Recital Video

This video was shot off of my DSLR, so the quality is not as good as say... well something that is edited.

Thanksgiving recital

The BIG news in Kindergarten last week was the run up to the big Thanksgiving program.  Peanut's class had a feast and a short program where they sang songs and did poems.  She did really well.  She was super pumped about the program and I could hear her practicing with her brother.  I had to be sworn to secrecy before I could hear any part of it.

Notice that she is in the back.  She is in for a lifetime of being on the back row.  It never really mattered what I wore to school programs since no one could see it anyway.

The little boy on her left (ride side of the screen) is her buddy.  She talks about what a nice boy he is.  Evidently, he is one of the only boys she will pick to do stuff with.  She is right.  He really is a nice boy.  She is always super excited to see her, which makes me so very happy.

She was Pocahontas, which I thought was funny since for Halloween she was Saqutewia.  (i am just going to assume I butchered those names.)

Oh look, it is our feast!

Big smiles!

And this is sweet Ms. Kelly (and some dude who is checking her out.)  She was the student teacher in Peanut's class this first semester.  We will miss her.  She was pretty awesome.

Camping

We were finally able to make it camping.  Lucky for us, our sweet friend's Bill and Liz came along for the journey.

Of course we got there late and set the tent up in the dark.  The campsite we picked was really nice, but the power didn't work.

But the kids brought their bike and scooter and had a great time.

We were approximately 9 miles from our house.  Honestly, i don't even know if we were outside of the city limits.  It is times like this that I feel lucky to be living the life we do.

It is nice to just go camping on a warm November day.

And hang out with friends that we haven't seen in a long time.

And point at monkeys!!!

Nice family and random interloper.

We went for a little hike afterwards.  The whole thing was a nice get away.

Halloween Proper!

So, the lesson learned from this Halloween season is even two weeks on the porch in 80 degree heat is too much for our pumpkins.  Although, the heat did give them the added benefit of looking really scary.  Like totally scary if you are scared of toothless old men.

This year we had batman and batgirl.  Batman accidently peed on his costume at school so not all of the pieces made it home.  But he seemed pretty happy with it anyway.  It was funny that he was so insistent on batman.  He never waivered from it.  It was weird because he had never really mentioned batman before.  Alison wanted to match, and it just so happens the bat girl costume is adorable.  

That girl has got some style!

and this is batman showing his muscles.  He isn't as into it as his sister, but at least he is letting us take his picture.

This is our neighbors with their creepy doll out front.

This was a little earlier in the day when babyP was trying to figure out how to get the witches cauldron to work properly.

And their haul.  When I see a picture like this of babyP, it is almost like I can see exactly what he is going to look like when he gets older.  Or maybe it is just that he looks like my dad.

I wore this costume.  BabyP picked it out for me.  I took that mask off about 10 minutes into trick or treating because it is made for a kid much smaller than me.  It was fun walking around in some random get-up because people would guess what I was.  I got that I was a butterfly, a unicorn and even a mosquito!

The candy fairy came around just shortly after Halloween.  The candy fairy opted to not bring the toys that were requested.  Instead, she brought some legos, which caused a panic and an uproar.  Once I got sweet Peanut calmed down, the legos just caused a mess.

This picture is for my dad.  As I step on these, I hear his voice saying "Pay BACKS!"

The Carnival

So in my effort to not be the mom who walks around with a camera in her hands to take pictures of her lovely kids, I managed to not get a picture of all of us in our carnival costumes together.  We had a horse back performer, a bearded later, a magician, and a strong man.  I also managed to not get a picture of sweet peanuts exposed outfit, which is really too bad.  It happens to be a hand me down from a friend's daughter who got it from her sister.  It is multigenerational!!

Community Picnic

It is a village ritual that every weekend before Halloween, we take our grills for a walk.  Not really, but I couldn't help but take a picture of my neighbor bringing his grill to the annual picnic. 

It was a weird time to have a picnic, but it was a lot of fun.  The weather was perfect.  The area that I live in is a hold out from the bigger city.  I live in an unincoperated part of town, which is hard to explain because we literally live in the area called mid-town.  It is often called The Village.  I can see that because it has a real small town feel.  When we went out of town for a month, I didn't tell my neighbor accross the street.  (I had told her husband but not her.)  She was so concerned and kept asking the fellow above where we were, and when we would get back.  Not only that, but because the school district is good, we have a lot of kids in our neighborhood.  And we have our own police force, which is a force to be reckoned with.  Do NOT run the stopsigns in the Village!

Since we were not able to get batman to wear his costume, we had a good stand in. 

And Carla!!!  She was my neighbor when we lived in the OLD house.  She has since moved up towards our neighborhood.  Her grand daughter is almost the same age as BabyP. 

Shrek!

To conclude our weekend of Halloween festivities, my mom and I took the kids to see Shrek!  It was so good.  We had seats near the front, which was helpful so the kids could tell what was real and what was a puppet.  I am constantly amazed at how cool these productions are.

Peanut loves them, but BabyP had some issues.  He enjoyed it, but the magic was a bit lost on him.

Him:  I want to go outside
Me:  We can't.  I want to watch this.
Him:  I can go outside by myself.
Me:  That is a great idea!
Him: (smiling but apprehensive.) really?
Me: No

Just put that on the list of items that he will see a counselor for.

They both loved looking at the instruments.  When the conductor asked BabyP what he liked the most, it was the "rock and roll guitar."  As if there was any other kind.