Happy Halloween!

We had a really low key Halloween in our neighborhood. Jack invited a friend over, we went over a neighbors house for pizza, and trick or treated for about an hour. Since I didn't want to stay home, we put the bowl on the porch with a sign "Happy Halloween. Please take one." Surprisingly, there was still candy in the bowl an hour later.
I pretty much let the kids gorge themselves on candy. This is Lily saying; "One more?" She had just informed me that her tummy hurt a little bit. I said, "Maybe you shouldn't eat anymore candy."

Harvest Party

Since we had a "snow" day this week, I've been a little off. I'm glad the kids are having school the day before Halloween, but man!, the kids are wound up.

Lily has a "Harvest" party that she gets to wear a costume to. Not sure how that fits in with the "Harvest" theme, but she was excited to wear her Tinkerbell costume. She even let me do her hair! It's been a tab bit chilly and I had to convince her that Tinkerbell wears long sleeves in cold weather.

Snow Day

After snowing all day Wednesday, the kids had Thursday off from school. It didn't snow hardly anymore (we got about 12 inches in total) and the snow was melting most of the day. The kids had a ball playing in all the snow and freezing their noses off.

A Paying Gig

It seems like I've been taking more and more pictures lately. That's a really good thing, it actually turned into a paying gig. A friend of a friend emailed me and asked if I'd take pictures of a 8/9 year old football game. I said sure and then started thinking about what I said yes to. I took sports pictures when I was on the school newspaper...eons ago. I ended up getting excited for the team, they were behind and then ended up winning the game. At half time one of the teammates came up to me and asked if I was "Jack's mom". Small town.

Conferences

Can you believe that we've already made it to the end of the first quarter for the school year?! We had parent/teacher conferences today and I managed to mess up the times. I thought that Emma's was first so we waited outside her classroom. I kept trying to make eye contact and hurry the teacher along but Michael and I decided to divide and conquer. He'd go to Emma's and I'd go to Jack's conference. Well, I walked over to Jack's classroom and I noticed that his conference was supposed to start ten minutes earlier. Opps. His teacher was running 15 minutes late, so I ended up getting there just in time.

Michael might have gotten the better end of the deal. Emma is doing great so far this year. Jack...well, we have a few things to work on. Baby steps.

Belated Birthday

Since Emma's birthday was on a Sunday and I happened to be traveling that day, she had a belated friend birthday party. She choose a pottery painting place and invited a few friends. Because it was a party, they had a large table set up for all of us and we got to choose between a few specific pieces.
The dragon was a big hit, I think 4/5 kids picked that one. Lily went with the fairy box, hopefully it will survive. I picked up the fired pieces today, but I forgot to take a picture. Even though we had four dragons, they all turned out quite unique.

Evolving Activities

So, the last post with the Filo figures was just an idea for future activities to do with the girls for Activity Days. I was in charge of the activity for this week and I didn't want to spend any money but I wanted to have a "fun". Not that it's impossible to be frugal and fun, but I find that it does take a bit of creativity to make both happen.

Initially I thought about doing an engineering project involving playdough, straws, dixie cups and pennies. While the idea may have sounded fun to me, I had to put myself in the mind of a 8/9 year old girl...ok, I asked Emma and she didn't seem too interested. Probably because I didn't sell it hard enough. She was interested in the playdough and was pleased as punch that she got to help me make a batch.

The engineering activity turned into a Library Appreciation activity. I checked out a bunch of fun books and integrated "how to make playdough" as a way to use your local library. I also checked out some riddle/joke books and had the girls read them to each other. That might have filled up the entire time, but the girls did want to make their own bookmarks and play with the homemade playdough. Easy peasy Parcheesi.

Random Activity Idea

I saw these pictures posted on some random strangers blog and I'm stealing the idea. I'm keeping a list of activities I can do with the girls.

So, the supply list is FIMO and whatever else you have handy. The metal piece can be baked with the dough and any plastic pieces glued on after being baked. I think the suggestions were for Christmas tree decorations or putting a magnet on the back for the frig. Super cute.

Pumpkin Patch

We're at that awkward stage where Jack is getting too big for the kiddie rides and Lily is not quite big enough for some of the big kids stuff. We went to a patch that seemed to cater to all ages. The added bonus is that they didn't charge an arm or a leg.

This pumpkin patch had a corn maze. Here's the kids and some friends before we head into the corn maze.
This was a cool "bouncy" bubble that the kids had a blast jumping on.In front of the pumpkin patch they had old cars painted as the characters from the movie "Cars".

Musical Concert

Emma had her musical concert Tuesday night. The concert started at 7:30 PM, which is about the time that I start to put my kids to bed. We were asked to stay through the second portion of the concert which was the 5th graders program. I will say, they keep the concert on time and ended right at 8:30. Lily didn't quite make it through the entire program, she ended up falling asleep in my friend's lap.

I braved the video camera and took it instead of my camera. Hopefully this will work;

No Fear

I can't say that I'm a proficient sewer. I'm slightly fearful of following a pattern. This weekend showed me that I can cut out pieces from a pattern with little to no problems. I decided to have "no fear" when I needed to make something for Emma.
Emma informed me that she has a musical concert tomorrow night and she wanted to wear a "western" outfit. In a flash of brilliance I went to the fabric store and hoped for the best. I was able to find a $.99 pattern that looked fairly simple. I decided to use fabric that I already had at home and hoped that I had enough thread to finish the project. If I have enough time, I'll make a matching apron, but she wants to wear the apron that Aunt Debbie made for her. (It's sooo much cuter than what I could whip up in the limited time frame I'm working with)

Surprise

I haven't been blogging much because I was afraid that I'd slip up and reveal that we were going to surprise Debbie for her birthday. I even had to cut back on phone conversations due to my poor lying skills. I almost got on Facebook a time or two the day I was leaving.

Happy Birthday Emma and Debbie

I love that Debbie and Emma share a birthday. It makes it so much easier to remember both birthdays. After a whirlwind weekend, I flew back from Seattle and got home late afternoon just in time for Emma's birthday.