Not Halloweeny At All

Our district won't let the kids wear their Halloween costumes to school.

(Which is absolutely ridiculous. It's Friday and Halloween, yes, I'm sure it would be the costume that would keep them from learning anything.)

 

 

Instead, they had red ribbon week (stay off drugs) and they were supposed to wear different clothes for that everyday.  (Except nothing was a "costume" and clearly a girl mom thought up the days because 4 of the days were "girly".)

 

 

Here are their "dress-up" days this week.  JR isn't in some of the pictures because he's 11, and some days 11 year olds won't have their pictures made...I'm guessing simply because they are 11.

 

 

Crazy sock day (super girly)

 

Tie-dye day (very girly)

 

 

Neon colors day (girly)

 

 

Jersey day (They finally threw the boys a bone.) 

Kyle and Reed's whole football team wore their team jerseys.  They're the only 1st graders on the team, everybody else is in 2nd or 3rd. So yeah, they pretty much thought they were the coolest kids who have ever walked the face of the earth.

 

 

 

And today, Halloween, was camo day (which I know you think is boyish, but skinny camo jeans are all the rage with the moms at school...so no, it's a girl theme too).

 

Categories

It's that time again.

Time to clean out Reed's drawings to make room for the new ones.

 

 

In the Disney Category we have:

 

Ray the Firefly from The Princess and the Frog

 

And Mike from Monsters Inc.

 

 

In the Muppet Category:

(And yes, I know Disney now owns the Muppets, but they're still the old Muppets to me.)

 

Miss Piggy

 

Kermit

Becker

 

 

 Representing the animal category (the big ones and the little ones):

 

Moose

 

Musk Ox

And a mouse

 

 

In the "I Think he Might have Forgotten his Pants" Category:

 

a fireman

 

 

 

And in the "My Kids are Also Excited we Start Decorating for Christmas in 2 Days" Category:

 

Sour Pumpkin Grapes

So guess what my pumpkin won?

Nothing. Nada. Squat.

 

If there were only 1 or 2 winners I wouldn't be so miffed, but there were tons of winners, and I walked away with zilch.

 

The sour grapes portion will begin now so you can see just how badly I was robbed.

Robbed!

 

Olaf is a character from a movie, not a book.

As is the minion from Despicable Me. Movie, not book.

 

I don't have anything to say bad about Amelia Bedelia, she's fine.

(Not as awesome as Scaredy Squirrel, but fine.)

 

These two beat me in "most like the character" and "best animal".

 

 

And just as a refresher, here's how much mine looked like the character.

 

This took 3 seconds to make.

 

 

This took a bit longer, maybe a minute.

(Also, it's a movie.)

 

So this next group are ones I think are good.

These moms worked as hard as I did.

 

Clearly this boy mom has some artistic talent.

 

 

This mom can sew!

 

 

This next group was big on "props". 

 

 

Speaking of props, I guess if you set your pumpkin on a skateboard you win, cause this is the grand prize winner.

 

So next year I'll know to just go in my own prop closet, dress up my pumpkin, and throw some roller skates on it.

 

Wigs, hats, and wheels seem to be the way to go.

 

This Weekend

This weekend:

 

 Kyle and Reed lost both their football game (kinda surprising) and their soccer game (not surprising at all).

 

JR had 2 opera practices, and Granny Sherry and I took him to see Chicago.

I love Chicago and I hope JR gets to play Billy Flynn (the part Richard Gere was in the movie) one day.  I think he'd be so good at it!

 

 

And I ran the Houston Half Marathon.

I did it in 2:16:18 (a 10:24 pace).

Which makes me 92 places more average than all the women, and 5 places more average than my age group. 

 

(But still makes me below average when you add in all the guys.)

 

This pre-race selfie was the only picture I took.

My Pumpkin

A note came home from school about a pumpkin decorating contest the library was having.

You couldn't carve the pumpkin and it needed to be a storybook character.

 

It was also billed as a "family project". (With one entry per family.)

 

We all know what "family project" means.

 

And with that said, how do you like my pumpkin I turned in?

 

It's Scaredy Squirrel.

 

 

If you're not familiar with Scaredy Squirrel he has a series of books.

He looks like this.

Since they were very insistent they didn't want any carved pumpkins, I figured they didn't care if it was real or not.  I bought a plastic trick or treat pumpkin, took off the handle, and turned it upside down.

 

The body I free handed onto cardboard and painted. I covered the tail over with some felt.

The eyes are magnets and the ears are cardboard covered in that squishy craft foam stuff.

 

I'm crossing my fingers I'm a winner!  

I Think We're Broke

The weather was nice here this weekend, and we were able to make it out to the Renaissance Festival.

Jason loves the Renaissance Festival, and in the past, I've been able to tolerate it.

But now it's gotten so crazy expensive I can't even enjoy it.  I think I need to be left at home from now on.

 

 

We've missed the last 5 or 6 years since we didn't live here, but not to worry, it hasn't changed a bit.

 

 

There were still turkey legs.

 Jason also got a sausage on a stick, a steak on a stick, 2 giant pretzels, a bag of kettle corn, and an ice cream brownie Sunday.  (We could have taken the entire family to the nicest, fanciest restaurant in Houston and spent less money.)

They played all the same games that have been there forever.

And people are still dressing up in costumes that have absolutely nothing to do with the Renaissance time period. 

But I guess the joke's on me since all 3 of my kids screamed "THOR!" when they saw this guy. 

Then JR asked if he would take a picture with them.

It's a Birthday Day

Today is Granny Sherry's birthday.

We celebrated on Sunday because there was no way we could have today.

(Football until 6:30 and opera from 6-9)

 

I'm so thankful I have Sherry to help me with these kids.

It seems everyday they all need to be somewhere at the same time.

I think Kyle and Reed actually spend more time in Granny Sherry's car than mine!