Falling into fall

The past week has been filled with some fun school activities with the kids. Last Monday Natalie's AVID class invited all the AVID students and their families to go to one of our local high schools and watch her math teacher coach the girls volleyball team. Natalie didn't think she wanted to go, but I felt it was important that Natalie participate in as many of these AVID things as we can. So we went and I think everyone had a good time. CJ was enjoying playing on the bleachers and taking some pictures with my camera...

A picture of the girls playing volleyball

A picture of his little sister

Me with the 2 little ones

Kaitlyn

Natalie watching the game

CJ insisted I take a picture of his triangle

Then on Friday morning CJ had his very first field trip to a local farm. I asked the teachers if we could meet them there and they said sure. So we got there after they had already been there, but we didn't miss much. They were just playing on the bikes and trains and stuff.

Playing on the firetruck

Going to climb on the train

The conductor.

Climbing on the train

Then we went on a hayride.

Holding on tight

Alyssa on the hayride

After the hayride the kids got to go on the bounce houses for a little while.

Then it was time to pick pumpkins...

Found the right one

Class picture in the pumpkin field...

And now with the teachers...

And to end their trip to the farm it was one final ride on the cow train.

When we got home CJ was cranky. I said something he didn't like and he tried to climb into his backpack. He doesn't quite fit...

Natalie had also take a trip to a pumpkin patch with school on Friday and brought home a pumpkin that they were told to decorate and bring back on Monday. Here's what she came up with...

And yet again another winner. The pumpkins were judged and today Natalie came home as one of three other children who received a prize and certificate for their pumpkin. A deserving pumpkin I think.

Everything is going well. I had Natalie's Parent/Teacher conference last night. Her teachers all like her. They all as usual would like to hear more from her. She has all A's and one B so far. She is doing well this year for the most part though so far.

Looking forward, we have CJ's birthday party on Saturday, pumpkin picking on Sunday, CJ's birthday next Tuesday, my birthday the following day along with a Pampered Chef/Avon party for my birthday. So everyone is very excited about the things coming up. I have been working on party stuff this week. I am expecting a relatively good turn out too.

Pumpkin Festival

Today was our towns annual pumpkin festival. We entered a pumpkin. Joe and the kids worked on it today. Here is what they came up with...

Cannibal pumpkin

Joe and the girls brought it to enter it. They put it in under our family name, but they told them they had to put a grade so since Natalie was filling it out she put her grade and school.
Sitting on the judging bleachers

They came home so we could have dinner and what not. Judging wasn't going to be until after dark when they would be lit. We went back after dinner and couldn't find the pumpkin. It was on the winner bleachers...
A 3rd place ribbon for the 6-8 grade age group

Here was the 1st place winner in that category...


And the 2nd place winner...


Natalie loved this one because it was a penguin...


Now Elmo, that's a different pumpkin...



Natalie with the pumpkin

All four kids and the 3rd place pumpkin...



We were so excited to see a ribbon on our pumpkin. Last year we didn't get anything. So it was great to see something this year. There are always some really creative pumpkins there.

Celebrating a friend's 8th birthday

Well, yesterday was a beautiful day. Our good family friend's son finally got to have his 8th birthday party. It was supposed to be last weekend, but the weather did not hold up for an outdoor bounce house party. So it was pushed back to yesterday and it was an unseasonably warm day in October filled with sun and fun. The kids all had a blast. There were only a few bumps and bruises too. So it was a fun day. Here's a little video slide show of the kids jumping in the bounce house and the rest of the birthday festivities.



Happy 8th birthday to Spencer! Thanks for including us in your day.

Happy 8 months Alyssa

Alyssa is 8 months old now. How can that be? She is growing so fast. This past week I had written something on Facebook about how she's not such a baby anymore. After CJ had gotten home from school one day last week and ate his lunch he wanted to watch TV. I was feeding Alyssa and as soon as CJ turned the TV on and I put on Playhouse Disney for him Alyssa had zero interest in eating and had to sit with her brother to watch TV. She adores CJ so much. It is great seeing her try to chase after him.

She has been spinning herself in a circle on her bottom now. She's trying to get around. She reaches for everything. Nothing is safe from her reach these days. She hates baby food, but loves table food. She still has no teeth so we have to make sure whatever we give her is very small and very soft. She likes turkey, chicken, mashed potatoes (ate almost all of mine from dinner last night), rice, bread, and enjoys those Gerber puffs too.

She obtained a new skill today. While sitting on the couch with me she started pulling herself to a stand and then she would laugh. It was so cute seeing how proud she was at her new skill. Lets hope she doesn't skip over crawling though. Speaking of crawling she gets up on her knees, but can't get her whole stomach up off the floor yet. So she has been doing the leg kick to propel herself forward. She's getting the inch worm move down really well.

She has added some new sounds to her babbling. Now she says Dada. Of course she does not refer to Joe yet as Dada, but she babbles it a lot.

I thought she was starting to sleep through the night, but that was short lived. She still gets up to eat at night. I try to not feed her and just get her to go back to sleep, but usually she'll have nothing of it. As soon as she nurses though she is out.

Here are a few other pictures from today. She's getting so big...









And that is our beautiful, goofy, funny, tiny 8 month old!

Everyone loves a parade

On Sunday the whole family went out to a parade. We had to drop Natalie off with some teachers from her school because she was in the parade. Then we had to walk everyone to where we were going to sit with friends for the parade. And we sat and waited to see Natalie and embarrass shout words of encouragement at her.

Waving to the firetrucks

My friend's daughter in the marching band

Look at how thrilled Alyssa was with her first parade




An old army truck

Alyssa still not super enthused with the parade

The kids looking for more candy

Even Santa was in the parade! With a surf board???

An old fire truck

The Shriners



A tow truck for the little Shriner car

Nice old car

Whoa horsey!

Natalie holding the banner for #1 middle school

We didn't embarrass her at all can't you tell?

Another old fire truck

Snoopy was at the parade too!

Natalie wearing her mum

It was a really nice day for a parade. Natalie said she won't be doing that again though. Ha, she had lost her water bottle so she was really thirsty and worn out. It was a long parade.

Natalie's open house

Last night we went to Natalie's school to meet her teachers and find out what is expected of her this year. And because she made it into the AVID program they started out the evening for those 50 students and their families with a BBQ. They even had a raffle drawing which Kaitlyn ended up winning a $5 Target gift card. How cool is that?

So we learned a little more about the AVID program and met some of the other families that are involved and then we went to the auditorium to listen to the principal speak. Because of the percentage of students who did so well on the state testing last year they are raising the expectations of the students. So they are going to be pushed this year.

Also the principal had to address the new laws on bullying and cyber-bullying. If a student partakes in cyber-bullying even if it's at home, then the school by law has to take action. They have been talking to the children about how to become the person in the circle of bullies who stands up and tells someone. It's so good to hear them taking a huge proactive stance against bullying. Especially considering just yesterday on my Monica's Mom Musings' blog Natalie shared a personal story there.

Then we got to go meet her team teachers. They seem so young. They all seem nice so far though. I did not really talk to them. After that we went back to the auditorium to hear from the Unified Arts teachers. And finally it was done.

Kaitlyn and CJ went to childcare. CJ was a huge hit there. As a matter of fact so much so that one of the middle school kids that was watching them took a picture of him with her phone and said she was going to have it as her screen saver. Hmmm, that seems a little creepy. Some girl I don't know has a picture of my son on her phone. Wonder what she'll tell people about who he is? Sounds like he had fun though and so did Kaitlyn.

It was a super late night for all. When we got home at nearly 9 we had to send Kaitlyn and CJ to bed right away. Natalie had stayed after at school yesterday to make cupcakes for the BBQ and hadn't come home. We ended up meeting her at the school last night. She did do most of her homework, but still had stuff to do when we got home. So she had to finish that and then I had to type something out for her so she could get to bed at a semi decent time last night.

Thankfully the morning didn't go too bad this morning. Although, I did send Natalie to school without breakfast because we had to stretch her paper some to make it the length her teacher wanted it to be. So she was going to get breakfast at school, but apparently her bus was too late for her to do that. Poor thing must have been starving all day. I think this is going to be a very challenging year for Natalie, but a good one. Lots of new stuff for her. Including getting to march in a parade on Sunday carrying a banner that shows her school as ranked #1 middle school in the state. What an awesome opportunity for her to get to do that and so great that she's a part of the #1 middle school in the state.

Kaitlyn's Open House

With the start of the school year comes a chance for us to get into the schools and the classrooms and meet our child's teacher and see their class and how their day goes. Last night was that night at Kaitlyn's school. Next week we have one for Natalie and I am hoping that CJ's doesn't end up being the same night as Natalie's. That would of course be the way it goes though since I can't be two places at once.

But anyways, we met Kaitlyn's teacher for the first time last night. I think he'll be great with Kaitlyn. He wanted to know how we got Kaitlyn to behave so well. Raving about her the same way her teacher did last year. I have to say I don't think I've ever experienced this where the teachers have been so impressed with my child's behavior. Let alone two in a row. Now don't get me wrong, I always get compliments about my children and how they behave. It has just been very different these past two years with Kaitlyn. I did want to make sure that Kaitlyn is not trying to play her teacher though so I talked to him about pushing her. She has this thing where she gets to a point where she says okay that's all I can do, but if you nudge her just slightly (and this is the rub with her because you can't push too hard) then she will really shine. I think her teacher this year will do okay with it. Probably not as well as her teacher from last year. He had such an amazing understanding of her from day one. Kaitlyn actually considers him her hero. I think that's so sweet.

Speaking of her teacher from last year, we got to see him last night too. He moved up to teaching 5th grade and we told him we hope Kaitlyn gets him next year. He told us to talk to her teacher this year. So I will definitely be doing that probably around spring conferences. I truly think he will be the perfect teacher to help prepare Kaitlyn for middle school.

We spoke with Kaitlyn's special reading teacher. She's changing her schedule up a bit this year. Instead of seeing her twice a week for one hour blocks she's going to do it 4 times a week in half hour blocks. This way she can push a little harder and they'll know there's an end in site. Sounds good to me. She said Kaitlyn is picking up right where they left off last year so I think things should go well.

Finally we got to hear from all of the grade level teachers. They will rotate into the other classrooms this year again for some lessons. They are pushing the CMT's and preparing for that already even though it's not until March. The band teacher came in to talk about the kids starting band this year too. That starts up for Kaitlyn on Thursday. She should be getting a clarinet from the school.

And that's how we're starting out the school year. Very excited to see what's going to come for her this year. She made such great improvement in her reading last year and I hope she has the same success.