Happy Halloween !

the ghosts are finished ! We each made a face on a ghost and then I hung some of them from the second story foyer. A fun and easy activity !
We can't wait for Trick or Treat on Saturday !

One evening, the three older kids were up in Bethany's room hanging out together, After a while of not hearing or seeing anyone, I went to see what they were up to. Bethany had three quotes displayed in her room on her shelves that she had made. The one shown above was the quote she said that Sam told to her because he sees it in one of his classrooms at school. I loved that they A. remembered it and B. liked it well enough to put up on Their Walls!

Career Building

You know how most kids have a few ideas of things they might like to be when they grow up? Well, if you ask that questions to my daughters, that is true, but if you ask Sam, he always says "I don't know". I thought it would be fun to have them take a quiz to find out where their interests lie. I got this book from the library, obviously geared to adults, but it had a 4 page quiz that was easy to take--the only way they had to answer each one was to say LIKE, DISLIKE or UNSURE. At the end of the quiz, it told you what type of career category you would probably most interested in. In the end, Bethany (not surprisingly) ended up in the artistic category and so did (surprisingly !!) Sam ! felicia was in the Enterprising category. We'll see....

Sick Day

Yesterday I kept Ellie home from school and decided to take her to the doctor because she seemed to have this cold that just wouldn't go away and I wanted to get her checked out while I had a day off from work. Since she was feeling fine other than the stuffy nose and cough, we were able to do some fun things that we don't always have enough time for anymore. We started off by making these ghosts for halloween using white fabric ( a $2.99 bed skirt found at Goodwill), liquid starch and items pulled from the recyle bin to drape the fabric over to make the ghost form. we cut the fabric, put it in the liquid starch, squeezed out the excess liquid, then draped the fabric. By last night, these were half dry. When they are completely dry, we will decorate them and they will be stiff and freestanding due to the starch. Pretty cool. We made 6, one for each member of our family.
We made sugar cookie dough in the morning and when we returned from the doctor and pharmacy (just a sinus infection !), Ellie rolled it out and cut out and decorated her cookies.
When her sisters came home from school, they got in on the act too !
the result of their hard work was two trays full of happy pumpkins and leaves.

Oh, and these Mickey Mouse head shaped cookies. Foretelling of things to come ?....

Cheer Competition

Felicia and her cheer squad,the Clover Hill Juniors , had their cheer competition today at the Arthur Ashe Center in Richmond. They competed against 10 squads in their age bracket from Chesterfield county and placed 4th. They did an amazing job and Felicia stayed up in every stunt !! Unfortunately, our squad only has 7 girls while most of the others had at least double that number, so to pull off 4th place was a great accomplishment. We were so proud !

mile by mile

I have not been blogging about my progress in training for the Richmond half marathon coming up on November 14th. I have been running with a partner on all of the longer runs we have to do and just by myself for the short runs. At this stage of the game 4-5 miles are "short runs". This morning, Kristin and I finished 13 miles ! now, let me just say, that 13 miles for a very novice runner such as myself is a really really LONG run. I did manage to make it the entire distance but boy was I dragging the last two miles ! Poor Kristin probably thought she was going to have to drag me to the end !
I am proud of all the progress I've made in the training and feel a great sense of satisfaction in achieving this goal I've set for myself. That being said, I can't wait until this is OVER !! I plan to keep my runs in the future to 3-4 miles for exercise. After all the training I've realized one important thing---I don't like to run !!!

Pumpkin Patch

Today our preschool went on a field trip to The Pumpkin Patch ! It was a great day, mild temperatures, a nice breeze and sunny !
We got a class picture after everyone had picked their pumpkins. Here we all are minus two students who couldn't be there today.
The coolest thing about going to the pumpkin patch today was that Ellie's kindergarten class at her school was also going today and the patch our class was in happened to be right next to the patch Ellie's class was in !!!! I was able to walk over and get a couple of pictures of her with her friend Josh, who was her filed trip partner for the day.Josh's Dad was the chaperone.


I was able to hang out with both my students and their parents as well as Ellie and Josh, so it was perfect ! We had a really good time.

I snapped a picture of my co-teacher Mary Lou who had used an empty lunch bag to collect some dried corn kernals we wanted to use for a class project next week !!!!
We teachers have to get creative sometimes....

Ellie at School

Ellie has adjusted well to Kindergarten. I have seen glimpses of her kindergarten life a few times in the past few weeks and happened to have a camera with me in my purse. (Surprise, surprise )
Last week I brought Ellie in to class in the morning because we had driven to school that day to bring Felicia's state project in. I was able to see her morning routine, where her cubby was, what was going on in the beginning of her day.
Yesterday I went to the Book Fair during her library time. I was able to see her interacting with her class and it seems she is quite the social butterfly. She was flitting from friend to friend talking and sharing things in the books. I met some of the other Moms who introduced themselves. The photo of her between Abby and Josh seems to sum up who she spends the most time, though. They are so cute !

School Carnival

Last night was Grange Hall Elementary School's annual fall carnival. Felicia and Ellie got to attend and play with their friends while Sam and Bethany volunteered to run games and sell popcorn. Felicia did not want to dress up this year and was off and running with friends once she had her tickets, so I didn't really get any pictures of her, but I got lots of Ellie, who was able to enjoy the carnival this year as an actual student of the school !





Our Sweet Fairy
This is her Tinkerbell costume she will be wearing on Halloween
Ellie took part in the costume contest
She did the cake walk, but didn't win a cake.
She played lots of games
and, of course, ate some yummy treats !!

Our Pampered Pooch

Yesterday was a very chilly and wet day here. Since Hollister has had his last grooming, he doesn't have a lot of fur to keep him warm. When he came inside after being out for a while, he was shivering and couldn't warm up, so Steve swaddled him in a towel and he stayed like that for about 45 minutes !

Teacher's Birthday

I just had to share this because it was such a sweet note that Felicia wrote to her teacher on her birthday. she really loves her 5th grade teacher and with good reason--she's a remarkable person !

Parade of States

Another child has become a 5th Grader in our house and every 5th Grader at our elementary school takes part in The Parade of States project in the fall, while studying the states and their capitals. Felicia's state was Alabama, which she probably picked because we almost moved there last year.
We included famous sites like the Talladega Speedway and Robert Trent Jones Golf Course, land forms, major industries (cotton and peanuts), famous Americans born there (Rosa Parks, Helen Keller, Martin Luther King Jr., Harper Lee, George Washington Carver), anything the state is known for. We added an Alabama baseball cap sticking out the front. We even planned to have "Sweet Home Alabama" playing on the float, which we hid under the box, cutting a hole in the side so Felicia could turn it off and on.
I found Ellie's class while we were waiting for the 5th graders and I have been dying to see who "Josh" was in her class because she comes home everyday telling me about him. I found her sitting right next to him and he is just as infatuated with her as she is with him, according to the teacher. So I took this picture of the two of them together, cute and giggly. (Weird, they even matched !)
Here is Felicia as she first comes outside. I didn't realize that the side we had put a hole in our box to insert the Ipod player was going to be the side facing the crowd. (The other side of the box, she had painted the state flag). What ended up being really disappointing, though, was the fact that her music didn't end up working at the actual parade. It worked 2 hours before, at home, but by the time she was ready to parade, the Ipod was not charged. Felicia was bummed.
Here she is taking her first lap around ! They take 2 laps around the bus loop before going back in. Felicia's class was the first one out. The whole school comes out to see the parade and patriotic music is piped outside while they are parading. It is a really neat thing.
Felicia was passing by Ellie's class when I took this photo of the back of her.



Here are some of the other floats spotted -- I love to see everyone's creativity with their projects. It's really cool !

You're Gonna Miss This

I took a quiz on Facebook title "What Country Song are you?" and my result was this song, which I've added to my playlist. I would say that's pretty accurate. I am definitely sentimental and things that are frustrating in the moment are looked back upon with laughter or fondness or a feeling of "It wasn't such a big deal". Today I had to keep repeating this, though, as all the little, dumb annoyances happening were getting to me and my mood. Just ask my family, they will confirm this ! The final straw was when my almost brand-new favorite pair of sunglasses got stepped on and broken by one of my children. I was already too defeated to hardly even react, but they obviously knew I was upset about it, because later, two of my darlings came to me with their own money, offering it to me to buy some new sunglasses ! I would love to say that that was the thing that turned it all around for me and my mood, but it actually took leaving the house for an hour with my husband to go to our church's small group meeting for me to gain a better perspective and come home feeling more lighthearted. In the end, home is where my heart is and my family knows it, broken sunglasses and all.

Midlothian Mines Park

I am still in my "tour your own hometown" frame of mind, so today we visited Midlothian Mines Park, which is a mere block away from our YMCA and pool we go to all summer long. We have never, however, been to this park. It is mainly a park with hiking/walking trails, but it is always fun to get back to nature and see things we don't always find in our backyards. these are some of the things we found:
A natural tree swing ! A giant U-shaped branch strong enough for Felicia to sit and swing on.
a Walking stick for ellie !
fungus
ferns

interesting plants to blow at or ticle ourselves with,
a real snakeskin !!
water ! We always love to poke sticks in the water. Steve and Ellie saw a snake right by the water's edge --I'm glad I didn't !
Here are Steve and Sam trying to forge a new trail of their own to get to the top of a hill.
It was a beautiful day, we enjoyed the warm fall day and we even brought Hollister along, which he loved.It always refreshes the soul to be out among nature, even if the thought of encountering creepy crawlies keeps you a little on edge ! (That would be me).

Pancakes on Sunday

I know a lot of families have a tradition of making pancakes for breakfast on Saturday mornings, but for us, it's usually sunday mornings that we do breakfast big. These pancakes were from scratch, not a Bisquick box, even !
I had a very willing and eager helper, who sang and twirled all the way through our baking.
Perfect consistancy !
singing with the syrup !
"sun's comin' up, I got cakes on the griddle.."

Time to devour !