Growing Everyday

Our Alien pumpkin

We had a great Halloween. Andrew’s parents came over and ate supper with us so they could see the kids in costume. Beka and Jared had been excited about trick or treating all day. They were determined to walk the whole neighborhood this year. They ended up walking about half of it, but I think they came home with more candy than what I gave out and they had an amazing time.

Beka was a clown and she painted her shirt herself. She could not find a costume she liked, so we invented one.

Jared wanted to be something scary this year. He picked Frankenstein mostly because whenever he talked or walked the chest lit up and his heart glowed. He thought it was the best thing ever.

I have started letting Beka and Jared invite friends over every Friday after school. There is no homework to do and I think everyone needs to blow off a little steam after sitting quietly in school all week. It is like a weekly reward for good behavior. Anyway, the kids seem to really enjoy it and some of them can’t wait for Friday. The plus for mom is once all activities are out everyone pretty much entertains themselves for 2 hours.

Each week I try to make a goody after-school snack for everyone. Beka requested what we call kid’s sushi one week. It looks pretty cool and tastes really good, but I think Andrew and I ate more of them than the kids.

If you are a mom of an elementary aged boy, you probably know what Bakugan are and you are probably wondering what if anything they have to do with a bunny. The answer nothing. I just wanted to write a post that combined the two.

Jared loves Bakugan. The kids on the bus are now trading them on the way back and forth to school. I never know what he will end up coming home with. I really think he enjoys trading them more than actually playing with them. I took the picture below about 2 weeks ago. Since then he has traded all of those and traded for them back again already…or at least similar ones.

And now the bunny. Beka made this outfit in church on Sunday. I think she looks adorable.

We took a family walk in the woods last weekend. Well, only sort of to the kids because the paths were paved and that doesn’t really count in their minds. I got some cute pictures of everyone and the kids and dog were tired afterwards.

Sometimes the things that are utterly boring at home can become exciting and entertaining again if you just do it somewhere else. Beka and Jared are getting bored with drawing and the playground. So I decided to take art stuff over to the playground trying to make it more exciting. It worked for about 30 minutes and that was totally worth it.

We have also taken some old games we used to play and added new twists to them. Andrew and Beka will play “follow the leader”. The change is Andrew will be on his ripstik and Beka will be on her bike. Andrew and I have taught the kids how to play four square. I had to google the rules to make sure I remembered how to play, but it was worth it.

It is a challenging some days to keep my little sponges engaged in something other than the TV, but we try.

Beka’s teacher sent home a printout on Friday describing an activity called Bugfest that was happening at one of the Indy parks over the weekend. Of course, my children were eager to be a part of anything having to do with bugs. Now, Andrew and I thought this would be a smallish event. We were completely and utterly wrong. There were parents and kids everywhere. First, we went to the check-in where both kids were handed a card to keep track of the stations they visited. There were probably 15-20 stations to visit all dealing in some way with bugs. We were able to see monarch caterpillars and monarch butterflies, bees and beekeepers, an entomologist, and worms. The kids really enjoyed watch the fly fisherman make their own flies. Then we come to the "grossome" part of the day. The Bugfest included a bug cafe where the children and Andrew tried bacon/cheddar crickets, salt/vinegar crickets, sour cream crickets, and chocolate covered crickets. They also had these silkworm things that you could eat. Apparently, those tasted the worst.

We spent alot of time doing nothing in August partly because mom is lazy and partly because school started and that cut into fun time a bit. So I decided to end the month with picture spam. We took Jared to a skatepark for the first time to play on his skateboard. He was intimidated by all the big kids but he did okay. That same day Beka brought her bike to the park and rode all over. Then both kids decided to climb and tree.

I tried one afternoon to get some posed brother/sister pictures. That didn’t work out so well. Jared hates to smile for pictures and if I have Beka pose, her smile looks so fake. Anyway, it was fun for me to play photographer for awhile.

I took pictures the last time we went swimming. We only made it about 30 minutes because it was cold. Beka and Jared really do love to swim though. It is even better when Daddy is there to play with them.

My house is very quiet today. The first day of school is today and both kids are there all day. I am a little excited to have so much time to myself and a little anxious about my kids. I am just praying that today turns out to be a great day for both of them. If their smiles before they left are any indication, then it should be a wonderful day.