School Updates!

So I decided this afternoon that my mother probably had reason to maim me when I was in elementary school and I'm not sure I could have blamed her. I remember the many times I either deliberately or accidentally forgot to make sure that she got to see the school picture order forms and we missed out. As Alicia got off the bus and announced proudly that her school pictures came back today I was so excited I could have burst at the seems. I'm totally bias but I thought that they turned out really well.

Our first quarter of the year is down. We've all learned quite a bit a long the way. I for one have learned that somehow even with only one munchkin to chase around during the day it feels like I get less accomplished. I've also amazed myself by memorizing the names as well as random facts about her school friends that I get to hear - who makes funny faces, who likes to draw, who is a good snapper, who got sent to the thinking chair, who is allergic to milk, who played with her on the playground, etc. etc.

With what I've seen at home and what we learned in our first parent/teacher conference we've discovered that Alicia has learned to spell her last name, memorized her phone number, for the most part knows her address, can figure out the numbers up to 100 (mostly), is learning reading words, knows the difference between spiders and insects, has watched a caterpillar turn into a butterfly, used a smartboard, has detailed artwork projects, is a great singer (and good at memorizing all the new songs... and enjoys practicing them... a lot...), she has a significant portion of the school that thinks she's absolutely adorable - her teacher says that she's silently nicknamed her Cinderella because of her tiny feet and definitive princessness. I think that's interesting - we can't walk into the school or out of the school with waves and hugs and people that definitely know who she is by name. I can't even count the number of people that have told me how adorable or cute she is. I'm still not sure if this is a curse or a blessing but it's definitely been how things have worked with her since the day she was born (or at least a week later when she got to come to church for the first time).

She's also earned a reward for "best works" in reading. Teachers have a certain number of kids that they can send to the Principle's office with an assignment that they've done well, they get to show it to him and put it up on the wall to showcase and then there's an awards assembly. For Kindergarten they do about half the class every two months. At the same assembly she got an award for being able to be a good school citizen and knowing and following all the rules (Mark and I laughed quite a bit about all of her good behavior that was praised in this award and on her report card... she must behave so well at school that she gets home and has to let all her craziness out that's built up through the day!)

All in all things are going well, hopefully soon we'll actually start to find a good schedule that will help us run things a bit more smoothly.

Locks of Love

So at last I finally did it. Thanks to our friend's talented sister I was at last willing to give in and chop off my hair for Locks of Love again. We've had a number of very special people who have been through cancer over the past few years so I'm sort of making it a tradition to let it grow out and then chop it all off (last round was about 4 years ago but we're not going to mention the outcome of that event... mostly why it's taken me 4 years before I trust anyone enough to try it again!) Anyways... the before and afters...

Before

AfterThe head shot

The Back Shot (with Alicia's hand trying to get in the picture)

Side-view - taken by Alicia

Stirring our brew...

So in honor of Halloween Alicia's class learned a song to sing for the principle. So all week we've heard "Stirring and stirring and stirring our brew ew ew ew ew" Okay, hard to type but it's just been kind of funny, even Ryan's picked it up sometimes. I'm still wondering actually if there's more to the song than that... but it's all I've heard.

The weekend before Halloween was the annual Trunk-or-Treat at church when we all get together, have a big pot luck dinner, the teenagers plan games to keep the kids entertained for a bit and then the kids get to trunk-or-treat going from car to car for candy in the church parking lot (sounds like a sham right... hardly, these kids wind up with more candy and treats in 30 minutes than would take 2 hours of foot time with trick or treating.) This year since we still weren't feeling great we didn't actually stay for the whole thing although the kids did still get some treats from people before we ducked out. All I have to say is that after that night I am giving up on any costume that can't just be pulled on and that has random accessories. Originally Alicia had decided to be a ballerina butterfly, on the night of decided that the wings and antena were funny and she just wanted to be a ballerina... then we had to fight over the ballerina buns for her hair...::sigh:: still she had nothing on Ryan who decided to rip all of the patches on his overalls and refused to wear the hat etc. that would have made him a scarecrow, so he looked somewhat like your average kid in overalls by the time he was finished... I didn't even bother trying to take pictures of him...

Alicia Ballerina

Mark as Indiana Jones (renamed when he wore it to the Middle School "Indi - O")

We've actually found a good use for the whip in keeping the kids in check... shhh... j/k although the thought has definitely crossed my mind.


I just love this one... too sweet!

For the big night we went with some friends from church around Claremont. Even with the rain, there was good food and good friends and good treats... and it was a great night. Alicia wound up deciding to be a butterfly this time (after getting strawberry juice on her ballerina outfit and randomly trying out a bumblebee princess costume) I tried to make Ry a pumpkin but he would only let me go as far as the orange top and green pants. He did have quite the fun time with his first year that he really had any idea what was happening. After about the first two or three houses he started grabbing as much candy as he could get in his hands. Thankfully after a few reminders of "just take one" he settled down and behaved... mostly. Although he did seem to feel cheated when the people put the candy in the pumpkin instead of letting him do it himself. Didn't get too many pictures because of the rain but here's a couple...

Ry - the wet pumpkin?

The evening's loot... after having been raided along the way and driving home... and not counting what was still left from Trunk-or-Treat. I say they came out pretty good.

The Glad and Sad

So Grandma Alice drove up from TN to spend some time with us before the onset of snow that makes traveling a complete nightmare. Unfortunately both she and we got sick and spent most of the two weeks that she was here trying to recover. She and Ryan got whatever it was worst of all :-( Thankfully Dad was able to come up and drive back with her and everything turned out all right in the end. Thanks again Grandpa Bob for always being Mom's night in shining tinfoil! Hopefully we'll all be able to visit again soon when we're not dealing with such yuk. We were still glad to see her and get to spend time with her.

Weekend at Windan

A few weekends ago Mark's brother Dan was over from Colorado for a visit at their parents house so we decided to crash the party as well... here are some of the family pics from that weekend.