Halloween 2010

There's Rebekah's mummy pose a few days before Halloween:

And there's Rebekah stealing the apples out of my pretty fall centerpiece:

Now on to today!  I wasn't really planning on going, but Elizabeth got excited when she heard she could dress up and go to church tonight, so we went.

 Elizabeth as a Princess Butterfly

(same dress she wore last year!)

 Rebekah as a Ladybug

 The "Together" Shot

also featuring David without his astronaut costume

 Fly away little ladybug!

 She was sooo adorable!  

She enjoyed wearing the ladybug costume 

so much more than when Elizabeth was one.

The hood squished her little cheeks so that

she looked like an Ewok!

The kids had lots of fun playing games and getting candy at the church festival.  I had my hands full, especially when Rebekah got too hot in her ladybug jacket, Elizabeth gave me her pumpkin, I had my camera and water.  Thankfully Lauren offered to help with Rebekah!  Thank you, Lauren!!!

 Elizabeth digging for treasure

Playing something like musical chairs

Honest Abe (aka Grandpa) was there

 EB & Rebekah digging/playing in the sand, 

and the top of David's head in the other sandbox.

This is my kids' favorite stop every year!

 Her antenna got a little askew on the slide!
David was busy eating popcorn and drinking sprite at this point.

 Hot & tired Rebekah with her tattoo

 Elizabeth told the teenager who was painting faces 

that she wanted her whole face to be painted like a butterfly.
She might have overwhelmed the girl.

David opted for the tattoo.

Grana spins the wheel of fortune!

 I caught Lauren force feeding chocolate to Rebekah...

HA!!!

The kids got more candy this year than they did last year.  Perhaps they're finally getting the hang of this.  Rebekah & Lauren got a box of cupcakes at the cake walk.  Elizabeth got some toys in addition to her candy.  And David pretty much stuck to the candy.  All the way home, they were talking about what they got in their pumpkins and then, giggling, would add, "I got a rock," just like Charlie Brown.

You may have to click to enlarge this one - obviously, after it was all over, we had to have bath time!  Rebekah had cupcake & frosting all over her body and hair!  And Elizabeth went to bed with a still stained pink & purple face!  But it was fun!

The spider you are about to see is not real...

That disclaimer is specifically for the Aunts:  Aunt Sissy, Aunt Wee and Aunt Jana.  (Aunt Jana griped at me one time for not warning her that a spider picture was coming.)

Now... how cool is this?  I recently discovered that you can cut a paper spiderweb in the same method as a paper snowflake!!!  Why did I never think of this before?!?!

 Just to reassure that it is not real, here it is with the flash on:

Fake spider courtesy of a Halloween spider ring that the ring broke off of.

When I turned around from photographing the spider snowflake, Rebekah grinned really big and said, "CHEESE!!!"  So of course, I had to take her picture!

Automated Pumpkin Carving Machine

Adventures in First Grade Projects

We recently did an activity for science that demonstrated what happens to lava when it cools.  We used melted butter as the lava, so when it cooled it turned hard.  David wanted his lava to be colored & we don't have any red food coloring, so we made green lava... again.

I think I just need to get rid of all food coloring.  The plate of lava was sitting on the dining table when Rebekah found it.  Apparently the first thing she did after eating some of the green butter and getting it all over herself was to try to feed some of the green butter to Fluff... through the screen door.  Then there was a trail of green fingerprints on the white cabinets into the kitchen.  Of course, it was easier to find all the splotches of butter since they were green.

Today we did a pumpkin project.  Before cutting into the pumpkin, David estimated that there would be 12 seeds inside.

After a peek inside, he changed his answer to 100.

We sorted the seeds into 10's.  Then grouped the 10's into 100's just like we've been doing with the manipulatives in Math-U-See!

 Then David tallied up how many hundreds, tens and units we had...

Wow!  That was a lot of seeds!

After that, he designed a face for his pumpkin and I carved it for him.  I love this picture!

More Tiny Talk Tuesday

When we gathered at Aunt Wee's house last Sunday to celebrate Grandpa's birthday, David & Elizabeth asked about going to Jesse's room.  But Jesse is growing up and his room isn't full of all the fun toys it once held.  (That's Jesse - and his hair - taken Sunday by Lauren.)

Tonight, I was helping Elizabeth out of the tub when she said, "I don't want Jesse to grow up."

I'm sure Aunt Wee will love this, but I said, "Maybe Aunt Wee needs a toy closet to keep a few toys in, so you'll have something to play with when you go down there."

As I helped her into her PJ's, she said, "Well, I think Jesse needs a big pink doll house in his room.  And a Barbie with a pink dress."

Don't you think Jesse would just love to have a big pink doll house in his room???  : )

Tiny Talk Tuesday

Elizabeth was talking about cow hooves, but she said not their feet and she wasn't saying the word right, so I'm not sure what she was talking about.  Something about the cow's stomach.  Then she clarified by saying, "You know those shooting things the cow has that shoot milk?"  

OH!  Those are called udders!!  (giggle)  Then she said, "Udders!  I love udders that shoot milk because I love milk!"  

Bwahahahahah!!!  That one gave me a good laugh!  Last night I tried to get them to tell one of their Halloween jokes.  Elizabeth doesn't quite grasp jokes yet, but she just enjoys making people laugh.  Make sure to watch both videos!

(I had to stop recording because I was laughing so hard...)

Here's some cute Halloween joke ideas!

Happy Birthday to All!

October is a month full of family birthdays for us!  We've already been to Mason's 2nd birthday party and at least Dad made it to Alex's 11th birthday party, both of which overlapped with 2 other birthday parties - Kenedie's 10th and Lexie's 1st.  Wow!  And that was just cousins on Dad's side of the family!

Mom's youngest niece turned 17 this week!  I shared our video & pictures to her on facebook.  Check out her very creative birthday party!

Saturday was Aunt Sissy's birthday!  I forgot to load her videos yesterday, but did send well wishes to her on her busy day.  Wish I could have been there with you!

And Elizabeth wanted to do her own video.  The writing she put on the card was also completely her own doing - I wasn't even watching what she was doing!

And today we will celebrate Grandpa's birthday with a birthday lunch at Aunt Wee's house.  Then just one more - tomorrow is Aunt Erin's birthday.

SO... for the last 2 weeks of October, I'd like to wish a very

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

to

Mason,

Alex,

Kenedie,

Lexie,

Jordann,

Aunt Sissy,

Grandpa,

and 

Aunt Erin

!!!!!!!!

I made dishwasher soap!

And Rebekah found it.

She can now reach about 6 inches onto the kitchen counters.  Nothing is safe.  I found her with a whole loaf of bread in the living room this morning.

I took her to her 18-month check-up this week and in the last 3 months, she has gained 4 pounds and grown 4.5 inches taller!!!  She likes to sit on Sarah and Sarah doesn't like it.  Rebekah is also jealous when anyone else sits in my lap... that will be interesting when Sarah arrives in December, won't it?

Back to the dishwasher soap - it's really not anything made.  It's just a heaping tablespoon of baking soda and a heaping table spoon of Borax into the dry soap dispenser.  Then white vinegar in the rinse chamber.  Works great with our hard water and I get no residue or spots!  (If you have soft water, it might not take that much of each.)

Mesopotamia

We finished our study on Ancient Mesopotamian History.  I have no idea why he glued the title on like that.

Inside the folder is our information sheets, vocabulary, and a Mesopotamian man,

information about the invention of sail boats, ziggurats, and the hanging gardens.

The boat moves along the river on a craft stick and

the ziggurat pops up.

Each lesson has a postcard to fill out with something you've learned to send to someone.  He dictated to me and chose to send this one to Kalaya.  He was impressed by the chain pump of the Hanging Gardens.

Tiny Talk Tuesday

He's not really tiny any more, but he is precious!  While sitting at the table, eating snack -

David:  Mom, do you know what I would never do?

Mom: What?

David: I would never worship or praise an idol.

Mom: Well, that's good to know!

While playing with his legos in his room while I was changing the sheets -

David: Mom, I sure wish that Elizabeth would ask Jesus into her heart.

Mom: Well, I do to, but remember you were 6 when you did.  I was 6 also.  She's only 3.  But we can be praying for her.

David: OK... then he put down his legos!! and prayed, In Jesus' name, I pray that Elizabeth would ask Jesus into her heart.  Amen.

Yes, he is precious!

Party Time!

The weekend of Halloween is already busy and there's really not a whole lot you can go to that offers all natural treats, the kids & I decided to throw our own little Halloween Bash this year.  There's the spread - I made pizza, popcorn balls, pumpkin muffins, MawMaw made some yummy brownies, and we had little bags of pretzels and all-natural, organic suckers.  And I do not think my children were deprived in any way by not having Twix or Reeces.

David chose not to wear his costume.  He would have been hot.  His costume (in theory) is a Mars Mission Astronaut.  It's a Lego thing.

 

Elizabeth is a Butterfly Princess.

She informed me today that she needs antennae.

 Rebekah was just cute in a little orange striped, black cat shirt.

 The Kids

(minus Mason who arrived later)

 Isn't that the cutest little skeleton you've ever seen?

We had a pinata filled with Halloween pencils, Halloween note pads, spider rings, pumpkin erasers, balls, Halloween straws, more suckers, fake vampire teeth, fake tattoos... and I think that pinata was made out of concrete!

 The Butterfly Princess just barely wacked it.

 Grandpa targeted the opening in the back.

Always the strategic one...

 Cinderella enjoyed beating the thing!

 And David took out quite a few of his frustrations!

And I ended up just shaking all the stuff out on the ground for the kids.

Now we can use it again next year!!  hahaah...

 We also played a couple of games - a pumpkin treasure hunt and

Pin the Nose on the Pumpkin.

Our non-partial judge 

declared that David's nose was closest to the target!

Visiting around the table.
Grown-ups always end up around the food.
The kids were in the playhouse!

 I asked MawMaw to bring her brownies

 rather thin so that I could cut them with cookie cutters.

Don't they look cute!?

The kids both declared it to be a fun time, and that was the whole point.  So our first Halloween party was a success!  Maybe next year we'll have a hay ride, too!