Kindergarten round up=Ender home!!

Here in Omaha, they have a thing called Kindergarten Round up each year. On that day current kindergartners stay home while the kindergartners for next year go to part of the school day with the teachers. With Ender home for Kindergarten round up, we wanted to do something special so we walked over to the park and had a picnic. Above is us eating our picnic, and below are a few more pics:

Kindle trying her hand at playing on her own

Here is the school boy in a variety of fun playtime activities!

This is Armour being the grumpy old troll (from Dora)...he did crack a smile and lose character a few times...

What fun it was to have one of our school kids home!!! We did miss Solace that day...

April Fools Fun!!!

Well. I have kept you in suspense far long enough..I know you have been wondering for days nee weeks now about what, if anything I did for April Fools Day this year.

My last post was on May 31 and it was a plea for ideas. I mentioned that my son, Ender had come in and asked me whether I was doing the same thing as last year or something better. That is not exactly how it happened. He actually came to me and said "Mom, are you going to do the same thing for April Fools that you did last year?" I said, "Actually, Ender, no." I felt bad, I had NOTHING planned.

Ender walked out of my room into his sister room and I heard him very happily exclaim "Solace! Mom has something even BETTER planned this year!!" Oh boy! I felt the pressure.

Did I come up with something? You bet I did! We had Cake for dinner with a lovely floral centerpiece. You can see it below:

Don't let your eyes decieve you though-the "cake" was actually Pasticio (which is a wonderful Greek dish-I have heard people call it Greek Lasagna-some day if you are super lucky I will post the recipe on here-it is my FAVORITE!!!)

ANd the floral centerpiece was, of course also an April Fools deception-it was actually a "dirt pie" dessert (basically a really fancy chocolate pudding with crushed oreos on top.

So, did any of you do anything special for April Fools?

Halloween

The night before Halloween we carved our pumpkins. On Halloween we were busy bees! We went to Sol's party, then when she came home we had to get ready right away to Trick or Treat in our neighborhood. Then we had to go to the Trunk or Treat at our ward, followed by a stop at a friend's house (someone Wes works with). It was packed and fun, and I of course only took a few pictures.

A little something about the pumpkins. Armour had 2 very small pumpkins (one was really Kindles, but whatever). Solace and Ender each had a pumpkin of their own which they drew up designs for then had Wes carve out what they drew. Armour just gave Wes directions-he wanted one mad one and one happy one.

So, in this picture, Kindle and I are holding Army's happy pumpkin on the left and the mean (or evil) Pumpkin on the right! Vampire Ender with his pumpkin

3 kids with their jack-o-lanterns on Halloween night!

Wes in his costume...

School Party

I am the "Room mom" for Solace's class. They split the class a couple weeks into the school year, so we combined the party with the other class. We wrapped the teachers as mummies (with TP), made a bat craft (super easy), and played a spider ring toss game. All of this was after the school wide parade, and before we ate a ton of treats! The 2 boys went over to a friends house while Kindle and I went over to run the party. Here are a few pictures:

Kindle the monkey Cowgirl Solace
Another monkey shot

Making her bat

Solace (and a little Snow White) wrapping up their teacher (The 2 teachers dressed up as Thing 1 and Thing 2)

Solace's class with their wrapped up teacher.

Dance Halloween party

Solace's dance class had a Halloween party. She couldn't dance well in the cowgirl outfit, so she wore her Jasmine costume pants. Here she is dancing at the party:

Ah...Autumn!

I love fall!!! LOVE IT!! The leaves are beautiful, the weather is nice, and there are plenty of photo ops! The other day I raked up the leaves in our front yard and took some pictures of our kids. They were cute pictures, but I will never do that again with an infant! She grabbed a leaf, which went right in her mouth, and she choked on it. It was massively scary and I was freaking out, so consider this a warning to you parents out there-be VERY careful when you are taking leaf pictures! (She is fine, it was just a scare for me!)

That aside, I wanted to share just a few of the yard/leaf pictures. I will warn you-they are beautiful!

Ender in the front yard before the raking began. Throwing the leaves

The big pile!

All 4 cuties in the pile

Girls (Ok-and Armour on the right side)

Boys

Playing in the pile

Music Class Party

Music class had a party too...look for the vampire, my dad, and a little monkey...

Camping my way

So, the weekend Sol had school off we put up our tent in the living room. Good thing we did not have any furniture cause it took up the whole room. The kids slept in the tent for a few nights and then we took it down. It was a lot of fun and they LOVED it! Here are a couple pics... (Note in the second pic you can see the corner of a futon/couch-that is because the morning after we put up the tent a great family in our ward gave us their futon because they got a new couch. We were so grateful!!! I love having somewhere to sit in the living room! A few days later another wonderful family gave us a rocking chair. We have been blessed and well provided for in this ward!!)

End of Summer: Bikes, Trikes & Scooters, oh my!

Just playing at home:

Memorial Day Church activity

For Memorial Day the ward had a little breakfast, program and bike parade (after a bike decorating period). Here are some pics...

Solace singing Ender singing/ sword fighting with his flag...
Armour on his tricycle (for the first time ever I might add)
Ender on his bike.
E & his primary teacher decorating his bike.
Dad helps Solace decorate her bike.
All decorated & riding over to line up (before we grabbed the helmet)

A LOVES the trike.
K in her wheels...
S in the parade
E grumpily leaving the parade.