Run With The Fishes

I know to our friends and relatives a little more north than us, this may seem like a small deal. Something to scoff at even, “You call that snow? We’ve had 20″ in the past two weeks!”. But to us, this is huge! If it snows here, it is usually just a few flurries and gone 5 minutes later.

Do you see this? Light fluffy snow! Perfect for snowballs, snowmen, snow angels. You get the idea. I ran through the house telling everyone if they weren’t asleep yet, they really needed to come look. I was slightly shocked by the response I got. “Can you just take a picture?”, from Nathan. Alli got up, looked out the door and laughed, then was quickly ready to go back to bed. I’m not sure she even really woke up. Zoey clearly is the child after my own heart. She rushed to put on her coat and boots and then we ran outside to see beauty.

I have missed this.

So, I have a New Year’s resolution to actually post on here. Facebook took over for a while because it seemed so convenient. Almost everyone is in the same place. The only problem is that it has too many random people. You’ll be getting mostly pictures and Allison stories. Nathan and Zoey each feel like they might get embarrassed if I put cutesy stories about them out where their friends might eventually see them. I guess I don’t blame them, but I’m not making any promises

Because we have watched the Ghostbusters at least twice a week for the past few weeks, I thought it would be a fun theme for Allison’s birthday party. Invitations were designed and handed out. I scoured the internet for fun game ideas and tried to decide how to decorate a cake.

We were able to buy some ghost Halloween decorations at clearance prices and decided to have a scavenger hunt. I told them about how they were Ghostbusters themselves and were on the hunt for the ghosts. Guess how many of the kindergartners had even heard of Ghostbusters. Yep. Just Allison. It didn’t seem to matter to those guys though. Finding the ghosts still sounded like fun. When someone found one, they brought it back for a prize. Everyone ended up with their very own Ghostbuster t-shirt (thank you plain white t-shirts and printable iron on transfers).

These came in handy for the next activity. Making slime. It seemed like a fun idea. I had plastic containers so they could take it home, t-shirts so their clothes would be protected, and lots of kids eager to see how cornstarch and a little water would turn into slime. Everything was going fine until the food coloring made an appearance. I’m sure parents were not only thrilled that their children would be bringing home slime, but they would also have stained hands for the next few days.

There were more games planned, but making slime turned into a big enough project on its own. Instead we finished off the party with presents and cake. Allison is the best present receiver I know. She oohs and ahs over each gift. When she gets to one she really likes she exclaims, “I have always wanted this!!! ever since I first saw it!”!

I wonder how many parents had to (had to? Got to is more like it!) watch Ghostbusters after Alli’s party.

How many of you love Calvin and Hobbes? There are certain things my kids do that will remind me of specific strips. I’m sure all parents who have read it feel this way. That Bill Waterson really knew what he was doing.

As I was uploading pictures from my camera to the computer, I realized that at some point over the weekend, Alli had borrowed my camera.

When Nathan and Zoey were younger, Greg and I would see something they did and call them Calvin to each other. With Allison, it’s like living with our own Calvin.

Usually I am slow when it comes to Halloween costumes. I wait just a little too long before asking what the kids want to be and then spend the night before Halloween (sometimes the minutes before it’s time to leave for whatever festivities there are planned) putting the finishing touches onto whatever costume has been chosen.

This year was a little different. Allison knew as soon as she saw the blue wig at Walmart just how she wanted to dress. Yellow rain jacket, swampers, green tights, striped shirt, pink skirt. If possible, a dragon fly barrette, button key and a seeing stone please.

After much searching, the yellow raincoat was found at Land’s End. A striped shirt was purchased from The Children’s Place (later we found two pink striped shirts in her dresser). Green tights were ordered and I turned one of her old dresses into a skirt. The only thing missing was some yellow wellies. Do you know how hard it is to find yellow rain boots? Ok, it’s not that hard if you don’t mind spending big money, but there is no way I’m spending over $100 on rain boots for my 5 year old. Instead we went back to the picture online of Coraline that was one of the favorites.

Pink and orange striped shirt? Check. Not one, but 3 pink striped shirts were found in Alli’s wardrobe.
Pink skirt? Check. Turned an old summer dress into a skirt with a bit of sewing and elastic.
Green tights? Check. Ordered online.
Low top pink converses? Check. This is Alli we are talking about, she has several pairs of pink shoes.
Denim jacket? Check. We found one in her closet that was pretty darn close.
Blue hair? A bright blue wig was close enough and is what started the whole thing anyway. We even found a dragonfly barrette.

As for the additional accessories? Polymer clay is some pretty awesome stuff. I had no idea you could make almost anything with it. After a couple of tries, a button key necklace and a seeing stone were created and met with approval. You can get a small peek of them in this picture. This was her special pose. Goofball.

Just so we don’t leave the other two out, both Nathan and Zoey decided at the last minute they really did want to dress up. Zoey got quite a few comments on her ninja star to the neck gore.

Nathan was just plain spooky looking.

Maybe next year we’ll have a big Halloween party so that everyone can wear costumes.

Time to start posting menu lists again, I keep losing the sheets of paper where I write them.

Mac & Cheese
Spaghetti
Sloppy Joes
Chicken Italienne
Mock Rissotto
Cranberry Pork Roast
Crock pot chicken
Italian veggie soup with soft bread sticks
Sheppard’s Pie

Over the weekend we had our good friends, the Davis family in for a visit. The day before they arrived our yard looked like this:

I was a little worried that we would be stuck inside the whole time with no ways to entertain our guests, they would be bored to death, and then never want to drive all the way out here to see us again.

Luckily most of the swamp disappeared, just enough to get in a little time outside. The girls trekked all around the field, checking out the arena next door and then hanging out at their “secret” clubhouse most of the day. “It is peaceful!”, Myra told us. Sometime I need to take a picture of their secret location. I think I’ll wait until the field is a little more dry before I do that.

While the girls were adventuring, the boys threw the football around. Noah got in on the action when they told him he could tackle anyone that had the ball. He is a pure defensive man.

Kids can not resist the decrepit fake, concrete deer. With its missing antlers, back leg and part of its face, the deer just looks like it needs to be ridden.

It was a drizzly cool weekend though, so even with the little time we spent outdoors, most of the visit was inside. There was much football watched and even more Rock Band played. In fact, if I had to guess, I would say that we spent about 60% of our time rocking.

You know how sometimes you just aren’t sure what’s going to happen when you throw kids together? I mean, you hope they get along, but you secretly think there will be lots of time when parents will have to mediate instead of just getting to hang out with each other. Here’s something that made the weekend really great. Allison and Noah had a blast. It’s like they were in their own little five year old world. Even when what they were saying made no sense to the grown ups, they completely got each other. It was terrific.

We need to get the band back together for a reunion tour.

Last week Alli’s class focused on the letter H. On Friday, each person was allowed to wear their Hilarious Hat to school.

Allison was super excited when Greg gave her one of his old fishing hats. She ran around the house finding all kinds of wacky things we could glue onto it. School colored feathers, Mardi Gras tassles, glass beads, gold ribbon and a hibiscus flower. Individually, not too funny, but when combined on a fishing hat? Pretty hilarious.

What do you know, a post about something that actually happened this month. Slowly but surely getting caught up again. On Sunday of Labor Day weekend we went camping at our favorite place within close driving range. This time setting up camp on the “primitive” island. “Primitive” meaning no water or electricity. It also meant no RV’s and their loud generators. Greg and the kids tried it out when they took Nick camping and came back with tales of how nice it was. They weren’t joking. It was pretty and peaceful.

Looking over the pictures makes me want to go camping again soon. The weather has been absolutely perfect, cool in the evenings and warm, but not hot, during the days. If it’s not rainy this weekend, we may have to pack up the gear and go. Why does it have to be rainy on the weekends and perfect when a person is at work or kids have to be in school?

School started last month. We have one seventh grader, one sixth grader and one kindergartner. All three in real school. Every day for a week Allison woke up and asked how many days there were before school started. On the way to school, the morning of the first day, Allison said, “I think this is going to be the best day of my life.”, and she meant it. She comes up with some of the greatest things to think about and say.

Here’s a quick picture of the latest middle schooler. She tried to get away before I could take her picture. You can all hear it in your heads, right? The slightly exasperated, “Mo-om”. She was a little nervous/excited to be moving up to the new school. After receiving their schedules at meet the teacher, she proceeded to draw up a map of the campus, pinpointing each of her classes and the best route to take.

The first 3 weeks have been busy. With Nathan and Zoey both in middle school, we have something going on every single evening. Pep squad, band, tennis, various clubs and required attendance to sporting events leave them with hardly any free time. I know, it’s only going to get busier.