I hope all of you had a happy Halloween! That everyone had a great time, was safe, and most of all just enjoyed the atmosphere. I love seeing all the wide eyed kids going door to door. The creative costumes. The hugs smiles. The giggling. The fun decorations. The parents dressed up. Watching the really young kids toddling up to a door for the first time.
I was able to take my kids out trick or treating (without too much pain) and it was a blast. I am so glad that they are such nice, polite children. They all had a great time, though by the end my youngest was ready to go home. She wore little plastic high heels, against her mom's advice, and was done about 3/4 the way through. Plus her bag was getting really heavy. lol
Ready for Trick or Treating - "Alex Russo", a satyr, "Princess Aurora", and the Tenth "Doctor" Who
We went out to eat at a local fast food place tonight as a treat. We ate in so the kids could play in the play area. While we were there my children took some of the younger kids who were there under their wing and played with them. My 7 year old son would take a little boy that couldn't have been more than 2 up to the slide and down it as he couldn't do it himself. My daughters played with the toddlers sister. The grandfather of those kids stood their watching and smiling. The kids had a great time playing while we were there, joking with each other, helping each other, and just being themselves. As we were leaving an older gentleman smiled at me and commented on the fact that it was so great that our kids liked each other. He was so impressed by the fact that they were so kind to each other. Not only each other, but others. It really warmed my heart to hear this.
"Brothers and Sisters Share A Unique Blend Of Love, Comradery, and Friendship", Chuck Danes (I believe). I believe that this is very true. No friendship is quite like that of a sibling. My children will make great friends throughout their lives, but their first friends and hopefully their best friends are their brothers and sisters. This isn't to say that they get along at all times. We have those moments where they are seperated and sent to their rooms or to sit on the stairs. It never lasts long and the forgivenss is quickly given. I can learn so much from how they interact with each other. Thank you kids for not only being siblings, but being friends.
It's been a long week. The kids have been taking turns getting sick. It's gone through three of the kids, now just waiting to see if the fourth gets it. Started last week with tag team throw up. At least they took turns right? Thankfully those two were feeling much better and were up and running (literally) within 24 hours. My oldest on the other hand started getting sick on Sunday and finally started feeling better this afternoon. He missed 2 1/2 days of school, which for my kids is not a good thing as they love school. A lot. Fingers crossed that he's all the way better now. I really could use a full nights sleep! Only child that hasn't gotten sick? The one with the weak stomach. Go figure. I really do hope she stays fine. For that matter I hope my sweet husband and I stay well too.
In addition to the yucky tummies we got our first big snow storm of the season! They were forcasting 8-10 inches of snow in our area, but unfortunately didn't quite get that much. Actually we might have, but it was wet and heavy so compacted. Boy was it pretty though! Still is, it's just dark so I can't see it. My kids went and played in the snow after school until they couldn't feel their fingers. After playing in the snow hot chocolate is a must. Amazing how quickly a cup of hot chocolate will warm you up from the inside out. I hope that this snow storm is foretelling things to come, that we'll have a snowy year this year. I could really do with a white Christmas this year.
My kids love dressing up. They always have. On any given day who knows what my kids will be! A princess, a knight, a dog, a Jedi, a lion, a cowboy and it goes on and on. As far as their imaginations can carry them, which is pretty darn far. I love watching them use their imaginations. Dressing up, creating a world. Sometimes the world is just on paper, sometimes the world is created around them.
Drawn by my 7 year old son
This past weekend we attended two Halloween events - the school carnival and a church party. So we'd spent the past few weeks coming up with the best way to do their costumes. My younges, her costume was easy - Strawberry Shortcake. We already had the costume, just had to buy some red hair spray. My next oldest decided he wanted to be the Headless Horseman. Wowzers! We ended up having him wear his dad's old duster and painted his face to look like a pumpkin. We bought him a black cowboy hat and he was set. Next oldest child wanted to be Alex Russo from Wizards of Waverly Place (played by Selena Gomez). She had clothes that would work, we bought a black wig, a wand, and some cute black boots, so she was ready to go. My oldest wanted to be the tenth Doctor Who (the David Tennant Doctor). We got him a nice brown pin striped suit (he needed a new one for church anyways), a blue shirt, red/blue tie, white sneakers, glasses, and a sonic screwdriver. Getting his hair to do the messy hair look was a pain! That boys hair likes to lie flat. The kids had a fabulous time at the parties they went to. Nobody really got who the older three were, at least not without hints. That's okay though, they knew who they were and they were happy.
Tonight I took my two middle kids to their first Avalanche hockey game. It was so much fun! Sadly the Avs lost, but it was still a great time. I loved watching my little boys face light up as he watched the game. I loved watching my daughter laugh at jokes by her uncle. They'll go to other games, have fun at other games, but it won't be their first.
It's like your first bike ride, your first dance, your first kiss. The next bike ride, dance and kiss are just as sweet. They don't quite compare to the first. It doesn't diminish the following events, some of them are even better than the first. The first though....the first is the beginning of a new experience.
Having a baby is one of those firsts that you can experience over and over again. With your very first pregnancy you have never experienced any of it, so it is extra special. However with each pregnancy there is a first flutter, a first kick, a first ultrasound. After the baby is born you get your first look, your first kiss on that sweet fuzzy head, your first snuggle, first smile, first laugh. It's so amazing that we get to experience those firsts again with each child. I am grateful that I have been able to have 4 sets of firsts. I look forward every day to see what the next first is going to be. My kids amaze me every day.
"The worst day here is better than the best day there." I'm paraphrasing here, Paul Jr (from American Chopper) said that on his show. I could really identify with that statement. When I was married to my ex things weren't happy. Things were pretty darn miserable. They started out fantastic, fabulous even. Then it went down hill really quickly. Even on the good days I was waiting for the bad, knowing it was lurking around the corner. So it really is true that the worst days here are better than the best days there. I have to say that I am so lucky to have my husband in my life! He is the most amazing man and I am so grateful for him every day. Even on our worst days, which are few and far between, it's not that bad. Like any couple, we have our differences. That's to be expected in any relationship, whether it be a friendship or more. Those differences don't have to be a major issue within the relationship. I have found that our marriage is a partnership. Even when we disagree, our love for each other overshadows whatever it is that is irking us. That's how it should be. It's okay to disagree, to get a bit ticked off at each other. It's more important though to remember how much you love and care for the other person while you are having that disagreement. At the end of the day, those little things don't matter. I know that is easy to say and often it isn't that easy. I will be forever grateful for my sweet husband. For his love. For his patience. For his friendship. He's amazing. I did choose him as my love and I do love my choice.
I love Family History work...geneology. My mom taught me a great love of family history work. My great-great-grandfather was a world champion boxer back in the 1890's-1900's. I have really enjoyed finding out more about his life and his family. Recently I found a woman online whose great-grandmother was married to him later in life. I am finding out so much information about him that I didn't know! It is so amazing. Reinforces the lesson that you never give up on family history work. There is always new information out there and new places to look. So don't give up!
It has been a really long week! I've had a migraine since last Sunday, so it has made my week blur together. It has been a good week though. I went out with some good friends for dinner on Wednesday. We had a great time chatting and laughing. We stayed until close and had a "beautiful" time.
Friday night was the last home game of the regular season for the Colorado Rapids. I took my two oldest kids with me. On the drive we were having a fantastic time. We were singing, I was dancing badly, we were talking in funny voices. It was a blast. We were able to sit on the team bench and watch the team warm up. Bonus, we got to see the Rocky Mountain Cup close up. The guys from ESPN were set up right by our seating section, so that was a bit of a kick to see them filming. The game was great! No goals were scored. Spent a lot of time yelling "come on ref!". We stopped for hot chocolate and nachos on the way home. Even though my head and my feet were both in huge amounts of pain, it was a great night.
This morning was the Flat 14ers walk. It was put on by our school district and a local news station. So tomorrow morning my kids should be on the news. Yay! They'll get a kick out of it. Our school's choir was again invited to sing the National Anthem. This time the whole choir, 3rd - 6th grade, was invited to sing, so my older daughter got to sing too! Coolest thing though? My youngest got to sing with the big kids! She has sung for the choir teacher before, who knows she can sing, and she knows all the words to the National Anthem. I was pretty impressed by both of my girls getting up there and singing with their big brother and the choir. My younger son was invited to sing too, but he chose not to which was fine. With my feet issues I could do the two mile walk, but my sweet husband and the kids all did it. They rock!
This afternoon my son had a soccer game. His team got stomped! I am happy to say that he ended the game with a great attitude and had fun playing. He got the wind knocked out of him pretty badly. Did a slide kick and then got landed on by another kid. He was back out and playing quickly though. Not much can keep him down. I'm very grateful to say that he has a great sense of sportsmanship.
I had a photo shoot after the game. It was a lot of fun! I enjoyed meeting the family and really had an enjoyable time recording some photographic memories for them. I hope that they enjoy their pictures as much as I did taking them.
That brings us to now. The end of the week. I am really hoping for a lot less pain next week. I am also looking forward to one more week of fall break. I love spending time with my kiddos! They are fabulous little people who awe me every day.
We got our first snow fall of the season last night! Okay it was just a dusting of snow, but it was snow so it counts. I love snow. I love the cold. I love walking in the snow. Making snow angels. Building a snowman. Having a snowball fight. I love the peace that a snowfall brings. It's almost like magic being outside while it is snowing. The snow swirling around when a little wind gusts through.
My kids wanted to go out and build a snowman. They were quite disappointed there wasn't enough snow. Soon enough there will be. I am hoping for some really good snowfall this year. Even a couple snow days. Snow days where even my sweet husband has to call in to work and we are all stuck at home for a day or two. Where we play in the snow. Build a fort. Drink hot chocolate while curled up in blankets on the couch.
So here's to hot cocoa and snowfall. I'm looking forward to many more days of it to come.
First let me apologize for not posting as often as I mean to lately. It's been a crazy couple of weeks.
I love parent teacher conferences. Seriously, I love them. A lot. Does that make me odd? Probably. I don't just love them because I hear good things about my kids either. I do love hearing how great my kids are though. It's a great bonus of parent teacher conferences.
I love parent teacher conferences as it gives me a chance to sit down, one on one, with my child's teacher and be a partner in their education. Even though my kids are very good kids and smart kids, they still have things they need to work on in school. This gives me a chance to sit down with their teachers and discuss those things. To help find a solution to them. To let the teachers know what I think about the game plan. The teacher might be the coach, but I'm still the owner of this team.
I found these questions which would be great to take with you when you attend parent teacher conference and ask the teacher:
Who is my child to you?
Who are they as readers, writers, community members?
What makes them unique?
What are they passionate about?
How do they add value to your class and the wider community?
What makes you proud?
My oldest has test anxiety. He's advanced in everything, but he is horrible at test taking. Thankfully his teachers are willing to work around this. We're trying some things out and working towards helping him ignore the fact that it's a "test" and just do the best that he can. Otherwise his teacher says that he is an amazing human being.
My older daughter has her vision issues. Her teacher says she has no worries about her academically and is frankly amazed at how well she does considering the fact that she can't see as well as the other kids. The game plan with her is to figure out what is going to be the best course of action moving forward from here. Not just for this year, but for the coming years to. Her teacher is bound and determined to find a solution. Even with her vision issues she is still reading at least two grade levels above and is about a grade level above in math. She is crazy smart.
My younger son has a reading issue, but only at school. Since we had a conference I was able to find out that he is still reading at a lower level at school then he does at home. We found towards the end of the last school year that my son feels that he is a great reader at home (which he is), but that at school he is a bad reader. He was getting that impression from his teacher. So his current teacher is now aware of this fact and will work on bulstering him up in reading; in letting him know that he can read his best at school as well as at home. This kid is my artist. He's still a smart kid, but will probably never be the academic that his siblings are and that is okay. I am astounded by his talent with art and hope that he continues to nurture that love.
My youngest started kindergarten this year and needs to work on her teen numbers. She knows them, but still doesn't always get them in the correct order. Easy enough. Otherwise she is ahead of where she needs to be in everything else. She has been waiting for so long to go to school and is loving every minute of it.
I happen to adore my kids teachers too. The three younger kids all have teachers that an older sibling had. I was so excited to see each of their names on their class assignment. The oldest teacher just started at our school last year, but from what I knew of him I was extremely happy about that placement too. My kids teachers all know and understand my kids well. They truly care about them and how they are doing. They are wonderful people who I just enjoy talking to and being around. Which is a good thing as I'm at the school a lot!
So that is why I love parent teacher conferences. The teachers are amazing and I'm able to help them be the best teacher possible for my child and my child's needs. Being an active participant in my children's lives is an amazing thing! I'm grateful to my parents for attending all my conferences growing up and showing me that my education was important to them. I hope that some day my children will feel the same.
I have high foot arches. Turns out that's a good thing and a bad thing. High arches can make you a better athlete. Able to run faster, jump higher, etc. However it can also lead to major feet problem. For the past few weeks I've been in a lot of pain. It hurts to walk. It hurts to have my feet touching the ground. Heck it hurts to lie in bed. My feet just hurt. Turns out it's those danged arches. Having high arches has caused me to walk with most of my weight on my outer four toes instead of the big toe like you are supposed to. So at the moment I have three different issues going on with my feet. Well technically four if you count the bone spurs that are starting to grow. However they can all be fixed, easily, by the same thing. Yay!
I got a cool plaster cast made of my feet today and am having a set of custom orthotics made. Who woulda thunk it. So in a couple weeks I'll have a nice new set of orthotics and hopefully have purchased a new pair of shoes to go with them. I've always worn shoes with no arch support. The podiatrist wasn't suprised by this as he readily agreed that it would have caused me pain. Phew. Thought I'd be chewed out for that! So I need to get me a pair of shoes that the orthotics will fit in. It will be an interesting adjustment, but one that I am looking forward to. I've got a lot of hope that this will help my knees strenthen up more too. I'm glad that I went in today. I was nervous about what the doctor would say. Hopefully I'll soon be able to get out and move more with my kids without the side effect of not being able to walk the next day.
This past week has been an emotionally draining week. My sweet niece was in the ICU for 3 1/2 days, then in the hospital for another 2 1/2. She's home now and resting, but still not completely out of the woods.
My niece and I are very close, we always have been. When she was born I took a week off of work and drove 8 hours to stay with their family. I had an enjoyable week of playing with my nephew and helping with the new baby. Later I moved closer to them and would spend a large chunk of my time at their house. She lives 3 states away now, but comes to stay with me every summer for a week or two. I cherish our time together. I know that one of these days she'll out grow this tradition (she's 16 now), but I hope it's not for another year or two at least.
I love my niece to pieces. She means the world to me. I hope that my daughters become amazing young women, just like her. She is kind, compassionate, musically and artistically talented, she is funny, loving, spiritual, and just an all round amazing human being.
We went and saw Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey presents Fully Charged on Thursday night. We were unable to get there to see the animals beforehand, which kinda bummed the kids out. Next time! As we were walking up there were people handing out coloring books. If you go, don't take the coloring book unless you want the anti-circus literature that it is. The protestors were fairly quiet, no yelling, which was nice. We talked to the kids about the fact that there would be protestors and why they are protesting. We talked about the fact that there are circuses, especially in other countries, that still treat their animals badly.
Once inside we took the kids down to the main floor to see the preshow fun. The kids got "Greatest Show on Earth" tattos on their hands. They watched the jugglers and an aerialist (not sure what their actual title is). We were barely able to sneak in a chance to try on the clown jackets before they put them away. The clowns kept everyone entertained while we waited for the show to start.
The Ringmaster, Brian Scott, did an amazing job of singing the National Anthem. Great way to start off the show! The show really was fully charged! There was everything from aerialists, to strong men, to a high wire act, to animals, to clowns. Vas and Stas are hilarious! They kept us laughing any time they showed up on the floor. Vas is the Ringmasters assistant and Stas is Vas's assistant. Taba is the animal trainer and wow! He did a fabulous job. The whips that he holds never touched the animals, that I could see. The tigers looked like they were having a good time, like larger versions of my cat when he is playing. The horses were beautiful, but then I have a soft spot for horses. The elephants are giant beauties. My oldests favorite performance was the Fernandez Brothers. They used "wheels of steel" in their performance. It was pretty cool! My youngest hid her face and watched the Danguir Troupe's high wire act through her fingers. The Negrey Troupe does acrobatics and they all seem to be world class gymnasts. They were SO fast! I couldn't capture a picture of them as they were literally a blur on my camera. It made for a really late night on a school night, but we all had an amazing time! The two youngest kids were fading fast after the animal acts in the second half. It was just getting too late for them and they all slept the whole way home. They are all ready to go and see it again.
I hope all of you had a happy Halloween! That everyone had a great time, was safe, and most of all just enjoyed the atmosphere. I love seeing all the wide eyed kids going door to door. The creative costumes. The hugs smiles. The giggling. The fun decorations. The parents dressed up. Watching the really young kids toddling up to a door for the first time.
