Halloween Dance Party

Last night was the school Halloween Dance.  The kids love going so much -- they've been counting down the days for the past 2 weeks.  Jon got called out of town, but I had already promised the kids we could go, so we braved it alone.  I'm glad that we did.

 

 

 

 

 Rachel is getting so grown up.  Almost from the time we got to the school, she had her eyes open for 2 of her friends.  Then, once she found them, she wanted to just be able to run around with them and not stay with the family.  It was the first time I had experienced this; normally she has been happy to talk with her friends, but then stay with the rest of us.

 The kids spent at least an hour just dancing on the stage.  They hired a DJ this year, which I thought was kind of ridiculous, but it was actually super cool.  He brought a fog machine and had all these cool laser lights flashing everywhere, and Kale was practically in heaven.

 

 Now that the excitement of the dance is over, the kids can hardly wait for tomorrow.  I've been told at least 5 times so far that there's only one more night before Halloween.  I'm sure I'll be reminded at least that many more times before the day is out.  I'm glad my kids love dressing up as much as I do.  It's fun to have the kids get excited about it just like I do.

Baby News

I went in for an impromptu appointment on Monday because I had been cramping pretty badly through the weekend.  Turns out everything is just fine with our little BOY.  Yes that's right.  We'll be adding another boy to our ranks.  We are so excited!  Jon, Kale, and Sky were all with me, and Kale was so excited when the doctor said the baby was a boy.  This is his dream come true!

Here I am at 13 weeks.  I feel like I'm way bigger this time than I was with the last few kids, but Jon assures me I look like this every time by 3 months.  I guess he's probably right.

The other night during family night, everyone was just listening to Rachel's lesson (except Sky, who kept running in and out), when suddenly Sky ran in looking like this.  She stopped and did some crazy dance in front of every person, and then sat on the couch.  Sky is so unexpectedly hilarious sometimes!

Doctor time for Hallie

We took Hallie to the doctors today to be tested for allergies.  She has been complaining about pretty bad stomach pain pretty much since she was old enough to talk, so we thought we would at least check into allergies and eliminate that as a problem.

Somehow, I thought it would just be a few quick pricks, and we'd be on our way, but it turned out to be more traumatic for Hallie.  They wanted to take some blood just to make sure she doesn't have celiac disease (which is being allergic to gluten).  And here I'd been assuring her there wouldn't be any "real" needles at this appointment.  Well, she made it through, crying heartily the entire time, but she didn't seem too affected -- the tears stopped as soon as the cotton ball went on her arm.

Then came the allergy testing.  I guess I just didn't know what to expect, because it wasn't just one little prick at a time for a quick second -- they had this contraption with 8 little pricks on it and they wiggled it around and pushed it into her arm for like 10 seconds.  And they had to do it on both arms!!  Plus, they gave her 3 additional pricks.  Man oh man, I have never heard Hallie scream like that before.
Afterward, Hallie told me that it felt like bears were scratching off her arms.  When I suggested that maybe it felt more like cats, she looked at me and said, "No way Mom.  Way more than cats.  Only bears would feel like that."  I'm glad Jon wasn't there -- he would have been passed out on the floor by the time we got through.

We don't have the results on the blood yet, but as far as allergies go, Hallie is slightly allergic to yeast.  So, the doctor is having us take yeast out of her diet for 4 days to see if it helps with her stomach.  He gave us a list of what to avoid, and it seems like yeast is in everything!  I'm sure we'll be just fine for the next 4 days, but it did seem daunting at first glance.

A few quick updates

For Labor Day, the kids had a campout in the backyard.  They suddenly realized that summer was over and they hadn't been camping once.  They all felt pretty sad about this, so we set up the tent and let them sleep in the back for the night.  They loved it!  We even tried to let Sky sleep back there, but by 10:30, we knew that she needed to come inside so the other kids could finally fall asleep.

 Also, a few weeks ago, Hallie wrote me this sweet little note.

(translation:  I love you mommy.  I love you with all my heart.  I love you.)

Back to School

The kids have been so excited for school to start up again.  Rachel had helped all the kids choose out their clothes and had laid them out nicely in their rooms the night before.  They all woke up Monday morning at six and got dressed, combed their hair, and ate breakfast before I even came downstairs.  Kale was even wearing his backpack -- he was pretty disappointed to learn that he had to wait 5 hours before he even had to leave.

Rachel has been so excited to wear her new school clothes, so of course she wanted pictures on every morning to show off her awesome choices.  And, if you're taking pictures of one, you inevitably have to take pictures of the others as well.

 

Kale loved his one day of Kindergarten (even though he was disappointed that we had to come with him).  We really like his teacher, Mrs. Bodell.  Unfortunately, she is going to be gone for most of the first 2 months -- she just had a baby and so is taking maternity.  I figure Kale will be fine, although I still feel secretly kind of nervous about switching teachers after 2 months.

Yesterday Kale had his Kindergarten testing.  He was disappointed that I had to come to school with him AGAIN.  He is so excited to go today because he gets to go just by himself.  I had to just wait in the hall during his testing (which I hated -- I wanted to see how he did).  Luckily, Kale only has one speaking volume -- super loud -- so I could hear everything he was saying.  He did a great job and I loved hearing him chatter away to his new teacher about anything, and everything, that came to his mind during the pauses between testing.

 Everyone seems pleased with their new teachers, and I feel pretty hopeful for the school year.  Tonight is back to school night (which I weirdly love!), so I'll get to go and meet Rachel and Hallie's teachers and see how their classes run.  I love the first few weeks of school -- hooray for school!!

Remember in high school when you would think of creative ways to ask people to dances?  Well, I had "someone" ask me out similarly last night (I'm sure you can guess who that someone is).

We were just cleaning up dinner when someone knocked on the door.  Jon was washing pots and so asked me to get it.  When I opened the door there was a gift bag with a big J on it, and a yellow note inside.  Thus began a special scavenger hunt for me.  Jon had stopped on his way home from the airport and hidden clues around the neighborhood -- they were actually pretty far from our house; the kids and I had to drive to reach most of them.  The kids and I set off on the clue adventure while Jon stayed home to finish cleaning up.  The kids loved looking for the clues as we were driving, and they had so much fun trying to figure out where the clue was sending us next.  Hallie kept referring to whoever set up the scavenger hunt as "the man", thus keeping up the mystery of who could be sending us on this adventure.

One of the last clues said the date would be Saturday and then sent us back to the house to find out who was asking me.  When we walked in the front door, there were papers to follow on the ground, and then we were directed to look up and there was a string with a paper on it.  When we pulled on it, a whole ton of balloons fell out of the sky.

While we were gone Jon had taped up one of those plastic painting covers, and then filled it with balloons.  The letters of his name were written on the balloons, and we had to put the letters in order to find out who the mystery man was.  The kids were slightly stumped because they had thought Jon was the mystery man, but there were too many letters for Jon -- there was an extra N and Y.  Luckily, I knew just what to do.  So, an hour after we began, we solved the scavenger hunt mystery.  Looks like I've got a date with the best looking boy I know.  Wahoo -- I can't wait!

Kale's Birthday!!

Kale decided to have a family party at Trampoline Haven.  So, on Saturday we went to the trampoline place, and it was pretty cool.  They had all these different areas of trampolines.  One area had just big long trampolines and then at the end (and on the sides) there were trampolines on the walls, so you could just bounce all over the place.  There was a dodgeball area, a bunch of trampolines that landed you in a big foam pit so you could be brave and do whatever tricks you wanted, a zip-line (that also landed in a foam pit), and trampoline basketball.  The kids had such a great time!  They especially loved the foam pits and zip-line.  Kale loved showing us all his new ways to jump off the zip-line at the end -- he felt like he was pretty daring and cool.

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately, at the very end of trampoline fun, Sky landed weird and twisted her leg somehow.  She was limping around for a couple days, but is doing just fine now.

 Here are a few pictures of Kale trying out his birthday toys -- oh, and also Sky.

 Check out this sweet cake.  Kale was certain he had to have this airplane cake that he found in one of my cookbooks (which is weird because he doesn't care one bit about planes or anything).  I tried to talk him into some different (a.k.a. easier) choices, but it had to be this one.  I think it turned out pretty good for my first effort at a cool cake.

 Of course, Kale had to have birthday cake with his cool Ninja Turtles mask on.

Kale is so happy to be 5 because it means he can finally go to Kindergarten.  He is pretty psyched.

And finally, here are a few random and hilarious pictures of Kale and Sky.  I came out of the laundry room one day and found Kale outside in this get-up (notice his jump rope lasso) -- because obviously, this is what real cowboys wear.

 Sky ate none of the dinner that we gave her last night, but felt perfectly happy eating all the leftover noodles out of this big strainer with the serving spoon.  What a nut!