Halloween

Laura Ingalls Wilder, Spiderman 'With Muscles', and Mad Scientist

 Aren't they great?!

 Miss Lilly called herself a pioneer and 'Laura;, and someone asked if she was Holly Hobby - that had her a little confused.  I loved Holly Hobby as a kid!

 Big D has been in this costume for three days!  He loves it - and prefers the mask on, but I just had to get a pic with it off - just too handsome to keep it on :)

 We filled Master S' pockets with science stuff - ivory soap in the microwave in the salad shaker turned 'beaker', candy sprinkle test tubes filled with colored water mixtures with oil, corn syrup etc, and one of J.D.'s old white shirts turned lab coat worked great. 

Florida 2012

Florida in October is pretty close to heaven.  It was beautiful!

 We lucked out with the Sandy Storm, as it was on the Atlantic side of Florida, which made for a good breeze, great waves and lots of sunshine in the St. Petersburg area.  We spent time at Fort De Soto,

 found a great new place to visit called Heritage Village and Gardens - a collection of old homes from the Pinellas County area - totally free, with lots of hands on discovery and tours through them.  It's a great place to go if you are ever in the area.  We got to see banana trees too. 

Miss Lilly got a boogie board, which she loved, thanks to Grandpa and Grandma Flora.  Master S, a skim board - although it will take lots more practice to get that one down.  He got up on his knees a few times on the boogie board though ... so fun to watch him in the waves.  Big D even braved the water more this year.  We also made it to MOSI, the science and industry museum, but left pictures on Grandma's camera in Florida.  Maybe I'll post some later.  It was a fabulous trip!

Fall 2012

Fall Break - it's here!  The school district changed to a 'balanced' calendar this year, which means we have 2 weeks off for Fall Break, two weeks at Christmas and two weeks for Spring Break.  Yea!  So, far I'm loving the time to enjoy the season without school to worry about.  We found a pumpkin patch at a farm just about 5 minutes north of us this year.  Nothing fancy - just a field with a variety of pumpkins, gourds and squash.  It is a 'u-pick' patch with a table in front of the farm house with a bucket that states, 'pay what you think your pumpkins are worth' - totally cool!  The kids got some huge pumpkins and I got some gourds for some fall decorating ...

 

 This is Miss Lilly, or should I say, 'Miss Creative' - they found boxes all on their own and decided to make their own cars.  It took the better part of the morning ... she found construction paper, glitter foamies, markers, ribbon for straps ... and she recruited Big D, and 'taught' him every step of the way.  She amazes me sometimes!

 And the end result was fabulous - Master S was even wishing tonight that he has made one instead of play Nintendo most of the day ...

 Master S is in the 5th grade - which means that he got to participate in the 'fall' musical this year. 

 It also means that he had another year to earn the 'Eagle Pride' status, where teachers choose 2 students from each of their classes, that show extra respect, care and responsibility, to be recognized and receive an award each quarter.  He was chosen as a 'new' first grader when we first moved in and made it kind of a goal to get it every year --

 Pretty excited that he has reached that goal - 5 years, and 5 Eagle Pride pins.  Way to go Master S for being such a great all around kid! 

 Big D got to go on his first field trip with preschool - and I had the opportunity to go with him.  We had so much fun!  Hay ride, tractors, straw bale maze, cookies and yummy apple cider.  So fun to be with a bunch of 4 year old kids that are so excited about everything.  My favorite part was when we were on the hay ride, one of the boys looked at his teacher and said, 'I love you Mrs. Mischler'! 

Merry Christmas! (oh, wait a minute ...)

Merry Christmas?!  Yeah - this is what is looked like at our house a few weeks ago - end of September and a crazy storm blows through with hail the size of golf balls.  We could see the clouds building all afternoon and it hit right as J.D. walked in from work (thank heavens he wasn't still driving) and as the lasagna was coming out of the oven, so when we heard the storm sirens go off we just headed downstairs with dinner and ate it on the basement floor.  Supposedly there was 80 mile an hour straight line winds and obviously hail - but not like any hail storm I've ever been in!  It really sounded like a train was headed through our house - and at one point I looked at J.D. and mouthed the word tornado.  It was so loud.  Amazing how much damage hail can do.  My garden looked like someone had taken a weed whacker to it and most of my flowers were shredded.  And really, maybe I should be wishing J.D. and myself a Merry Christmas, because it looks like according to the insurance people that we need  new roof too!  Yeah - just what I wanted for Christmas this year!