Character Convention

In second grade, they have a tradition around Halloween where the kids all dress up as their favorite character from a book. They get up in front of the class, and introduce themselves as the character and tell some interesting things about them. Spencer chose Ron Weasley (cause they share the red hair) from the Harry Potter books. At the time, Spencer had just started reading the books, and now he is halfway through the series... Here Spencer is giving a portion of his speech:

Sorry you can't hear it so well, but apparently something was funny in the end!

Jenna

In October, I had Jayden in to the doctor's office with an ear infection. While there, the doctor said that they'd been seeing a lot of Croup cases and in teens no less. So, wouldn't you know that less than a week later, I have Jenna in to the doctor's office and she's got croup! He said that after the fever went away, she needed to stay home from school for 24 hours. So, to pass the time, she watched plenty of movies.... And took lots of bubble baths!

Altogether, she was out of school for 4 days. Tough for someone who had waited SO LONG just to get to go to school.

Kindred Spirits

The only one in our house that loves video games as much as Spencer is Jayden. He is SO happy just to sit and watch Spencer play. Don't get me wrong, he likes to play too!

The Pumpkin Patch

At school the kids got a flyer from a local nursery advertising a free hayride and a pick of any pumpkin for bringing in a can of food for the local food bank. We weren't doing anything, so we hopped in the car and drove on over. The kids had fun riding on the tractor, and even more fun picking out the perfect pumpkin. Jayden just about picked up every pumpkin he saw before settling on one...

Funny thing is, he settled on the tiniest pumpkin he could find (see photo below)...

Melissa, Spencer and Jenna searched far and wide to find their pumpkins.

Spencer settled on this one, but the bummer about it was it began to rot before he could carve it.

See? Jayden's perfect find!

Jenna of course, came home with the biggest pumpkin.

Our Fall Harvest

In October, there was a threat of a frost, so the kids and I went out one Saturday and went and picked all the produce in our garden. Pretty much all that was left was the watermelons and pumpkins. The other stuff got eaten by bugs. Not our best "garden" year, but had a plentiful harvest of melons!

Jayden made sure that EVERY pumpkin was picked...

Afterwards, the kids enjoyed the fruits of our labor!

6th Grade Program

It's inevitable... Every year, each grade puts on a program and it is the same one year after year. For the sixth graders, they put on a program about the ancient civilizations. Melissa was a part of the Greeks. Here she is in her cute little costume...

And this is her trio...

After a brief little speaking part...

The three of them sang:

The program was actually quite enjoyable and only lasted for 45 minutes. The perfect amount of time if you ask me.

Mr. Dibble's Garden

This year, in the spirit of Fall, our school did another round of Mr. Dibble's Garden (He's the principal). My kids did it last year, and Jenna was excited to be able to join Melissa and Spencer this year in entering. Here were some of the entries from the school...

These were what my kids made...

Jenna's was two apple people in a boat...

Spencer's was just a monster face...

And Melissa's I think she called it a "simple creature". I took these pictures after they brought them home from school. They were supposed to bring them in on Monday and my kids got up bright and early before school to make them and we didn't have time to take pictures before.

Cherry Tomatoes...

A while back (quite a while actually) Jayden went out back and picked some cherry tomatoes and washed them. Then he sat down at the table to "eat" them...

And don't worry, after that I made him throw them out instead of put them in the fridge with the rest of them like he wanted to do!

It's a Jungle Out There!

We have somewhat of an animal problem in our backyard. The kids all think it's great because we don't have any pets. They have gone and named all of the animals. We however (Steve and I) aren't because well, you'll see. The first varmit, is a squirrel. The kids have named it Mr./Mrs. Nutterworth (aren't sure whether it's a boy or a girl). It is living in our rocks in the backyard. If you look at about the middle of the picture, amongst all the watermelon plants, you can see it sticking it's head out of the hole. The pain about the squirrel is it has burrowed a little nest behind the rocks. It has gone in and pushed all of the dirt out from behind all of the rocks and made him/herself right at home. Our concern is what happens now. Will it stay through the winter? Is it building up a food supply behind those rocks to last? Who knows. I did catch Jenna and Jayden outside with a bag of trail mix trying to leave the squirrel some nuts. Had to put an end to that one!

Here the squirrel is running back to it's home:

Our second set of "guests" in the backyard, are a family, of quail. There are twelve of them in all. And every morning they come through our backyard, and play a bit, before hopping over the back fence and leaving. It is a morning ritual though. The funny thing is we have seen the squirrel watching them in the backyard. Here they are making their exit:

Also over the summer, we had two Doves make a nest in one of our trees and then a family of Robins make a nest in another tree. Like I said the kids were really excited about the whole thing, but if it is a continual problem. I don't think Steve and I will be.

The first bus ride

Finally the day we have all been waiting for arrived! And yes, we all were excited for it because now she can stop talking about it! Jenna got to ride the bus! And here is the full account:

She stood in line and waited... She waited patiently inching up to the bus, no pushing or shoving...

Then she hopped on...(I almost missed it)

And then she found her seat. I was hoping she would at least look out the window and wave, but I just had to settle for getting her head.

Whew! Melissa helped her at school get off the bus and then find the correct line to stand in until the bell rang for school to start. Which was nice for me because I didn't have to then drive to the school. After school was out, the morning bus was kind of late dropping off the Kindergartners, so when she got home, the afternoon bus was there picking up the afternoon kids. When that bus drove off, there were four cars of Moms and Dads following the bus, to help their kids when they got to school make sure they got to the right place. Which is funny because the teachers are already out there ready to greet the kids when they get to school.