scary good fun

Halloween was a lot of fun again this year. Audrey knew what she wanted to be and all I had to make was the tutu. She is "Ladybug Girl" from the books by Jacky Davis. Yes, the real Ladybug Girl has a red tutu, but I foresee much more versatility with a black one, so I made the executive decision. Audrey didn't mind at all!

I steered Miles toward his costume a little, but it wasn't difficult to convince him to be a Jedi Knight. We borrowed the robe from a neighbor and used it again the next day for his school All Saints' Day activities. I love pulling together a costume from what we have. He thought the camo jammie pants and skull & crossbone boots lent a little extra fierceness to the look.

We started at a party down the street with hot dogs, homemade petro's and lots of other goodies. The kids had a blast with their friends and even made some new friends.

Later we hopped on the hayride again for a trip down the street. I think our crowd overwhelmed a few houses as the swarm of 30+ kids came begging. We wrapped up a little after 7 and sat down for the Halloween math homework: counting and sorting. We only had a few more knocks before it was lights out for our little ones.

Thanks to the Youngs, Hemricks and Ackers for the party and hayride fun!

Pumpkins!

Today I joined Miles's class for their field trip to the pumpkin farm. We had so much fun! I was a chaperone and rode the bus with all of the kindergarten kids. It was a little overcast and cold in the morning, but the clouds burned off and it turned into a gorgeous day. 

We both got to pick pumpkins, then we went on a hayride around the farm.

The kids loved the cows! Fred the cowdog was working hard to keep these ladies in the pen. Miles was the cow whisperer and got several of them to moo at the group.

It was a great day with a great group of kids! I'm so happy they let the moms join!

On the bus

First Kindergarten field trip commences....NOW!

A letter from George

{This weekend the class mascot came home with Miles for a visit. Here's the letter he wrote Ms. Anderson to tell her about his weekend.}

Dear Ms. Anderson,

This weekend I went home with Miles Erwin. He was so excited and I knew we would have a lot of fun. The very first thing we did was stop at Sonic for some cherry limeade at happy hour.

Saturday morning I cheered for Miles's soccer team. Lots of our friends were there too! I said hi to Shelby and her brother Luke, Eric, Hudson and their teammate Will. Mrs. Haluski's friend Alejandro was on the other team. I'm glad my shirt was red, so I matched his team.

After the UT/LSU game ended, some of Miles's friends came over to play. We built with Legos, played hide and seek and worked puzzles. We had a lot of fun and stayed up way past our bedtime.

Some of those friends stayed at Miles's house and they even brought their own hotel room with them. They'd been in Elkmont for the last two nights but wanted to stay with their friends one night. I could get used to this!

For breakfast, Mrs. Erwin made banana muffins! They were so good, I almost didn't leave any for the other kids.

Then we got to run around and play outside. They blew bubbles and tossed water balloons.


After such fun days of playing I was ready to wrap up the weekend with some snugly story time and a good night's sleep.

But after everyone was asleep, I couldn't resist playing with the camera. Here's my self portrait.

 

 I can't wait for my next adventure! Love,

Pinwheels Spinning

WATE posted the video from Pinwheel Day!! Now you can see the kids in all their glory. The newscaster at the end is Kristen Farley, the mom of one of Miles's classmates. And here's the link to the article. Someone commented that the"girl with the pinwheel is adorable." But we knew that, right.

A Media Frenzy

There are some famous faces living in our house this month. Miles was recently featured in the newspaper while he and his classmates worked on their new Smart Table. Each of the Kindergarten classes have one, and every class in the school now has iPads for the kids to work with. Miles loves when he gets iPad for his center activity! He just wishes they'd let him play Angry Birds on it. He is with friends Eli, Skylar and Ella Grace.

September 21st is International Day of Peace, as recognized by the UN in 1981. A few years ago, some art teachers in Florida came up with the idea of Pinwheels for Peace as a "visual public statement about peace." Sacred Heart participated this year with each student making pinwheels and celebrating with a special photo and assembly yesterday. Miles's class buddies from the 3rd grade helped them make their pinwheels, which are the green ones in the "E" below. Even the 3, 4, and 5yr PreK classes were involved, so Audrey got to be in the picture too. 

The WATE news team and the News Sentinel were on hand to document the event. It is supposed to be in the neighborhood section of the paper next week. In the 5 o'clock news story, Audrey had a few moments of fame when her face filled the screen! I can't find the video online yet, but here's a picture of the screen.She's next to her friends Duncan, Nadalie and Jillian.

And the kids won't let me finish this post without sharing my own brush with fame. I usually go to Zumba classes at the Y up the street, but a friend opened a new dance studio and invited me to a class there.  Little did I know I would end up on the local afternoon news-magazine. If you want to see my dance debut, click here to see it on WBIR.com.

Go Big Orange

Thanks to some great friends, we found ourselves with tickets to the game in the new Tennessee Terrace section of Neyland and a close parking pass, so we decided to make it a family night and take the kids to their first UT game. They were super excited! We got there almost an hour before kick-off so we could get our seats, enjoy some game dogs and enjoy the pregame festivities. They were so patient and ready to watch the band as filled the field. We stood and sang the national anthem and then... 

Lightning. Rain delay. Boo. We did have the Terrace area to hang out in, but even that got pretty hot and stuffy with all the people waiting with us. We headed down the elevators to leave, but found out that we would be trapped in our parking lot until the delay was over, so we stayed in the cool lower lobby. Since we'd made it this long, we thought we should stay for a few possessions of the ball.

We ended up staying for the first half and through the halftime performance by the Pride of the Southland Marching Band. They loved it. Miles got really into cheering for our many touchdowns, and Audrey was a great fan too.

So we hate that they didn't get to see the pregame excitement and there weren't fireworks for the scores, but we'll just have to take them to another game soon!  Go Big Orange!

Give Him SIX!!

Happy Birthday, Miles!!

The Force is strong in that one

Surprising all of us, Miles decided to have a Star Wars birthday party. No, the Star Wars theme wasn't a surprise, but after Wayne's 40th party in May, Miles told us he wanted the exact same party for his 6th. Who are we to deny? Aunt Elizabeth was our gracious hostess again, and this time food was provided by Baja Burrito and cake by Whole Foods. I love a party where I don't have to cook anything! Check out the great cake. All I told the guy on the phone was to draw on a couple of light sabers and write HBD Miles. We were totally impressed with their creativity! And word is we're getting one in Knoxville soon, yay!

In keeping with the theme, Miles received about a bajillion Star Wars Legos, including some Ewoks, the AT-AT and this cool Boba Fett ship. (click the link to see a whole new side of Boba Fett)

At Wayne's party we introduced the pinata, and I don't think we'll be able to have an event without one ever again. This time they got to beat up Darth Vader for the goodies. But before we destroyed him, we all posed for portraits.

These aren't the kids you are looking for. Move along.

Lots of fun had by all, although we missed having BeeBe & PopPop to celebrate. Thanks to Mimi & PawPaw, and Uncle Kyle and Aunt Megan for driving over, and for Elizabeth, Shay, Evan, Kate, YaYa and B for hosting us all weekend.

First Day of K!

Miles had his first day of Kindergarten today. It's a half day, so I have to be quick and go back to pick up. The rest of the week will be full days. Here he is by the front of the school.

We both took him in today, but I was dressed for Zumba. Look at his fun room!

Here's his teacher, Ms. Anderson. He knew her assistant, Mrs. Douglas, from our All Saints playgroup when the kids were younger. Can you tell how excited he is? We are too!

Doodling fun

I haven't shared any of the kids' artwork in a while, so here's some of the latest. Audrey is drawing all sorts of cute people these days. These are portraits of me and Audrey. Like our hairbows?

Miles had homework for kindergarten, to draw a picture of one of his summer reading books. He chose a favorite by Mo Willems, We Are In A Book!

Here's another, a drawing of a castle complete with sword fight! Lots of prisoners in this castle.

Now we're getting ready for a big week. We're having a family birthday party this weekend, then he starts school on Monday with a half day. His first full day is Tuesday, then he turns 6 on Wednesday! So much excitement! We met his teacher on Tuesday, and we were excited to learn that the teaching assistant in his room is Ann, with whom we had a playgroup until the kids were 3ish. He also has several of his good buddies in his class. Hopefully they will control their energy levels until they get playground time. His room looks like a lot of fun and we're all looking forward to a great year.

At new family picnic for Sacred Heart Kindergarten! We're so excited!

Avast, me hearties!

As you could probably tell from the mobile photo posts, the kids and I traveled to Ocracoke Island in the North Carolina Outer Banks. My dad is a park ranger during the summer and we wanted to visit and do all the fun things he tells us about. My brother Kyle and his wife Megan came with us.

Since dad and Brenda live on their boat while at Ocracoke, we rented a great house to stay in. It was a block from dad's dock and right in the middle of the cute town. It came with bikes with kid seats, which we all loved. We biked all over the place, to breakfast, coffeeshops, the library, the post office, the lighthouse, and the ice cream stands.

Of course sailing was on the agenda. We went out twice during the week. The first day was a little choppy for some first time sailors, but no one got sick. The second time we took a sunset sail with just the jib halfway up, no main sail. It was like floating in a pool, so calm and still. They will be ready for PopPop's sailing school soon!

Other days we found so many fun things to do. The beach at Ocracoke is part of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, and we spent one day there digging and swimming in the tidal pools.

A great activity in all the National Parks is the Junior Ranger program. Kids can fill out a workbook of games and earn a badge from the park. During the summer (and year round at other parks) the rangers put on programs about the wildlife and history of the area. All age kids can participate, so of course the grown up kids earned ours too. The ranger programs included seashore wildlife and the history of pirates in the Outer Banks. Blackbeard anchored on Ocracoke for a while and was caught and beheaded in the waters nearby.

One of the programs we attended was an outing to cast for blue point crab. Kyle and PopPop caught a few, but the kids had an easier time scooping up the hermit crabs in the shallows.

Here's the gang with our badges and patches after taking the Junior Ranger oath. We need to make it to the Smoky Mountains and get our badges there too.

Ranger Bob does a great job keeping the riff raff out.

We visited the lighthouse a few times, but you can't climb up anymore.

We all had so much fun! Hopefully we can do it again soon!

Beachy fun

[I'll correct the date on this post soon, so it falls chronologically]

Since Miles starts kindergarten in the fall, we switched our usual fall beach trip to May. As usual, we couldn't even take time to get dressed on the first morning. We had to run right out and frolic in the sunrise surf in our jammies.

It's early, but it is a glorious time!

Our friends the Fishes joined us again, this time with two baby girls. Audrey and Elizabeth had lots of fun digging and running around on the beach together.

Because of some storms early in the week we got some great wind. Miles flew his awesome kite for a while and even let the girls hold onto it some.

The storms forced us to find alternate entertainment one day, so we trekked to Myrtle Beach for an aquarium visit. The kids all loved it and were amazed by the huge tanks full of fish.

After a the storms early in the week we had gorgeous blue skies every day.

Our neighbor friends happened to be staying nearby, so we met for dinner one night. At Chick fil A, of course.

Our favorite beach activity: digging holes.

Our favorite breakfast place: Eggs Up Grill

Best car ride toy: dry erase board with activity pages!

So this lack of text is why I should blog in a more timely manner. Oh well. Enjoy the photos!