Pizza and Pops

 

Today was Pizza and Pops day at Matthew's kindergarten class - a day when dads can come visit the class and have pizza with their kindergarteners.  Scott would have liked to go, but of course, wasn't able to.  I stood in for him.  There were a few other moms there so Matthew wasn't the only one without a "pop."  And although he would have liked to have his dad there, he was ok with me.  Here is a picture he drew for Dad.

 

Here's his picture up close, along with a little blurb about Dad. 

Here's what it says:

My Father

My father is special because he does good things to me.

He is about 24 years old.

I like it when my dad makes me waffles on Christmas.

My dad is as handsome as my grandpa.

My dad can do lots of things.  

He even knows how to fly airplanes and I know that he loves me.

I love him too!

Love, Matthew.

After having pizza, we got to see some things in Matthew's class that he had been working on.  Here's his plant (I think it's a pea plant or bean plant) that they planted a few weeks ago.  We got to take it home today.

We also worked on a fall sticker scene together.

Here's Matthew putting some stickers on his scene.

And our scene all finished

I tried to take a picture of us together.  Sorta worked.

We also wrote a story together.  Matthew's idea of a story was this: "A farmer drove a tractor."

Getting him to elaborate on that took a little doing, but we eventually got a few more sentences and something that sort of resembles a story.  The story involved the aforementioned farmer and some pumpkins that got in the way of his tractor.  We had a lot of fun at Pizza and Pops day and Scott/Pop/Daddy, you were missed!

As I was leaving I took a picture of the kindergarteners hidden turkeys.  They had a family homework project to decorate or hide their turkey as something so he wouldn't get eaten on Thanksgiving.  Matthew's turkey is the hulu dancer turkey (top row, center) with sunglasses and a grass skirt.  The turkeys were all very cute.

The In Between

Here are a few pictures from the past week or so...in between all the Halloween fun.

It's all pretty random.  Sorry about that.  :)

Here is Johnny almost falling asleep in his chair.  He is getting so big.  Such a person!

 Here is Grant playing with John.  John LOVES when the kids come talk, sing and play with him.

 Me and Matthew playing Battleship

He is learning how to play a little better.  He doesn't tell me where his ships are anymore. ;)

 Anna's Veteran's Day homework honoring her Dad.

She decorated it her way.

 Our Jack-o-peppers - a special pre-Halloween meal

The yellow one lost his hat.

 The kids thought they were pretty cool...too bad they didn't eat them though

 Johnny looking stoic and sitting in the stroller.

He does like being outside, despite what it looks like here.

 Grant checking out some animal chalk drawings from Grandma

 Paper Matthew

Matthew made this at school - a life sized picture of himself

He hung it up in the dining room and everytime I walked by it it would freak me out.  It looks like a scary person looking at me (shiver).  But nice picture Matthew.  ;)

Mosaics!

We saw a cool mosaic planter at the zoo that Anna liked.  We scrounged some supplies together and my mom helped the kids make salt dough mosaics.  They had a lot of fun with it.

 Shaping the dough

 Grant sets sail in my red bins.   He looks like he's in a little boat.

 and having so much fun!

 Matthew made some airplanes(??) that he was very proud of.

He wanted me to take a picture.

 

 Shoes!

I got Johnny some little shoes.  He looked so cute!  I like his big eyes!

And Grant giving me something.  Grant is turning into such a big boy.  He can say a lot of words now...more each day...and he knows what he wants to do.  Usually it's whatever the big kids are doing.  He loves hearing stories, stealing candy from everyone's Halloween stash, dancing, trying to get people to clap for him and running in circles while waving his arms wildly.  We sometimes call him "the wild man of Borneo."  And we just love him!

This is Halloween!

We had a lot of fun on Halloween this year.  Here are Matthew and Anna dressed for school!   Matthew is making his ghost face.  In true Anna form she decided the morning of Halloween that she wanted to dress up as something else (other than the ladybug costume we got her).  So I let her pick from the dress up box.  She picked her mermaid costume from last year.  Matthew stuck with his ghost costume.  On the way to school Matthew got a bloody nose and blood dripped on his white costume.  I took him in the bathroom and we washed it off so he was still pretty white with only a small wet spot for school.  Phew!

 

Anna and Matthew both had class parties at the same time and I wasn't able to go to both.  I went to Anna's since I went to Matthew's last year.  Anna was very excited.  She is blurrily waving at me in this picture.  Another little girl in her class had the exact same costume.  Her mother was amazed since she said she had bought the costume at a consignment store in Vail.  I had to break the news to her that the costume was originally from Costco.

 Here is Anna doing her Halloween craft next to her mermaid twin.

 And playing a relay game in class

 And having snacks

Anna was very excited I came to her party, but Matthew was very sad and disappointed that I didn't come to his.  :(  It will be easier next year when they are at the same school.  Sorry Matthew.

 Here is Johnny getting sort of festive.

It was warm on Halloween so he went without pants for a little while.

And here we are getting ready to trick or treat!  We had a Jack-o-lantern pizza from Papa Murphy's and then got costumed up again.  Grant was super excited to go, but I only got bad pictures of him...

 this

 and this.  Sorry Grant.  I'm still getting used to this camera.

We went down the street on one side and came back on the other side.  My mom stayed home with John.  When we got back by the house my mom and I traded 'cause John was very sad and hungry.  Grant only lasted a few more houses before he came back and stayed with me the rest of the night.  He had fun trick or treating though and even said something close to "trick or treat" at the appropriate time.

John on the other hand did not like Halloween.  He was upset every time the doorbell rang, which was a lot.  And he had trouble nursing 'cause he was so upset by all the commotion.  Plus every time the doorbell rang I had to put him down to give out candy.  Then he just got madder and madder.  Even when my mom came back with the trick or treaters and Matthew could give out candy he still had trouble.  He cried and cried with every doorbell ring.  Finally I wrapped him up tight and he was able to eat a little then fall asleep.  He felt better after that.

While the trick or treaters came to the door we watched some Halloween shows including, The Great Pumpkin.  Finally the kids went to bed (late for them at 8:45).  It was a busy but fun day!

The next day Matthew wanted to make a candy graph so I helped him.  He wanted to graph all the different candy he had.  Of course this doesn't take into account the candy he ate the night before.  :)  Here is his graph.

Here he is with his graph and trying to organize his candy.  Now he will know when Grant sneaks a candy or two.  :)  Happy Halloween everyone!

Pumpkin Carving

I told the kids we could carve one pumpkin this year...instead of one per person.  Matthew and Anna each drew designs they would like for our pumpkin face.  We ended up carving one face on one side of the pumpkin and one on the other side.

 

 I didn't take any pictures during the carving, 'cause I had goo hands, but here we are after.

The kids thought scooping the guts out of the pumpkin was too gooey.  :)  But they helped a little.

 Here is Anna's design for the face

It reminds me of a clown.  She wanted it to have a tooth and a tongue

 Matthew's design compete with "angry eyebrows"

 We put a candle in there but it was too light out to see it

Here we are putting our newly carved pumpkin on the front porch with our other Halloween decorations.

 Here is Anna arranging some of the decorations.  Everything needs to be just right!

And our pumpkin line up!

We got a lot of compliments on our pumpkins this year.  Toddlers in particular seemed to like our tactile alphabet pumpkin.  Hooray!

A Little Trim

Anna gave herself a haircut this morning while I was on the treadmill.  I had been feeling very pleased with how well behaved the kids have been while I work out...til today.  I asked her why she did it and she told me she didn't want bangs anymore.

Here she is examining some of the hair she cut off.  She said she wanted to keep the cut off locks.  I had her report the incident to Scott on skype this morning and this is what she said:  Dad, mom says I look like you now (with the shorter/boy hair in front)...and I'm not allowed to use the scissors anymore!

First Snow

We got our first snow of the season last week.  It happened before the Trunk or Treat last week, but I have just been slow at getting things up on the blog.  We only got a light dusting and it melted pretty quickly during the day, but still.  Anna was very excited to go out and play in it.  She also wanted to make a snow man.  I told her there wasn't enough snow to make a snowman.  She wasn't convinced.

 

 

 I told her we could make a teeny tiny snow man and she was happy about that compromise.

Here he is with some pebble eyes and pine needle arms.  We made him before school and he was no where to be seen after school.  Luckily Anna forgot about him and wasn't sad that he had melted.

 Anna was excited for the snow!

 She wanted to run around in it for a while.

Her footprints made a little green show through our light dusting.  I'm sure we'll get more snow later.