Connor's hard homework

Andrea usually works with Connor on his school stuff and his homework. Unfortunately, this past week was too artsy for her. Connor had to pick out a book, identify the main character, decorate a pumpkin to look like the main character, and complete a worksheet. Not something a Kindergartener can accomplish individually.

Connor picked out a Halloween book about a cat named Splat, and we dove in. I had him color his pumpkin black with a Sharpie marker, made ears out of black duct tape, a hat with paper and a purple crayon, eyes and mouth out of paper and tape, and viola! We were done. Allison helped out quite a bit too and did really well going over the worksheet with him.

I took a picture of the two of them and our proud accomplishment.

Community Helper Parade

At Connor's school, they don't really do Halloween dress up for whatever reason. Instead, they decided to make it educational and with no candy. The Kindergarteners all had the opportunity to dress up as "Community Helpers" and participate in a parade around the school. This means that the parents either have to use the community helper costume for Halloween, or buy an extra costume. We decided to get Connor an extra costume since this theme wasn't his choice. Andrea found him a really cute EMT costume. She took a picture of him with his buddy Trevor at the bus stop.

Both of us went to his school to see the parade and we thought it would just be around a couple hallways, but they went all over the whole school. We almost didn't follow the procession when it passed us at first, but we're glad we did. It was fun to walk with Connor and his class and see the school. All the other grades from 1st through 8th came out to see them and cheer for them. It was very fun for the Kindergarteners and it was neat to see the older kids being so sweet with them.

I took a short video of Connor as he went through one of the halls with the older kids.

Mommy did a great job with her little man's costume.

I was glad I was able to take off work to see him!

Swimming with the Rudpolphs

We had fun swimming with the Rudolphs, although the water was pretty chilly and we spent quite a bit of time in the hot tub.

I got a few pictures and videos of Drew and Allison jumping in the water. Both of them decided that gang signs would be the best picture. I guess that's how they roll in Blue Springs.

Sea World

On Friday the 26th, Abby, Genie, Drew and Allison came to Florida to visit! Their flight got delayed a bit on Friday, so they didn't get in until the afternoon that day.

On Saturday, we all packed up the car and drove to Sea World in Orlando. We were worried that Hurricane Sandy would hit, but thankfully it stayed off to the East and the weather was very nice for the day.

We just had to stop at Uno's on the way in to Orlando.

We saw lots of sea animals and some pretty neat shows too. The Killer Whale show was neat, but the dolphin show was amazing. It was very well done and over the top.

We wrote the Manta Ray rollercoaster just before the park closed down. Andrea, Abby, Drew and I decided to ride it since the wait wasn't too long. It was probably the best rollercoaster I've been on. You are suspended, looking straight down like Superman. It was pretty awesome. Andrea and Abby shrieked like banshees and Andrea said her eyes were closed almost the whole time. It was very exciting!

Drew loved touching the stingrays and fed them some raw fish too.

We left at 8 pm and were pooped. We grabbed a quick dinner at Chipotle and Sissy couldn't even stay awake for it.

Fun in the pool with the neighbor kids

This past week we had some fun in our pool with the neighbors and their kids. Probably will be the last time for a while since it's really starting to cool off. We heated the pool all day and it tried to get up to the 89 degree setting, but I don't think it made it up past about 84-85 degrees that day. The kids didn't mind it, they will swim in anything!

We got everyone some pizza from Jenks and we loved having everyone over!

Bunco!

Andrea hosted Bunco for this month and had a great turnout. She had it catered by the same lady that did the pool party and the food was delicious. Everyone had fun and Andrea enjoyed being the hostess.

Fire time with the Henry's

Yesterday, we got together with our neighbors for some play time. The Henry's have two little girls that our kids get along with really well. We played outside for a while, then they got us pizza and we made some S'mores  over the fire. We are definitely pathetic about the cold already. It was about 66 degrees out and we felt pretty cold and needed to huddle around the fire to stay warm. We'd be laughed at in Missouri for sure!

The kids had fun playing together, they really enjoyed goofing around in the car in the driveway.

SHOTS

Paige is a smart cookie. Every time we drive near the doctor's office, she yells at us "No Shots! No Shots!". Usually we just reassure her that we're just going to the gas station nearby and that it's not our intention to get her shots. Well, Wednesday was the day she'd been dreading. Shots day. She needed a Hepatitis A vaccination as well as a flu shot. Daddy took her this time since normally Mommy has to do it by herself. As soon as she saw us pulling near the office she started yelling at me, and I had to tell her that her horrible fears were true this time. She was very upset.

Baby Woofie was in the car, and I decided to bring Woofie inside with us. I told her that baby Woofie was also getting shots and that she was scared. Paige instantly flipped into caretaker mode and was very brave for baby Woofie. She repeatedly reassured baby Woofie that she'd be ok and not to be scared.

In the waiting room, I took a quick video of Paige talking to (and as) baby Woofie. It's hard to hear the exchange "between" them, but she's talking as both.

Paige did her best to comfort poor baby Woofie.

Paige was very brave when we went back to the exam room. She watched as Daddy got his flu shot, and then it was her turn. She clutched Woofie tight and then the first needle went in. She was very upset. The second needle put her way over the edge and she was shrieking and very sad. Shots suck.

After we got home, Paige told Mommy all about it.

Wendy and the gang at The Model Home Store

Andrea worked hard for quite a while on our house and it's been done for a while now. We had our pool party to celebrate and Andrea has everything decorated and complete. For months, she'd have weekly standing meetings with Wendy who is the owner of the Model Home Store. Andrea picked most everything out herself, but really liked to run it all by Wendy to make sure she had a cohesive design and was staying with her contemporary theme. It was a lot of work, but Wendy and the ladies at the store made it fun.

Andrea is happy to be done with the decorating, but she does miss her friends at the store sometimes. We eat at the restaurant right next door every week, and Andrea still stops in to chat with everyone.

Here she is with Wendy, Ashley and Lisa.

The first family bike ride

This past Sunday we went on our first family bike ride. Andrea and I got some bikes recently and finally got the trailer and everything put together. There's a fun playground at the park where Connor plays soccer and I decided to figure out how far away it was. After his game on Saturday, I measured it with the car's odometer and it was 4 miles. I run 3 miles, almost to the park, from our house and in my brain it made sense that biking would be approximately twice as easy and I thought it would probably take half as long as running.

I was way off. First, biking uses completely different muscles than running and I'm not in good biking shape. Secondly, when pulling two children, it makes biking more difficult. I will usually run 6 miles at approximately a 10 minute pace. I figured it would take about 20 minutes by bike. Instead, it took almost 40 minutes to get there and I was exhausted and sweaty. Next time, maybe we'll go somewhere closer or wait until it gets a little cooler.

The kids enjoyed the ride!

Connor loves the playground at Veteran's Park. Lots of good Ninja obstacles. Here he is practicing the "Warped Wall". It may look like a slide to the casual observer, but Connor knows better.

Paige likes climbing on everything too.

There's a pretty scary rock that you have to cross between some of the equipment. For a while, I held her hand every time she crossed, but eventually I taught her the "bear walk", which may look like crawling, but is much cooler. Paige is very careful!

Connor and his guys

Connor has a bunch of stuffed animals and if it was up to him he'd bring them all to school with him and everywhere he goes. He currently sleeps in bed with most of them, we don't know how it can be comfortable, but he absolutely insists. Andrea convinces him to leave them home during the day, and before they go to the bus stop in the morning he sets them up so they can wait for him while he's at school. He loves to set them up together and recently Andrea will take a picture on her phone each day. Connor really loves the pictures of them for some reason.

He's also really been in to Ninja Warrior again. I used to have to set up all the obstacle courses, but he recently figured out how to build them himself. He builds elaborate courses for his action figures and has almost all of the major obstacles represented from the TV show. In the picture below you can see the ultimate cliffhanger (on the right on the green boxes), the spinning bridge (the balls), the clog steps (small square blocks), etc.

Oktoberfest!

This past weekend, our neighbors put together an Oktoberfest celebration. It was the second year they've done it, but our first time to go. There were a bunch of people there, lots of kids, lots of good food and we had a great time.

There were three bounce houses and Connor and Paige were great the whole time. We still had to keep an eye on them, but they're finally to the age where you don't feel like you have to hover over them the entire time.

I took a little video showing all the bounce houses.

A few of the people dressed up. I think Andrea would have looked super cute in a sexy beer wench costume, but she refuses!