Trick-or-treating with friends

We recently moved to a new neighborhood and there don't seem to be as many young families as where we used to live. We weren't really sure how Halloween would be around here, so we accepted our good friends' (Taryn & James and the girls) invitation to come celebrate with them. Their neighborhood has a bit of a block party with hot dogs and mac n' cheese for the little ones at the community playground and then trick-or-treating galore. The boys were happy to share Halloween with their good friends!

Here were our boys before heading to the community party (we forgot the hat that goes with Thomas' costume, but luckily found a stand-in in my car):






This picture cracks me up. After we took pics of our boys and Taryn & James took pictures of their girls, our boys went to go visit with their "girlfriends."


Thomas & Lily...




Sarah Ellen was trying to remove Parker's nametag and he kept telling her not to...


Cutest little Air Force pilot...ever!


After the party at the playground, we started to take off for trick-or-treating. Thomas begged to ride with Lily in the wagon...


Until they were offered a better ride...


We rode around the neighborhood to a handful of houses on that ride before we hit to the streets the old fashioned way. Before long, all the kids were old pros!


I wish I had more pictures of them on the move, but they were moving too fast for my camera to keep up! Parker was a bit shy for the first two houses, but soon he was taking off in a near sprint when we got close to the houses. They had so much fun.

At one house, they had decorated the hallway under the front porch (on an elevated house) as a haunted hallway (dark lights, strobe lights, spiderwebs and hanging witches, etc). Parker & Thomas both made it through without tears, but later Parker said, "I didn't like the 'pooky' house. It was too 'pooky' and 'cary.'" He has a bit of a hard time pronouncing to consonants together at the start of a word. But I'm glad, but a "pooky house" sure does make me giggle.

Taryn has some more pictures on her blog. Many thanks to them for letting us join in the fun! When we came back home, I'm not sure if anyone had come by our house and taken some candy from the bowl we left by the door. It's probably good that we didn't stay!

FrankenChildren

I think I would make a terrible chld photographer. Or maybe it's just my children. They will not smile for me.

Their Nana sent them adorable shirts for Halloween. Despite the Post Office's best efforts to conspire and ensure that we did not receive them, we finally got them a few days ago...just in time! We joined some friends at the aquarium this morning to catch the decorated "Scary'um Aquarium" before the end of the month (and say goodbye to the penguins that are leaving in a few days too). The weather finally turned a bit cooler, so I figured it was a perfect time for their new shirts. Now if only I could get a great picture to show Nana...

"Boys, look at Mommy! Smile for me please!"

(the shirts say "FrankenThomas" and "FrankenParker")

"Seriously boys. Look at the bird on mommy's nose! Look, please! Smile!!!!!"


How about in front of those penguins?


Or not. A little bit better luck with just one at a time...


I finally had to throw in the towel. These children have proven themselves over and over the masters of this little game.


At least the boys had fun.


And they enjoyed the Halloween decorations, like this spooky tunnel...


...which is much less spooky when seen through the lens of a flashing camera!


And after two hours there, they still had enough energy to chase birds on the way out.


FrankenChildren, indeed.

Chaotic rewards

Last night, Thomas' soccer team (seven children ages 4-5) and their families all gathered at a local restaurant (the team sponsor) to receive trophies and have dinner. This picture just about sums it up (it was taken at the end of the night, but it represents well the whole evening):


Seriously. How funny is that? In that picture are the seven team members and two 2-year old siblings. There were also two one-year olds in attendance, one eight month old and one older child. So yeah...13 children and 14 adults. At least we had them outnumbered. Though it sure didn't seem like it. :)

Anyway, Thomas (and his teammates) were most happy to receive their trophies:


That's Thomas and two of his best friends from school.

And Parker just thought the whole thing was cool...


I'm not sure if we, the adults, were happier for us to get out of there, or the people at the restaurant were for us to leave!

Halloween Carnival (times two)

Today the boys both enjoyed the Halloween carnival and individual class parties at their school.  Many thanks to Trey for coming and helping since I was going to have a really hard time being in two places at once and I didn't want either child being neglected!  They have been looking forward to today all week and were very excited to go to school.

Thomas got to wear his costume and Parker (and all twos) wore his class t-shirt.  He didn't seem to mind that he couldn't wear his costume, thankfully.


Trey came and took Parker to his carnival and I joined them after dropping off cupcakes in Thomas' class.


Parker enjoyed all of the games, but mostly wanted to play with all of his prizes!


He made some of the games a little bit easier for himself.  He had more success throwing the bean bags from one inch away, not four feet.  :)


He had success throwing the velcro ghost...




He didn't end up keeping this prize, but I'm glad I got a picture of it.  Too funny!


I think he settled on a magnifying glass from the treasure chest of prizes...


Then the kids headed to the playground until it was time for their party.  There was swingin'...


Drivin'...


And lots of playing until it was time to line up and go inside...


After two years of watching from the sidelines at Thomas' class parties, I think Parker was most happy to finally have his turn to sit at the table!


Then it was time for me to leave Parker with his classmates and head over to join Thomas' party...already in progress with a fun scavenger hunt.


I actually had to bypass watching that fun and help set up for the party.  The parents had gathered together quite a feast!


Thomas was hot from being outside (nearly 90 degrees on October 28 is just wrong, wrong, wrong!), so he wouldn't look at me or eat much...but here's the best I could get of his party...


Here's Thomas at the carnival with two of his best buds...


Thomas was happy with his eyewear prize (perhaps not quite as cute as Parker's find)...


He intently looked for a whistle in the treasure box.  Just what we need around the house...another whistle.


Then it was on to more games...


I suppose I should have told him to go to the devil side...


Back in the classroom, he tried on his buddy's astronaut helmet...


And posed for a picture with "Princess Jasmine."  This is a friend who was in his gymnastics class last year and he frequently talked about her.  He was so happy when he found out she'd be in his class this year!  :)


Most of the children left early for the day with their parents, but some either stay the whole day, or like Thomas, stay for longer than usual on Thursdays (Thomas hs his "Ready Hands" (occupational therapy in a fun atmosphere) class and stays for lunch and a little extra playing).  So we got them to change into something more comfortable and one of the other moms ("Jasmine's" mom)  read the children an interactive (dancing) story.  They were hanging on her every word.  Too cute.


And then I left and went to pick up Parker (who was at that point, one of only two children left in his class (everyone else left early with a parent).  He didn't seem to mind.  He had a fun day.

Speaking of fun, I snapped a quick pic of the measuring tape in Thomas' class.  It shows how tall he was on the first day of school (and the same of his classmates).  His teacher wrote down two "Thomas M."'s, but I am sure that one is actually our Thomas.  As such, he's tied with two other children as the second tallest in his class (the tallest is a little girl!).  Anyway, thought that was cute.

Mama said...

Did Mama say there would be days like this? Days where your children behaved so poorly in a store that you would have to give up almost all the reasons you went there (except for the bare necessities) and get out of dodge before people ask you to leave? :) I'm sure she did.

Yesterday morning, Thomas was in school and I usually make grocery trips with just Parker, because Habitat for Humanity decided to stand me up on our date for them to come pick up our old couch, I didn't get to finish my errands before Thomas got out of school. This meant I had to take both boys. And it was not pretty.

We had only been there a few minutes and I was quietly looking through a few coupons and deciding my strategy when Thomas started wailing. He seemed extremely hurt and upset. He finally managed to tell me that Parker bit him on the back. Parker was so upset that he had hurt his brother (and that he was in trouble for it) that he started crying too. People quickly started to stare, I had to pull Thomas out and hold him...and it just kept getting worse. And then I saw Thomas' back:

THe worst of it was left by his top teeth...you can faintly see a reddish mark were his bottom teeth were below and to the left. And a little closer...


No wonder he was so upset! I got the two things we had to have and after stopping to get a cookie for Thomas (and not for Parker...which of course caused more tears) we got out of there and headed home. My apolgies to all of the ears that were damaged yesterday by the cries of my children at Publix. :) How I managed to keep my cool and save my fussing for the car I will never know. Thank God for granting me patience when I needed it most.

First season comes to an end

On Saturday, Thomas had his last soccer game of the season.  I didn't take enough pictures, mostly because I was sitting in awe of how quickly and suddenly Thomas improved his game!  He did so great!  He didn't score any goals (only one child did on his team), but he played terrific defense and kicked the ball almost all the way down the field on two or three occasions. 







The first few games, he just played silly the whole game.  He'd run silly, he would sit and chew on his shirt and fall on the ground all the time just for fun.  Then he went a few games where he seemed afraid to kick the ball.  He would get nervous, it seemed, when all of the kids were around the ball at once and he never would try to kick it.  And then there was Saturday.  He wasn't kicking the ball for the first quarter, but then something clicked and he was pursuing the ball, kicking it and taking it away from the opponent and he was really trying hard.  I was so proud of him!  And he was so proud of himself. 

Sure, he still had his moments of silliness, but those were only when he was on the bench...


I wish there were more games to play so he could keep improving, but I guess we'll have to wait untl the next season rolls around.  And we'll see...we probably will try a new sport in the meantime!  He was so sad that this was ending.

Since Thomas (and at least one of his other teammates) were out of town on picture day, we tried to take a team picture.











 

I cannot say enough how proud I was of Thomas for the improvement he showed over the course of the season!  It was amazing to see...and I know it was in large part to their wonderful coach (one of his friend's Dad).  He was so patient with them and so incredibly encouraging.  He was exactly what Thomas needed for his first foray into the world of sports! 

I'm not sure if soccer is going to be THomas' game, but he had fun, and that's what matters most!