Sunday, November 2, 2014

October Wrap Up

Picture Day!

Anna Clare had her 1st school pictures taken in October.  I haven't seen the proofs yet but she certainly looked adorable in her sweet purple dress!  I just loved this bright purple dress with Anna Clare's blue eyes. And she was definitely excited!





















So proud with her backpack and her lunchbox!





















So it seems to me that we've seen Kate go from being a little girl to a kid in the last few months.  After only a few weeks with the balance bike I bought her, she now rides her bike without training wheels!  Plus she's now mastered the new scooter she got for her birthday.  She's quite zippy on both - she likes to go for walks (she rides) in the neighborhood.  Heck, I may be running behind her pretty soon!

(P.S. I'm studying how to use my "big camera" and really like the faded out background in the close up of Kate.  All thanks to being motivated to take good pictures when our photographer canceling on us a few weeks ago!)





Just a few random cute shots. 



Kate & Maggie - with "the babies" - how sweet!


Halloween Festivities!

So I think that Halloween activities for kids fall right behind Christmas!  There are activities happening for weeks before Halloween finally comes along.  Its almost as if there's an unspoken challenge to parents to see how much use they can get out of their kid's Halloween costume!  

Anyway, Anna Clare had a little party at school the week of Halloween.  They paraded the kids up on stage one by one to share their costume, then played little games, and finally went outside to hunt for "ghosts" on the playground.  What a great simple idea for little ones - the ghosts were dum dums wrapped in a kleenex with black dots for eyes.  Simple and cute!




Halloween day meant a Storybook Parade for the Kindergartners.  From what I can gather they paraded down the 1st grade hall then did some trick or treating in the other classrooms.  Personally I loved the Storybook character idea.  I found some super cute pictures online of little girls dressed up like Fancy Nancy, Pinkalicious, Olivia and even Emily Elizabeth from the Clifford stories.  Emily Elizabeth was my pick but Kate vetoed me and chose Pinkalicious.  I will say it was a fairly easy costume - all stuff we already had plus one DIY touch with the star wand.  I only wish parents had been invited to watch the parade but we weren't.  Oh well.




Halloween evening kicked off with a neighborhood party at the clubhouse.  Many of our neighborhood friends were there - including many of Kate's Kindergarten buddies.  It just made me so happy to see Kate running around with her friends from school, who are also neighbors.  I can already imagine these kids growing up together!  (I only wish I had gotten a picture of all of the Kindergarten buddies together.)  We chatted, ate hot dogs and chili, and drank a few beers.  Then we trick or treated!  We walked the neighborhood with the Simrils (Maggie's family) - even the babies were troopers and stayed out until about 8:00.  By 8:30 we were shutting down the neighborhood as we seemed to be the last ones out!  All in all I think it was the most fun Halloween we've had in a long time!

Photo by Kate!






Hopefully my next post will NOT be a post about snow.  Happy Fall!