Paige's driving lessons in the Jeep

This past week I worked with Paige on driving the old Jeep. Poor Jeep has been used and abused by Connor and all kinds of kids over the years. It's amazing it still runs honestly. I've replaced the back tires on it once already and probably will again soon if it keeps being popular with the children.

Connor picked up driving the Jeep pretty quick, but Paige is a bit more wild with it. She often doesn't watch where she's going and doesn't make the best choices when she's planning her routes. It's always stressful watching her zip around in it.

She gave Emma a ride.

Ray also liked riding in the Jeep, but was impatient for his turn.

Paige did pretty well until she crashed hard in to the curb in the middle of the cul-de-sac. She hit it pretty hard and cried for a bit.

Connor and Mommy doing hard work

Mommy's been doing a lot of work with Connor lately. Over the summer they did a bunch of book reports and actually won the prize in Connor's class since Connor did more than anyone else. This past week the top reader in each class were given an award during a presentation that was filmed at his school and streamed in to the classrooms. All the students in Connor's class were very excited to see him on TV.

They've also continued to read now that school's started and they do his homework together every week. I help out here or there if it's an art project or something we need to collaborate on, but most of the time Andrea is the one that works with him on school stuff.

Connor's still in to jail lately. We do artwork at nights sometimes and he's writing a book about some badguys that get put in jail. I took a quick pic of him working on it the other night after he did his work with Mommy.

Sofia's 10th birthday party with Limo

Today was our neighbor Sofia's 10th birthday and party. Twenty kids were invited and Connor was excited for a big kid party with no parents. The limo picked them up from the neighborhood and they first went to lunch at Maggiano's and then they went around Jacksonville for some photos.

The kids had the limo for a few hours and then went back to Sofia's house for some swimming. 

Happy birthday Sofia!

Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party

On Friday the 13, 2013 we went to the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party at the Magic Kingdom.

We went last year, and had an amazing time, so we had pretty high expectations going in. We also were meeting the Prescotts at the park and were worried we'd talked it up to much and it wouldn't be as much fun as we remembered. It turned out to be everything we remembered and even more fun with our friends along!

When you arrived you got an armband and a bag for candy. There were spots all throughout the park where you could trick-or-treat and get all kinds of candy. It was the good stuff too!

As in years past, there were hardly any lines at all. For most of the rides you could walk right on to the ride and sit down. The kids really wanted to do the teacup ride and none of the adults really wanted to do it. I relented to the pressure and went with them on the condition that we wouldn't spin any more than necessary and we'd try to take it easy. That plan went out the window in the first 2 seconds. They couldn't resist spinning and I decided that if we were going to spin we'd spin it right. I spun us as fast as possible and the children loved it. The ride was so un-crowded that after it was over we just sat in the teacup and rode it again. The kids would have ridden it all night long, but after two times around I was done.

 

A big highlight of the night was the dance party with the Monsters Incorporated guys. There were about five monsters that showed up and a DJ played some decent party music. Connor ran out on the dance floor and danced it up with Mommy, Kenlyn and Angel. We tried to get Sissy to dance, but she really wasn't feeling it.

We left the park around 11:30 and got back to our car at midnight. The kids were exhausted and fell asleep pretty quick in the car. This year we decided to drive home and although it was a bit painful to drive for two hours after a long day, it was worth it when we got home and were able to take a shower and go to sleep in our own beds.

Overall, it was one of the most fun times we've had at Disney. We're already thinking about when we could go down again this fall to Orlando and we're definitely looking forwards to the Disney Christmas Party.

Animal books

The kids love animals and books, so it doesn't get much better than animal books!

They've been acquiring quite the collection lately and sometimes we will play "scientist", where we pretend we're scientists and we have to learn about our stuffed animals to take care of them, so we read the animal books. Anyways, as a result all the animal books were together in the play room so I snapped a pic of the kids together with their books. Paige loves the horse book and the dog book. Connor loves them all, but especially the dangerous animals book and shark books.

We were playing scientist yesterday and Baby Pinky (Paige's pink monkey) was sick and I said "Oh no, what are we going to do?". Connor grabbed one of the thickest books we have and said. "I know! Let's just turn to page 78!" He flipped to page 78 and sure enough, it was the section on monkeys. I was pretty impressed, and I guess I really shouldn't have been surprised. He knows his animals and definitely knows his numbers.

Jail

Connor is really interested in jail right now. He always wants to talk about it, read about it, watch YouTube videos about it and play games about jail. The other day we took our yearly professional family pics and we did them downtown. The area where we were shooting was very "urban" and there were metal bars over the windows in one area. Connor was gaping at them and asked what they were for. He obviously thought they were a jail and was very excited about the idea.

We bought him a few jail toys recently so he can play some jail games. Andrea was at Target with him and he picked out a Batman jail. I was on Amazon looking for some jail books and came across a neat police station set that had a jail in it. He's really enjoyed them so far and loves when the good guys catch the bad guys and lock them up.

Horsey Farm party for Asher

This afternoon we went to Asher's party at a local horse stable. Andrea and I had actually looked at it a few months ago for Paige's party. The kids absolutely had an amazing time, and it was truly a "country" experience for the families. We did our best to keep the bugs off the food, the kids away from the poop and everyone's hands clean.

Paige loved feeding the little ponies. She really wanted to ride one of the "little horsies", but they were just there for petting and feeding.

One of the big horses dropped a big pile of poop near the fence and the kids all ran over to take a look. Connor was pretty grossed out.

The best part was definitely the horse rides. The horse rides were short walks around a pen, and Connor and Paige wanted to go again and again. After all the kids had taken their turns, most of them lost interest in the horses. At the end of the party, Connor and Paige kept getting back in line again and again with Sophia, Danny and Kenlyn. They probably each rode six of seven times. It seemed like the owner of the horses was getting a little annoyed giving rides to the same kids, but we pretended not to notice.

Yeeha!

We also went on a hay ride. We all piled in to a trailer filled with itchy hay and then they drove us out in to a field with a bunch of big friendly horses. The horses stuck their heads right in with everyone and gobbled up the hay. The kids shrieked and freaked out, some of the parents did too. It was an up-close experience with the horses.

All in all, it was probably one of the most memorable parties we've been to, really good fun.