A Late Christmas Recap

Over a month later, it's probably long past time to recap Christmas, but it's better to do it now than let more time slip by.

In December I helped Aric's class on two separate occasions.  The first was with gingerbread houses.  The kids had a great time creating their own.  Aric was slightly heartbroken that we wouldn't let him eat his house when he brought it home a week later.  After spending a week in the library for all of the school to see, and becoming as hard as a rock, there was no way we would allow anyone to eat it.

The second time I heled Aric's class was with their Christmas party.  It was slightly crazy with 19 kids on a sugar and Christmas high, but it's fun to witness Aric interact with his classmates. 

The weekend before Christmas we took a family excursion to a local church to watch their live music light show.  It was neat to watch minus the two crabby children who wanted to view something more exciting.

Christmas snuck up on me.  I was busy the majority of the month working on Etsy orders and Christmas gifts.  That meant that decorating our house, baking cookies, and wrapping presents was all last minute.

 We still made Christmas exciting for the kids despite the craziness.

We enjoyed having Aric on break and home with us.  It was fun to have him around, and if truth be told, I enjoyed not having to pack lunches everyday and run him to school.

Visiting Santa

I'm not quite sure where the photo went, but last year I had to be in the Santa picture with the kids because Kellyn was too scared.

This year I didn't have to be anywhere near Santa.  Kellyn was so excited to visit Santa she was jumping up and down in the line and could not contain her excitement.

The excitement makes for a much better picture.

Go State

On Saturday we went to our first football game of the season.  We usually stay home; Ryan watches the game and I sew while the kids play.  We have some wonderful friends who invited us to join their tailgate.  They even procured extra tickets for us, allowing Ryan and the kids to go inside and watch the game.  I neglected to take any photos of their "party bus", but I think I had the best seat in the house.  The bus is clean, has a bathroom, food, no crowds, and four TVs allowing anyone to watch the game from inside or outside of the bus.  I'll watch a game like that any time.

On the way to the game, Ryan allowed the kids to bring some Halloween candy as a snack.  If you are ever driving down the road and you hear, "I'm going to pretend a tissue is a napkin.", turn around and look.

We could not have asked for a better day or better friends to share the day with.  They always make us feel welcome and our children are genuinely loved.

Ryan and I were able to sneak off and see the new stadium.  It was quite impressive.  We returned to find our children sitting in the middle of the parking lot eating cake for lunch.

I've already been informed by several sources that it's my job to make sure the kids eat healthy, while it's other people's job to make sure the kids have fun. 

Ryan and Aric watched half of the game inside the stadium.  They had a pretty good view.

Kellyn watched the game day activities and part of the first quarter and then she was done.

There's no better place to act like a wildcat than inside stadium.

We left at the end of the third quarter.  We wanted to beat the traffic and get the kids back home. 

It was a fun day, and it made me glad to not live there anymore and deal with game days.

Trick or Treat

This year on Halloween we had a fun dinner with friends.  The menu was German food: spaetzel and schnitzel.  It was good even if we had a slight problem making the spaetzel.

After dinner we dressed the kids.

Aric was Darth Vader and Kellyn wanted to be a pink cheetah.  The Darth Vader costume was pretty easy to procure.  The pink cheetah was a bit harder, but we were able to make it happen and Kellyn was quite pleased with her costume.

Laura and I dressed up with the kids. 

My costume was a last minute decision and I made use of what I had.

The kids had a great time and I am glad to be done with Halloween.

Pumpkin Carving

This past Sunday Ryan and the kids carved pumpkins.  This year Ryan made the kids clean out their pumpkins before he would carve them.

 They didn't like that so much.  They found help.

After they were cleaned, the carving began. 

We had carving templates leftover from last year.  The kids were excited about them.  Aric picked a Clone Trooper and Kellyn picked Boo from Monsters Inc.

Ryan was a good sport about it, but said next year he will only make simple Jack O' Lanterns.

Those kids are never serious.

Family Photos

There is a reason why we don't have any recent family photos.  They tend to come out like this:

Kellyn would not look at the camera.  She was upset that we wouldn't let her play with everything in Aric's classroom.  Regardless, I thought it was a cute idea.

Little Storm

On Saturday morning Aric had his first soccer game.  I wasn't too sure how the game would go since his team, Little Storm, only had two practices.  Well, actually, all of the other teams only had two practices.  After running out last minute the day before to get Aric black shorts for game day, he was ready to go.

Actually he was a bit tired.  We had stayed up late the night before because we were out playing mini golf and eating ice cream.  I know we are considerate parents for letting our child get overly tired before a game, but we all had fun playing mini golf.

It was hot on Saturday.  After the first half of the month teased us with fall like temperatures, we are now in the hot and dry part of August. 

They warmed up, practicing side-stepping, falling and getting up quickly.

He's too young to be giving me that look.

We had great sideline seats.  Kellyn was excited.  She dressed for the occasion wearing blue because Aric was wearing blue.  She even brought along her KC Sporting scarf, but left it in the car when we arrived.

The coaches positioned everyone on the field.  When the game started no one moved off of their designated spot.

It took a bit of coaching, but soon everyone realized they could move from their spot and kick the ball.

Aric played goalie for a bit.  He stopped three balls, but was unable to stop a fourth.  He was pretty upset about letting one get by.

Ryan talked to him for a bit, let him know how well he did, and coached him a bit.

Everyone on the team had a chance to play multiple times during the game.  They also had time to rest and drink out of their nifty new water bottles.

Don't worry about Kellyn, she created her own fun during the game.