Our Thanksgiving Feast

We were lucky enough to have visitors from both sides of the country this Thanksgiving! Grandma Smith came for a week and Uncle Matt made the long drive to spend a few days with us.

Uncle Matt brought the kids neat gifts from Peru. It didn't take him long to have Eli pounding his drum to wake us up in the morning. I think it backfired as he was soon threatening to take it away.

Grandma spent time Christmas shopping, reading, making crafts, and running around the playground with Abby and Eli.

Dear Tooth Fairy...

Somewhere between the grocery store and home Abby's tooth fell out. After searching the car's interior by flashlight she realized she might have swallowed it while eating her pretzels. She is such a high stress child. Concerned that the tooth fairy would pass over her pillow she left this note (found by the tooth fairy and read by nightlight while she slept).

Best Case Scenario

It is the official end of the first nine weeks of school. Along with that came parent teacher conferences and report cards. I am so proud of the children! They both came home with straight A's and great reports from their teachers. Along with that good news Abby won the class spelling bee and was given a solo in the upcoming 2nd grade Christmas Program. I was so excited for Abby. Later that evening I was going through Eli's communication folder from his teacher and found a note from the Principal. GREAT! What did he do now? When I opened it I was happy to see that he had been picked from his class to be in the Lancer Lunch Bunch (a pizza lunch with the Principal) for being the most Repsonsible student for October. Good work Eli!

When walking the kids to school this morning the music teacher ran up to me. She explained that they had their first practice with Abby's solo and that she has the most beautiful voice. She has a natural....(fill in some fancy music word here, due to my lack of musical talent I have no idea what it is) and how wonderful it is. So now I am headed off to glue pom poms onto reindeer collars for the program. What do you think the odds are that she was just buttering me up before she asked for my help?

Yes, I am a mean mom!

Finally they are big enough to help. You can tell by Abby's face how thrilled she is to be a part of it all. They had all of the leaves in a nice tall pile...until they figured out how fun it is to play in. Looks like I will have to rake again when the rain stops.

HaLlOwEeN

This was the first year I didn't have to clean out 2 pumkins. This year only Abby wasn't brave enough.

"It was Too Slimmy!"

Halloween here is completely different than in California. The city manages it and this year decided to have Trick or Treating the day before so it wouldn't conflict with other activities. Also, children don't knock on the door. I was wondering why we didn't get any trick or treaters last year. We have to sit on the porch or sidewalk to hand out the candy. *Note to self for next year, a 125 piece bag of candy is just about right*

On Halloween we had Trunk or Treat at the church. Which wasn't with trunks at all. People signed up to decorate classrooms instead. Total Chaos. Abby brought her friend Maddy the zookeeper along.