Evie's Character Parade
Evie's preschool does a "Character Parade" for Halloween, where each class dresses up like a character from a story they've read in class. Evie's class dressed as cats from If You Give a Cat a Cupcake.
Providence Fall Festival
Our little town's Halloween Festival was this weekend. The kids played games and won lots of candy, we chatted with a CareFlight pilot and a firefighter, and Daddy won Evie a couple of prizes at the Rubber Chicken Toss. We ended the afternoon with snow cones, of course!
Grace United Pumpkin Patch
We enjoyed a - WARM - fall day at the Grace United pumpkin patch with Gram and Pops. We played each other in the bean-bag toss game, the kids did the bounce house, ran the hay maze and even tried their hand a Pumpkin Chuckin'. We left sweaty but had a fun time!
Park with Peter Rabbit
She asked to take Peter Rabbit to the park. He got to ride with her on her bike, climb the rocks and play on the swings. Lucky bunny!
Donuts with Dad
This girl was so excited to take her daddy to school with her for Donuts with Dad. He drove her to school, just the two of them, met her teacher, and got to see how her class does "circle time". Exciting day!
Elephant and Piggie
Gram treated us to a big day at the theater to see our favorite storybook characters Elephant and Piggie in "We Are In a Play!" Elephant and Piggie are the cutest best-friend duo and they did a great job in their first play.
Pumpkin Patch Field Trip
Evie's first field trip! Gram and I joined Evie and her class for a trip to the pumpkin patch in Aubrey and it was such a great day. The weather was perfect and the farm was so nice, with lots of room for the kids to roam and plenty for them do. The kids had a blast and we had so much fun watching them. Yay for her first field trip!
Painting Partner
I've embarked on a mission to paint the largest space in our house, the living room / kitchen / hallway, changing it from the yellow Brian painted it before we moved in to a warm "greige" called "Lamb's Ear". Evie was home the day I got started and was dying to be my helper. She didn't do too bad!
Room Time
Time for some arts and crafts!
Secret Garden
One day the kids came in from the backyard and asked me for some seeds because they wanted to plant a garden. I gave them some lima bean seeds and black bean seeds from our craft closet that, up until that point, had only been used as decoration for our play-doh gingerbread men. I also grabbed a few popcorn kernels from the pantry and then sent them back outside. To our surprise, we've recently discovered their plants are actually growing. It looks like a real, miniature garden back there. I guess technically it is a real garden! There was no prep involved - no garden soil, no fertilizer, no mulch. Just two kids who dug a little hole in the red clay and did some sporadic watering at best and - voila! We grew stuff! They've already asked for a more legit garden next year. I'm thinking with their green thumbs we'll be able to do quite a bit!
Patriot Pride Award
Sam received a very special award at school this week. Every six weeks each teacher recognizes a student in their class that consistently showed a certain core value during that grading period. Then one award is given to a student who consistently showed ALL the core values that six weeks. That award was given to Sam! His teacher called and invited me to the awards assembly and asked that I keep it a surprise for Sam. After the ceremony I framed his award and it sits on his dresser. We're so glad he's a good student and school citizen!
Swings
At school and at the park, it's always swings first. They're her favorite.
Sam - Third Grade
First day of third grade? Can't be. I taught third graders. Those were big kids.
Klyde Warren Park
I've been wanting to take the kids to Dallas' Klyde Warren Park for several years now and we finally made it! It was even cooler than I'd thought it would be.
It was a very pretty day, a little hot, but not unbearable. After a quick go on the merry go round the kids headed over to the fountains to get nice and wet. Once they were thoroughly soaked we walked with squishy shoes over to the playground.
The playground was very cool, very well thought out, with some interesting climbing structures and spinning toys that were new and exciting.
I had heard we couldn't visit Klyde Warren without a trip to the food trucks. Gram bought us all lunch and it was good! Pizza for the kids, quesadillas for the grownups, and Steel City Pops for everybody.
Once we realized how close we were to the DMA we decided to go in and check out the kids area. Evie had some shoe-drama - something was wrong with her foot - and somehow we managed to get special permission to let her go through the museum in just socks (good grief!).
The children's area was very cool. We read a couple of art books, did some puzzles and spent a long time doing string art. Because everyone was behaving relatively well at this point, we decided to venture upstairs to check out some African Art and the beautiful glass sculptures in the window of the cafe.
An exhausting, but cultural day! We'll be back again, for sure!
Roasting Marshmallows
The kids asked recently about roasting marshmallows, which we hadn't done with them yet, so Brian got some marshmallows and we roasted them one night after he'd grilled for dinner. Sam loved them. Evie only so-so, and she got them all in her hair. And all over her hands. And her shirt. We'll have to try again next summer!
She Was Determined
She's been mustering up the courage to go all the way under water. You can see it in her face. She was determined!