2012 Week 47

Thanksgiving!  Let's face it, that was what this week was all about.  Prep and planning, parties at school (poor Tyler was sick on Monday and had to miss their cute little play/singing performance - I need to get a video of him giving us his own little show in full costume), cleaning, etc.
As usual when it comes to big events, Sam did most of the cooking with a little help from the kids and I took care of all the behind the scenes stuff like shopping and getting the house ready, table set, etc.  We had invited Stacia, Nate and their kids over for dinner and had a great time.  I think we will all look forward to more celebrations together now that they live nearby.

In our house, the day after Thanksgiving is set aside for pulling out the Christmas decorations and putting up the tree.  That's when we know the holidays have truly begun and we can start listening to Christmas music :)  It's one of my favorite traditions.

I was amused by how excited the kids were to find the Santa hats in one of the boxes.  They wore them a lot that day and Tyler in particular keeps one on his bed and put it on quite often since then.  Ty was also excited for their "secret hideaway" - which translates to that little corner of space behind the couch in the corner that is only there when the tree is up and the love seat gets pushed aside.  The kids love to take blankets and books and their handheld video games back there and hang out.

2012 Week 46

So proud of the kids and their accomplisments at school this week.  The school held their end of term awards assemblies and both of my little smarties did well.  Tyler received awards for reading and perfect attendance.  Kaitlyn also got perfect attendance as well as awards in PE and computers, Principal's List (All A's - kind of like high honor roll) and her long awaited Cougar Character Star.  She has been wanting to win that award since her first awards ceremony here when she found out they get a medal.  I'm not sure what the criteria is for it, but they only award one per class per term.

2012 Week 44

Another full, eventful, busy fun week!

We didn't find time to carve pumpkins until the night before Halloween, but when we did we made a whole event out of it.  Mummy wrapped hot dogs and spiced apple cider for dinner.  It was Red Ribbon Week at school - thus the pjs as it had been pajama dress up day.
Ewww pumpkin guts!  Sam usually tries to avoid helping with this part and he was headed out to the garage to work on drying racks but my phone kept ringing so he took pity on the kids and helped out.  I didn't have to touch a single pumpkin gut myself :)  But I did help - or more acurately do it all - Tyler with his "fire face" pumpkin.

Kaitlyn did most of her cleaning out, template transfer and carving herself though Sam and I did help out after we finished our turns with Tyler's pumpkin.

 

Halloween!  The school doesn't like the kids to dress up for Halloween, but they did designate it as "what you want to be when you grow up" dress up day for Red Ribbon Week so the kids picked their costumes accordingly.  Tyler was quick to decide on a cowboy (which we fully approved as it meant we didn't have to go shopping) and Kaitlyn surprised us by suggesting a rodeo queen, then really got into the idea when she figured out she could wear Grandma's tiara on her hat.
We did go to Target last week and get her some boots as she had grown out of her pink cowboy boots.  These are westernish but also work for every day, which is great because she loves them and wears them to school all the time.

I'm glad I took most of the "good" photos the day they dressed up for the birthday party as on Halloween itself we ended up a bit rushed.  Sam had night fire and was sad to miss out and I wasn't looking forward to walking around with the kids on my own.  So when the first set of neighbor/friends knocked on the door I was quick to ask if they would wait a minute so we could walk around with them.  We lit the pumpkins, set out a bucket of candy on the porch, distributed glow bracelets to the crew and headed out quickly.  The whole neighborhood was out and about at the same time and before long it was one giant party, with some other friends tagging along with us and running into everyone else as we went along.

We have enough houses in our neighborhood that after an hour of trick or treating the kids had full bags and enough candy to last them a month, or more.

Saturday was the second craft show for Jessie and me (postponed due to weather - a big hurricane hit further up the coast - from the weekend before) and it went pretty well.  Sam had to work so the kids spent the day with a neighbor (and we all missed out on the wedding we were originally planning to attend) while Jessie and I made a few sales, enjoyed the great weather, and had a good time visiting with people and making friends with the vendors in nearby booths.

Oh and let's not forget the other big event of the week, even though we weren't there to experience it.  Czar and Robin had their baby Halloween night!  They named her Roxanne Zelda.  She was a bit early and tiny, weighing in at 4 1/2 pounds and immediately making me nostalgic for my own super tiny, early, October baby girl.  I couldn't resist pulling out one of Kaitlyn's preemie hats to check the size and whipping up a tiny hat to send to them.  (no idea why the photo posted sideways here and I can't get it to turn around)