Turkey Time!

I am not a good patient.  By Tuesday night, I was ready for stronger antibiotics.  I ended up settling for the strongest behind-the-counter generic Sudafed they had in stock, and an old school Minnesota remedy.  I woke up without a fever for the first time in four days, and mid-morning we made our way down to Kings Mountain, with a detour in Charlotte to pick up race packets. 

Seth continued his tradition of making placecards...this year he decided to rainbow write them and make a pseudo-graph based on the number of letters in each name.  He was tickled that his group was the biggest!

The guys ran the Turkey Trot in the rain...this turkey was more than happy to sit on the couch and watch the children.  Nathan's grandparents joined us again this year, and it was great to see them again.  Here is a picture of our celebration, from Grandma Sarah's end of the table:

Elise asked me to take some pictures for her.  Brian has learned how to wink and thought it was hilarious to do it every time I picked up the camera.  What a ham!

The natives were a little restless, so we had some outside time.  There were several boisterous games of jump the creek.  Seth would monopolize the rope swing when he got out of the game:

The oldest and the youngest:  best buds.  Amelia even tried to sleep in the tent with Evan Thursday night.  Since I was getting up at 4am to go shopping, I didn't want to test it out that night. 

one little...two little...

Tuesday morning, I dropped the kids off at school and spent the rest of the day on the couch.  While I was resting, the kids enjoyed their class Thanksgiving feasts.  Seth's class made Native American garb out of old pillowcases:

My two little noisy Indians!

Holiday Bazaar

The PTA hosted a holiday bazaar last Saturday.  I bought the cutest reindeer hairbow for Amelia.  Anyways, Nathan volunteered to spend an hour bagging up popcorn for the movie room.  I don't think he'll eat popcorn again any time soon.  While he was doing that, I took the kids to storytime with Santa and Mrs. Claus.  Santa is actually one of the teachers...Seth talked to him while he was still in street clothes, but didn't make the connection once he was dressed up! 

The kids had their pictures taken with the couple by a photographer there...I'm very hopeful that this year we have a fantastic Santa picture!

Turkey Olympics

I'm back!  For those who don't know, I was knocked down last weekend with a double whammy of strep throat and an upper respiratory infection.  I hit the bed mid-morning Saturday and only got out when necessary until Tuesday night.  It was bad news.  Now I'm playing a major game of catch-up.   Last Friday, while I was still feeling human, Seth's teacher invited Amelia and I to help with the first ever Turkey Olympics.  Two classes combined to make four teams competing in four activities.  I was in charge of "stuff the turkey", where the teams tried to toss as many socks as they could into the turkey.  It was a math lesson disguised as fun...the teams then drew grafts of their results. 

 There was a storytime at the end of the program...can you spot the honorary kindergartener?

I've missed my lunch buddy!

Over the summer, the thing that struck me the most about Seth going off to kindergarten was that he wouldn't be home for lunch.  For five years, he had been my lunch buddy every day, minus a few lunch bunches.  Eating with only Amelia just isn't the same, but I have slowly gotten used to the post-lunch routine.  Seth's class went to the book fair right before lunch today.  I made arrangements for Amelia to go home with a buddy, so I could help Seth shop (although it might have been better if I had just sent him $20, sheesh!  Mommy was a sucker!).  And then I stayed for lunch.  I brought us sandwiches from Panera, and Seth bought us drinks from the cafeteria (he usually only buys lunch once a week, but the lunch ladies know him by name, I'm impressed!)  We had a nice little lunch date, my buddy and me!

my newest faves

I love going through the kids' folders, because I never know what kind of gems I might find.  Wednesday, I found this, Seth's art by me fundraiser magnet.  It makes me smile every time I look at it:

 Amelia brought home this last week, her apple tree.  I love it!

fuzzy pajamas

Amelia's feet don't fit into her 2T fuzzy pajamas anymore, but we have some 3T hand-me-downs.  They're a little big...

 ...but perfect for transporting all her stuffed animals!

un-photo-worthy week

Sorry, people.  No pictures this week. Just a run-of-the-mill week around here.   Seth DID get his first report card and we are very proud of him.  We went against the grain in our area and decided to send him at (gasp!) five to kindergarten, and he is holding his own.  His two best buddies are six and a half, and are both about a head taller than him.  You're off to a great start, Seth!

Amelia had a rough week.  Monday we ran a ton of errands, and she only got a short nap in the car.  Tuesday she got a nice shiner at preschool.  Wednesday she crashed into Seth on a slide and got a slight bloody nose, then fell while Seth was at handbell practice and split her lip.  Thursday it took us three tries to find a bathroom at the outlet mall when SHEHADTOGO, bless her heart, she was biting her lip by the time someone let us cut in line (at the third place).  Then she got an upset stomach from ice cream, but thankfully it wasn't the tummy bug that is going around! 

Another quiet Saturday around here...

cupcake

We've spent the first part of November recovering from our busy, busy October.  I made some November resolutions, because I just can't wait until January.  1-YMCA.  No excuses.  8k is two weeks.  2-a better bedtime routine, mainly TAKE OUT MY CONTACTS, which in conjunction with the future purchase of a larger numeral alarm clock is a cheaper alternative to Lasik.  3-Tackle our closets!  So far the toy box in the basement and Seth's room have gotten overhauls.  And I mean business.  Broken?  Trash.  Prize box material?  Out of circulation.  Never play with anymore?  Attic, consignment shop, or Goodwill box.  I'm just working on it when the mood strikes me, but at least it's a step in the right direction!

Last Wednesday we had a brief visit from Bryan's girlfriend after lunch.  Amelia just HAD to make her cupcakes.  Luckily, I had a 12 count cupcake mix in the cabinet.  A regular-sized mix would have been a little ridiculous.  Chef-approved:

We went from unseasonably warm to unseasonably cool, so we stayed home Saturday morning and made pumpkin pancakes and other messes while Nathan ran the Mercy 5k.  He got to meet some of his daily mile running buddies and had a really good race, placing third again in his age group.  Sunday afternoon we split up for awhile;  Amelia and I went to a bridal shower for a coworker, Nathan and Seth went to see Megamind.  For the first time ever, the kids have done really well with the time change.  Of course I don't like it being dark on my way into work, but it sure is nice to see the sun driving Seth to school in the morning!

our Halloween

Everybody got a good night's sleep, because we knew we had a busy day ahead of us!  First, we had to carve our pumpkins.  Well, Nathan carved them.  We just assisted with the guts removal.

Our neighborhood chose to trick-or-treat Sunday night.  We left Nathan at home to distribute candy, and we walked about half a mile to meet our buddies.

Here is our little group, minus Amelia the ladybug and Nickolas the dinosaur.  Carly the pony is hidden behind the bat.

Seth lasted about a hour and a half, that's a lot of walking for a 5-year-old.  Amelia went to about six houses and was content to sit in the stroller and play with the flashlight the rest of the time.

Here are our 2010 jack-o-lanterns:

And Monday?  Monday after school we took three pounds of candy to a local dentist, who donated it to Operation Gratitude.  Seth has never been big on candy, and Amelia would eat it non-stop until it was gone.  So...no point in having a ton in the house.  We kept a small bucket of our favorites, and hopefully the troops will soon be eating our extra candy.  Win-win situation!

poor Colette

Her life is terrible.  For the first time ever, we bought her a Halloween costume.  She was not a fan.  In fact, she hid it under my dresser when we took it off the first time.

Sometimes I think she could use some puppy prozac.  She gets a little neurotic when you start packing up suitcases.  I don't know why she has issues at my or Nathan's parents' houses, because she loves to be both places without us.  But back to the bags.  Normally, she will sneak into the car at the first opportunity, and stake out her spot until it is time to go.  I loaded the car before we went out to lunch, so I didn't let her in the car.  I went to get another load and came back to find this:

Seriously, Colette?  I'm not going to forget you!

Green Acres

...Cary style.  Last week was a crazy week.  I had car trouble.  We had 36 hours of on-and-off tornado warnings.  In fact, the schools in our county were locked-down Wednesday, and I had to wait an extra hour to go pick Seth up.  We slept in the basement two nights in a row.  Wednesday night, Nathan left for his annual golf trip.  Thursday was the last day of Seth's first quarter of school.  After I picked him up, we headed to Cary, because why stay home if we don't have to?  We had a quiet morning Friday, saving up our energy for this:

There is a 1.5 acre corn maze minutes from my parents' house.  We had to check it out. 

 The maze had ten card-punch stations, and lots of dead ends to tease us:

The website said to allow for an hour in the maze.  We are awesome.  We did it in just over 30 minutes.  Well, we didn't find the stations in order, but we did find all ten stations, and we did it before the kids got bored, double success!

There were lots of other things to do.  I let the kids ride the ponies, they "milked" a wooden cow, tested their strength with sledgehammers, and bounced away in a bounce house.  Here we are at the top of a stack of haybales.  I give up trying to get them to look at the camera.

I think this will have to become an annual trip!