitting right next to mine so I had to take a picture of my little guy. I didn't have time for Zach to pose (not that he would have cooperated with me anyway) since I had a crying child on my hip

I took a picture of Zach when we got home. He'll pose and smile if he's being silly like with the string of the hat across his face.
At least the fire truck visit is over. Now I can look forward to all the Halloween fun on Thursday. Wow, what a fun week (not!) I am looking forward to Zach's parade and party on Friday though. For that one I'll be a parent and not a teacher so that one should be fun.

Flowers
Yesterday was mine and Paul's 18th wedding anniversary! He surprised me with flowers and chocolates. I love the vase the flowers came in.

We didn't get to go out to dinner because the kids had us, I mean me, running everywhere. Kristin had volleyball practice, Lauren had karate. Every night it's something different.

A Net
Kristin has been doing very well this year in volleyball and has learned a lot. She has an awesome serve and she's beginning to move more during games. I can tell she's become more confident this season. Here she is serving the ball, twice.

Maybe next game I'll try to get her doing something else. It'll be her last season game before playoffs start. Not sure how playoffs works yet but I'm sure I'll find out.

Backyardigans party

Ryan is now 3! We helped him celebrate yesterday at his party.

I don't know the backyardigans very well since Zach doesn't watch that show much. Ryan was telling us the names of them all but I still had to look up who the moose was when I got home. It's Tyrone, can you tell who is pretending to be Tyrone?
That's Lauren and Ryan behind those masks. They make great moose don't they?

Megan was the kid magnet. Alex came over and buddied up with her.

Then Ryan did though that was no surprise since he calls her "my Megan."

Megan went downstairs to play wii and Ryan was walking around looking for her asking, "where's my Megan?" Too cute. He found out where she was and went downstairs, I heard she was helping him play Mario Kart.

They weren't playing wii for long because then it was present time! Ryan got lots of cool stuff to play with. Zach was very interested in it all, especially the cars.

What a cool backyardigans cake. I love the look on Ryan's face after he blew out his candles.

Some more play time. Here's 3 of the boys: Ryan, Alex and Lehlan. Zach was doing his own thing as usual.

In fact there he is, behind Kristin.

Thanks for letting us help you celebrate your third birthday Ryan! We had lots of fun.

Flapping Bat

I took Megan and Zach to yet another one of Lowe's Build and Grow kid clinics today. (They have them twice a month.) Today's was kind of cool, it was a flapping bat toy.

Megan did hers totally by herself except I helped her hammer on her bat's head. It was tough because the one end was rounded and it was hard to hold and hammer at the same time. Other than that one step it was one of the easier projects to put together. Now we have two more Halloween decorations.

We have babies in the house...

...crayfish babies that is. Hundreds of the them. Remember that crayfish that Megan brought home from school at the end of last year? Yeah, we hit the jackpot with that one.

Yesterday Megan came running upstairs saying, "Guess what mommy? My crayfish had babies!" Oh geez! I didn't want to believe it when I saw it. They're kind of hard to see in this picture but they're hanging on to the underside of her tail.
I know nothing about crayfish so I looked up online the whole crayfish baby thing and found out that crayfish, depending on their size, can have anywhere between 100 and 300 babies! Did I say oh geez already? I also found out that only about 10% will survive the first year because if the mom doesn't eat them the siblings eat each other. I felt a little better after that, now we only have to deal with 10 to 30 of those things. (Yes, I'm being sarcastic.)

One of the first things Megan asked me was if she could keep one. That was funny, who the heck am I going to give them too? I kept telling her that I hoped the mom ate them all! (Mean, I know.) But today I must have had a maternal moment because I drove to the pet store to buy some more gravel and some fake plants to put in another container I had at home so I could separate some of the babies from the mother. This is how small they are:

Cute little things aren't they?!? At least they don't have claws yet. I've managed to save 12 of the little things and transfer them over. Only 88 - 288 left to go!

To prevent the siblings from eating each other it was recommended to have lots of places for them to hide. That's why I bought the fake plants. I'll scatter some shells in there and hope for the best, maybe, just maybe, one will survive and Megan will get her wish of keeping one.

Here's a bad video of the mom with her babies:

Megan was having a fit that I was moving the container a few inches so I could take pictures/videos. I could have done much better if she had let me move it over to the table where there was more light. The babies, from what I've read, tend to hang onto the mother for about a week before they become totally independent. After that they're at risk of being eaten. (I feel like mom of the year now, at least I don't eat my babies.)

So...anyone reading this want a new pet? If there's no takers guess what everyone's getting for Christmas this year. :)

Homecoming

Isn't Lauren beautiful?
She attended her school's homecoming dance last night. Lauren has had a busy weekend. The homecoming football game was the night before, Friday night, which she also went to. Afterwards she spent the night at her friend Jill's then stayed all day at her house Saturday until it was time to go to the dance. I went over to take pictures of them and then dropped them off at the dance on my way home.

I can't believe I'm putting this one on here but here's Lauren and I together. It was Jill's mom's idea to take it but I'm glad she did since I have very few pictures that I'm actually in since I'm always the one taking them. Lauren loves the fact that she's taller than me but that's due to the fact that she's wearing 2-inch heels!A funny story about the dress Lauren's wearing. The kids were off from school last Friday and I was planning on taking her that morning to the store to find something when Zach and Megan got sick. I had to take them to the doctor so our shopping trip got postponed to the afternoon. Well, Zach's fever got higher in the afternoon and I was very hesitant about leaving him with Kristin. I also knew that with Lauren having a soccer tournament that weekend the only time I had to take her for a dress was that day. I managed to get his fever down enough, got him to sleep and Lauren and I ran to the mall. Luckily she found a dress right away and we were out of the mall within 15 minutes. That was the fastest dress shopping that we have ever done. She looks fabulous though so maybe that's the way to go from now on.

Halloween is almost here!

Kristin has been asking me for awhile now to get the Halloween costume box out of the basement. It's always fun to go through it and see what still fits plus I always shop the clearance sales after Halloween so there's always something new in it too. Wigs are a huge hit. When I finally did drag the box upstairs Kristin immediately put this wig on. And went outside to ride her scooter! She was wearing it when Megan's bus went by, I bet all those kids on it had a good laugh.

So now Megan is home and she starts trying on costumes. Here she is in the Native American costume that Kristin wore last year.
My two spooky kids... a vampire and a devil. The devil costume has been around for awhile, the vampire costume was on clearance last year. I realized I needed to stock up on boy costumes!

This was probably my best bargain find from last year, a race car driver outfit. I paid about $4 for it and once Zach put it on he didn't want to take it off. He even asked me this morning if he could wear it again, I told him after Kristin's volleyball game.

I had bought this mask for one of Kristin's birthday/Halloween parties a few years ago. It made it's way into the Halloween box even though nobody has ever worn it out of the house. We all try it on and laugh at each other. By the looks of it I think this race car driver crashed or something, what an awful looking face!

I think Lauren has outgrown the fun of dressing up. She took a few minutes out of her busy schedule to play with Zach but that was about it.

It wouldn't surprise me though if she doesn't go out trick-or-treating. Maybe I can talk her into taking Zach around? That would be so nice.

What Zach's been up to...

Poor little Zach got some kind of virus last Friday and got to spend his day off from school sick. After a trip to the doctor he spent a some time watching his sisters play the game Clue. Luckily whatever he had didn't last long and he was feeling much better by Saturday evening.

His school also had Monday off for Columbus Day so at least he got to enjoy one of his days of from school. And enjoy it he did. One of the kids in his class had invited him to a birthday party at Boomers. Zach jumped on the moon bounces for a straight hour, ate 2 slices of pizza and a piece of cake then went into the other room and climbed through the tunnels for another 30 minutes. He had a blast and even buddied up with one of the other little boys there. They stuck together for the majority of the party and even went down one of the slides holding hands, it was cute. I tried to get a picture but taking it through the mesh sides was impossible. He was one tired little boy afterwards!

Later that evening he put on a show for us and did some dancing. Here he is dancing (or rolling around on the floor) to Cotton Eye Joe.

He made a big deal about his entrance for this song which is Kung Fu Fighting.

I have no idea where he gets his energy from. If I could find some way to bottle that I could make a ton of money!

Lauren's not our next driver...

...Zach is!
My dad built him his very own car. There's no engine so therefore no gas but he does have a steering wheel and even a brake. He drove it down their driveway into the cul-de-sac on this visit. I wonder at what age he'll get adventurous and go down the big hill!

He's got to work on the steering!

Zach's 1st Field Trip

All the pre-k kids went to Milburn Orchards yesterday for their very first field trip. While we were waiting for his teachers to arrive I snapped a few posed pics.
He's not in a school bus he's in a "Cool Bus!"

It wasn't long before his teachers and the rest of the kids arrived. The kids that were there gathered together for a group picture before starting the tour. Lots of boys in his class right? They have 11 boys and 4 girls.

The kids went into Johnny Appleseed's house and listened to him talk. Afterwards they went to see the animals. The pigs were especially stinky today but Zach looked like he was enjoying watching them.

His teacher gave each parent a quarter so we could buy food for the kids to feed the goats. Boy do those goats fight to get the food! The goats were knocking each other out of the way to get to the outstretched hands.

We had to wait a few minutes before getting on the hay wagon so the kids kept Mr. Scarecrow company and all us parents had yet another photo op.

Hay ride time! Look at Zach in the corner, minding his own business, playing with a piece of hay. The rest of the kids were excitedly talking or bouncing up and down. I was kind of surprised Zach wasn't doing that too. Once the hay ride began he did perk up and turn around and watch everything.

After the hay ride the kids learned how the apples are packaged. They started with how they are picked and followed the production line all the way until they are left to be sold. Here, the kids got to take an apple and put it in the picking bag.

Some kids just threw theirs in the bag, which was a no-no. Zach actually took his to the woman that was holding the bag and placed them in there gently. At least now I know he can follow directions!

After following the production line and even going through the big refrigerator the kids then were allowed to go pick their own apple. They were told to "twist, twist then pull."

Yummy! Zach got to eat his in the car ride back to school. He also got to pick a mini pumpkin to take home too. (I got an apple and pumpkin too!)

The kids had a few minutes to get some exercise on the playground before heading back.

So it's bye-bye Milburn Orchards and hello preschool class. They had just enough time to have a snack, yummy apple cider donuts and apple cider, before the end of school.

I wouldn't have bothered with going back to the class just for snack, we would have just gone home instead, but I signed him up to take Spanish classes and his first one was yesterday. He gets to stay after school one day a week and learn spanish. They do fun things like sing, cook and play games. When I came back to pick him up they were singing spanish songs and he seemed to have a good time. What a cool day for Zach, he went on his very first field trip and had fun learning spanish.