Halloween 2013

So that night, I took Sonic the Hedgehog and a woodland fairy around the block for trick-or-treating.  Halloween was on a Thursday, and they didn't have school the next day for parent-teacher conferences, which was really nice. 

book character day

We love a reason to dress up around here.  On October 31st, which the rest of you know as Halloween, the school had a Read-a-thon, and you were allowed to dress up as a book character.  Seth choice Hiccup from the How to Train Your Dragon series (which is nothing like the movie/TV show) and Amelia chose to be the tortoise from The Tortoise and the Hare.  

 Even Mommy got in on the fun.  I volunteered to read in the kids' classes, and ended up reading three extra times when there were empty time slots.  I did the same book as last year; Skippyjon Jones Circe de Ole.  That, my friends, was a whole lot of Spanglish!

Hannah's rock star party

Amelia's BFF, Hannah, had a rock star birthday party.  The kids were asked to dress up as their favorite rock star.  The parents were originally supposed to dress up too, but luckily that fell through.  I found pleather pants for Amelia at my consignment sale for $2, I got the jacket at a consignment store for $4, found the hot pink mustache shirt at Target on sale, and the fedora came from a Halloween shop.  I could not stay for the party, but Amelia came home on a first name basis with the band (Big Bang Boom from Winston-Salem!).

pumpkin patch 2013

So my very first week on the unit happened to be during Nathan's already-paid-for golf trip, so my parents came over to help me out.  On Saturday, rather than driving back to Cary to do the corn maze there, we found a pumpkin patch here, complete with hay ride to a petting zoo AND pony rides.  (This is the point where my photo stream and computer stopped communicating for three months, so I'm using Dad's pictures.  I will be hitting the high points for the next dozen posts, because I will have to email and upload the pictures...major pain.)

Mommy's rule is that you have to be able to carry your pumpkin to the car, but the kids found out that Pops was willing to help...

Carowinds with cousins

So we missed Homecoming for Stingerfest, but we met Elise and her guys at Carowinds on Sunday for a day of cousin fun.  James hung out with me while his parents rode the Intimidator (to quote Elise:  "I ran out of scream halfway down the first drop!"

 Brian was tall enough to ride some of the big kid rides.  I wish I had had a camera on the pirate ship ride, his face was priceless!  He was very brave all day, though!

 Team Sara selfie!

Carowinds has a "Great Pumpkin" theme during the month of October.  The kids each got to pick out a pumpkin to take home!

Stingerfest

On a scorching hot Saturday in October, the school had it's fall festival.  Nathan and I worked a bowling booth, Seth ran around taking pictures, and Amelia hung out with Hannah.  A good, sweaty time was had by all.  Here is Seth's teacher winning the Minute-To-Win-It contest:

That spray-on color stayed on Amelia's head over a week. 

a special dress up day

The kids' school has a lot of spirit days on Fridays, where they are encouraged to dress the theme to show their school spirit.  One of the first ones was to wear your favorite team shirt.  Amelia didn't have any, but we found a Panthers one at Old Navy.  She added a pink sweatband to support our friend, Evelyn, who was battling breast cancer:

We didn't know if then, but Evelyn only had two weeks left on this earth at the time of this picture.  Our hearts hurt for Nickolas and Greg.  Miss you, Ev. 

new park in uptown

One Saturday we checked out a Cajun festival at a new park in uptown.  The festival itself was kind of lame, but the park is beautiful, and it is adjacent to the new minor league baseball field that is opening this spring!

I'm laughing at these pictures, they are so old that Amelia has outgrown the shoes, jeans, and almost the shirt!

our terrific kid

Amelia was recognized as a Kiwanis Terrific Kid in September.  At the ceremony, she got a certificate, a swag bag, and ice cream.  At 9:30 am.  

Tarzan!

One Sunday afternoon, we went uptown with Hannah and Parry and saw Tarzan at the children's theatre.  It was fantastic.  

This was the best set we've seen at a performance here.  The opening scene gave The Lion King a run for its money!

mid-September excitement

On a Monday in September, I went back to Winston for a much needed consignment run.  I was in line at Chick-fil-a with some former coworkers, when my phone rings and I see the school's number.  Crap.  I am ninety minutes away in good traffic.  It turned out being a call about roadwork.  Flash forward to the next day, I get a call at about the same time, and I assume it's about the same thing.  Nope.  Here's how it went:

 

"Mrs. Mayse, Amelia fell off the monkey bars and we need you to come look at her forehead.  She may need a stick or two."  Crap.  I was at home trying to get tickets for the Avett Brothers' NYE concert.  At the school in five minutes.  Take a pic, send it to Dr. Granddad.  Decide to pull Seth out of school in case Granddad can fix it.  I didn't include the picture, but it was about the length of my fingernail, and there was a lower layer of skin partially open midway through the cut.  I took her home and cleaned it out, and it was apparent it needed some additional attention, more than Dr. Granddad would want to do on his granddaughter.  So we drove to the closest pediatric urgent care.  Walked right in, they gave her a new icepack, and we were back in a room as soon as they had our insurance processed:

 The nurse irrigated it, and then we spent about 15 minutes numbing it up:

 That is when I finally got in touch with Nathan and was able to tell him what was going on.  The doctor glued her back together, and we were on our way:

 It was so fast, that we had time to go through the McDonalds drive-thru and get Amelia some lunch, and get back to school so Seth could get his homework, because he was pitching a fit that I had pulled him out of school.

That evening, she complained of a headache and a stomachache.  I told her she should have a headache if I have to pick her up at school and take her to the doctor!  I decided to send her to school the next day, because she was horsing around on the monkey bars, it wasn't an accident that could have happened to anybody.  I went to the Y, ran some errands, cleaned my shower, and was showering myself when my phone rang.  School again. This time the PE teacher.  Seth had fallen on the track, skinned his hands and knees, and I needed to come "take a look at his lip."  Ugh.  I was worried I was going to end up back at the urgent care, but all he needed was an icee and a bath in Epsom salt.  Flash forward one hour.  Phone rings again.  Amelia has thrown up.  Fantastic.  At the time, I was worried that it was a head injury, but it quickly became apparent that she had had some bad McD's the day before.  So she was home with me the next day. 

Incidentally, last week I got my first call from school since then.  Amelia had bumped her head on the monkey bars and about had hour later told the teacher she didn't feel good, and listed all the symptoms of a concussion.  When I got there, she was chattering a blue streak and twirling around on the cot.  She gave me guilty eyes.  I sent her back to class. 

a touching memorial

The park across the street from the kids' school sponsoring a travelling memorial on September 11th.  I missed the actual program, but took the time to walk through it after I had finished volunteering at the kids school.  If you click on the pictures, you can see that some of the flags have a separate, smaller flag for the country the victim came from.  The flags where in the shape of the twin towers, and there was a beam from one of the towers on display.  I have never been to NYC, so it was neat to have a piece of history come to our little town.

Where was I that day?  I was driving home from the grocery store, when the morning radio program I still listen to talked about how there must have been some dreadful accident.  I got home, told Nathan (who was a student at UNCG at the time and didn't have a morning classes on Tuesdays), and we turned on the TV just in time to see the second plane hit.  I had to work that evening and it was the only time in the 12 years I worked there that management allowed TVs to be on in the unit.  Of course we will never forget.  Thank you for the travelling memorial, that keeps it very real for those of us who were not close.

bowling with Will

We were very excited to be able to attend Will's sixth birthday party at our old college bowling alley.  We love to bowl; it's one of the few things I actually have a chance at beating Nathan at!  

I love to celebrate with Will, because he is always so exuberant, even when he isn't the guest of honor!

a little reupholstery

Because I had nothing else to do in September, we decided to redo the dining room chairs ones weekend.  They looked like this:

 And now they look like this:

There were 900 million staples in each chair, and we cussed our way through the whole project. Because there is a wide opening to the "fancy room", which has a tan and blue theme, we decided to use some of the remaining fabric to recover the piano bench.  The staples were easier to remove, but it was a hot mess in there.  We ended up throwing all the padding away and starting over.  I think that room is done for now, so maybe one of these days I'll post a picture of it.  Don't hold your breath or anything...

Matthews Alive

My dad had some extra time off work, so my parents came over Labor Day weekend to experience Matthews Alive with us.  It is a street fair with music, shows, carnival food and rides, and craft vendors.  Some of the pics are from my phone, and some of them are from Pops' new fancy camera. 

 

Nathan introduces Pops to the deliciousness that is a turkey leg:

 Poor Amelia.  She is fierce in life, but she inherited her mom's loathing of drops:

Saturday morning there was a parade, and Seth got a high five from Sir Purr:

 Introducing Amelia to shopping craft fairs with Gram:

 Our shady parade spot (holy cow, gas is 26 cents cheaper right now):

 Pops photography at the concert:

 

Mase to the max

Our little buddy, Mason, is the only kid I've ever met who tops Amelia's preschool antics.  The weekend before school started, it was fitting that he have an extreme birthday party, complete with 25-foot rock wall and inflatable waterslide.  The kids had a blast (and more than one adult took a turn or two on the rock wall), but I spent the whole time praying we wouldn't be making a visit to the orthopedic urgent care the weekend before school started!