Halloween 2012

      Down by the old Birch Tree.  The same spot where we take pictures every year.  We treat this day like its a holiday every year.  The kids think that school should be called off every year for this date.  I agree, its a great day. 

     Jackie and I as Mr. Six Flags and Six Flags jr.  He didnt like the mask too much so it didnt stay on too long but he ran around all night from house to house sans mask.

     Catherine was an Olympic swimmer, Laura was cleopatra, Em was a mummy and Erin was spooky and cute.

Halloween week at school

 

           I chose my vacation week about six months ago and October seemed like a great idea becasue I had done that last year and had a great time.  There was no hurricane last year though.  Onward we go and I had planned multiple things to do, which included two days of volunteering in the girls classroom.  The hurricanes came and the kids got two days off to be stuck inside the house, for the most part.  They snuck over to the cousins house for a couple of hours on one of the days.  Thankfully, I got to go into the school due to rescheduled activities.
    Catherine's activity was pumpkin math and Laura and her class did the halloween spider web.  The pumpkin math consisted of the kids taking out all the guck and measuring the circumference and separating the seeds for future counting.  It was fun, what kid doesnt want to play in that type of mess.  Catherine had such a good time and I was selected to bake the seeds at home after it was done.  Of course I brought them home, put them in the oven and might have left them in there a bit too long because Catherine told me that the teacher told her they were burned!! 

    Laura's class, got all this yarn and cut it in one foot lengths.  All the kids connected one string to another and after a while, the web connected the web all across the hall.  It was really fun and I got to do my own web too.  After it was all done the kids lay on the floor and looked above them and saw that they were surrounded by the web.  That hippie loves to laugh. 

pumpkin disaster-2012

 

     Pumpkin carving is certainly not an art that anyone in this family has ever perfected.  The kids have a joke about how funky our pumpkins end up.  We hadn't done the pumpkin carving and didnt even have a pumpkin this morning.  Well, we have some but not any big enough to be our great carved pumpkin.  So of course this morning happens and we are in the midst of a hurricane with no great pumpkin.  There is no doubt in my mind that we are going to lose power and carving pumpkins is a great thing to do by candlelight. 

     The rest of the world is rushing into the aisles of the grocery store stocking up on water and canned foods, things to help them survive this impending disaster.  I feel kind of sheepish as I go into three different stores asking personnel if they have any pumpkins.  I finally did find one and it was a very good sized one. We didnt even have to carve by candlelight.  It was a good time with none of the kids freaking out about sticking their hands inside the guck.  

 

                                                I agree with you Jimmy, yucky stuff in there.

                           My little Catherine smiling, probably laughing at this lovely pumkin.

                                            Look at little Guido who wouldnt put his shirt on.

                                                      spooky pumpkin, beautiful gal

School Halloween party

     Such lovely children eh??  Catherine is an Olympic gymnast, Jack is the guy from Six Flags (without the mask) and Laura is Cleopatra.  Her friend Skylar is an evil witch, I think.  Every year we go to this halloween party and every year I wonder how insane I am to do it again.  There are games all around the gym and kids line up to play them for the prize of candy.  Unfortuately, there is always a lack of volunteers so the lines move deadly slow, but not that slow, its just the total amount of people that are there...just crazy...but the kids love it and have a blast.  Laura is now in fourth grade so i dont have to completely monitor what she's doing because she's got friends all over the place.  Catherine jumped in with her friend Sydney.  This is his first year in the school and everything is so new to him.  He was so excited every time he would see some of his classmates.  Here, he saw his friends Dean and Demarcus (?? , god only knows what his real name is).  But he thought he was so cool telling them how he knocked down all the pins in one of the games.   But Goodness gracious, its unreal how nostalgic do we get when we do things like this and can't help but remember just a few short years ago that Jimmy was doing the exact same thing.  Its burned into my mind him running around and making sure he got the bean bag in the little hole of the plywood game.  I think he was a little more ultra competitive than Jackie.  Jimmy is in the sixth grade and sixth graders are way too cool for these parties.

     Catherine was off with her friend Sydney and did the donut game with her so I didnt get her pictures but I was with Jack, Laura and TK.  TK is a neighborhood kid that comes walking around and he is absolutely hilarious.  One day he came walking into the back room and Lyn and I were sitting on the couch watching TV and there he is.  I had never met him before and there he was.

And another Birthday cake for Laura...or ummm Bacon

The Blatt's came over after swimming and we had yet another cake for Laura.  She had another stellar swim meet today, as did Baby Erin.  Its funny to see her write all her information on her arms.  When she has three or four or six races they write on her arm what meet number she has.  Thats perfect except the scrubbing of the arms to get the ink off....but what the heck, thats what hippies do.  Last week Laura had six races in one meet.  Thats quite a bit and by the end of it, she was toast.  Especially now that she is racing 200 free style races.  She was told by her coach that she's going to race a 500m free style race....thats quite a bit.

The second cake just read "happy birthday bacon" and she was thrilled with it.  So thrilled that they put twenty candles on it. 

Fun in leaves

      Kara took the picture of all of them togehter, minus jacob.  I think she's the only one who can get them to sit still.

Guess where we went today.......And he can read too...

      He asked me if i was gonig to put this picture on the internet.  When I told him yes he told me that everyone will be mad at him because the sign says Keep out (really off but oh well).  At least its good to know he has a conscience.

      It was too beautiful of a day not to go and see Black Gordon.  I had to work in the morning and got out early so off we went.  He wanted to go to the Owl but when we got there he informed me that he had already ate.  He did order some toast with french fries. 

  Jackie also made sure that we brought a tennis ball because there is a special wall that he likes to play wall ball with me.  There are so many rules to this game its incredible.  He had broken a couple of fingers last year in december playing wall ball so i'm surprised he is right back at it.....but he is right back at it.  It shows a little toughness.

The Moving bed..not the burning bed cuz she had no matches

     Well, Lyn had a cold this week so she decided that it was best that the bed be moved from underneath the window to against the solid wall.  Which is fine except for the fact that my prostate gives up on me about three or four times a night and I have to maneuver my way around to the hallway then the bathroom for my relief.  It's tough enough having to find my way around Jack most nights, but now I have to remember that I am now the furthest away from the door....and in the middle of the dark night I have to remember the new route to the door.  Well, last night was a corn maze type of bathroom walk. , I know I got up but then there was a window that i wasnt used to, then there was a feeling around of sorts to find my way out.  To make matters worse, I ended up feeling my early dimentia setting in because I somehow ended up in the closet with nowhere to go, not knowing where I was or how to get out.  In the chaos (at 3am) there may have been some things knocked around and I truly had no freaking idea where I was in the room.  I hear WHAT ARE YOU DOING??? coming from the little italian....somewhere in the room.  Of course I tell her to not worry and to go back to what she was doing.....eventually...or miraculously I found my way to my pee place to start this whole adventure again to get back to bed.  I go to climb back in from the foot of the bed, which is no longer the foot of the bed but the side of the bed, to find myself have that feeling in my stomach that you get when you are falling somewhere to safely tucking myself back in......and then having a 6 year old terrorist come jumping into bed shortly thereafter.  She told me I was talking in my sleep later on in the morning....I can only imagine what that dream consisted of!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Pumpkin decorating with Laura

     Instead of going into Laura's class and reading a book for her birthday, her teacher invited me into her class to help with the decorating of pumpkins.  I was running around in work and was afraid for a little while that I wouldnt be able to make it, but alas, I did make it only a couple of minutes late.  The class has been doing a descriptive writing exercise where they will describe the pumpkin that they decorated and someone from another class will have to find which one they were writing about based on their description.  I'm sure no one else in the class will be talking about bacon on their pumpkins!! 

     She was so happy to be showing me how to write on her pumpkin.  She is always so funny and happy.  She has alot of nice friends too who are as equally silly as she is and may even be a bit more hippie than she is, if thats possible. 

Happy Tenth Birthday Laura!!!

     My little hippie has hit the decade mark.  I cannot believe how quickly these years have gone by.

Catherine's First Swim meet with FINS.....awesome!!!

     My little angel had her first real swim meet on Sunday with her team.  She did so great!!!  She started off being a little nervous and some tears were coming down but she quickly turned it around with the help of her friends.   I had to work during the meet but got so lucky that I could keep sneaking out and peeking my head in.  I got to see her first race which was a free-style and this race here is her back stroke, which I thought she did an awesome job.  I think I had a little tear in my eye after seeing her do her first race....She is such a special little angel!!

Earthquake Jack

I have to admit it,...we had an earthquake tonight here, 4.5, whatever that means, my first reaction was to run to the basement door and yell...JACK, WHAT DID YOU DO !!!!!!!!!!......poor Jack.  Jackie was very scared though and kept coming over talking about it....the kids are definitely a bunch of wimps when it comes to weather things.  Anytime there is a tornado warning on the television I hear all about it...usually from Jack.  He has his ears to the television and hears everything they say. Jimmy is a little more mature about it and knows that things will be fine, but that wasnt always the case.  He is getting much older now and it seems every time I look at him he is a foot taller.  I looked at some old pictures they other day from the blog and there he was, a little buggah, still watching blues clues and now he is almost as tall as Kara.  Tada, we blink and they are practically in high school...noooooooo, lets hope not.  Look out for those earthquakes though.

Garrison House with Catherine

     Today was the day that I got to volunteer at the Garrison house for Catherine's 2nd grade class.  Its a colonial era compound and the kids get to see how life was way back then.  Today I was in charge of showing the kids how we made soap back in the old 'colonial' days. 

     We had to stir the bowl for two hours straight to get it to the right consistency. 

     One of the other exhibits was showing the kids how butter was made.  It really tasted good.

     This was the third time i've been chosen to do the Garrison house.  The first time I got to show the kids the black smith area.  I told the kids then that my name was Blackie Smith.  Here is the link http://my-children.blogspot.com/2008/10/blog-post_15.html  The next time I was the candle maker..of course mister Kandell and this time I introduced myself as mr Zoppa.   so silly i know but its fun.....The kids in Laura's class still call me Mr. Kandell but I cannot believe I have no blog entry for that day....what was I thinking??????

Happy Birthday Jack

     Jack has turned six years old.  He had a wonderful week whwere it seems he celebrated his birthday every day and thought that we were going to have a cake every day.  As is turned out, he got a cake on his birthday and had some really awesome specially made cupcakes on his party on Saturday.  Kristina made the mario cupcakes by hand and they not only tasted awesome but looked great.  For his birthday, aside from his normal gifts he got some gifts from the one dollar aisle at Target.  He absolutely loved them.  There was a little "monster" book, a trophy cup, some pencils and some othere stuff.  On Saturday Aunt Jo, Nana and Doe and the cousins came over on Saturday for the singing and cupcakes.

 

 



Jimmy is catching up in height to Kara.  Pretty soon he's going to catch up with me.  I keep looking at the kids and cannot believe how quickly they are growing.  When I look at the old pictures of them or when I see parents with little babies, I miss it.  Maybe we should got for another....!!

apple pickin 2012

     Apple picking is so much fun.  Ever since the first year we took Jimmy we have gone and scared up some great times.  Everyone seems to like it.   We were joined by baby erin and nana met us there. 

     The day wouldnt be complete without a hay ride.  These three gals loved climbing all over the place and getting the perfect apple.  Jackie enjoyed himself too.  He especially liked climbing on the trees and getting the highest apples he could.

     Jimmy had flag football earlier and had his uniform on. 

Plus, Catherine had picture day yesterday and I thought she looked so cute I had to sneak a pic.