Time to slow down and catch up!!

I have been very busy would be a simple way to put it. And I have not taken the time to blog....sooooooo Here we go!! You may want to grab a drink and get comfy!

**I did add pictures to Caitlin's 1st field trip below...so check them out!**

OK Lets see...we will go back to Sept.

Grandparents day!
My parents got early and drove 3 hours to come have some homemade muffins with the kids.

A 30 min total in a very crowded cafeteria. They were troopers and the kids loved it! Here are a few pictures. Now if you know my dad...he is very difficult to get a picture of. I ususally do the SUPRISE attack. Have camera ready and yell "DAD" and as he turns the flash goes off. So needless to say they are not the best of pictures. He was on his best behavior this day! Posed for LOTS of pictures and it didn't kill him. But I am sure it stung a bit. :-)

Caitlin with Grammie

The kids with Grammie and Bobo at school

Later we went back up to school and had lunch with Austin. We wanted to give Grammie and Bobo the full effect of spending a day with the kids. Everyone loved it. Especially the kids. They loved having special guests come to school.
Austin went back to class and we took Caitlin home. This is what she did with Bobo the rest of the afternoon.

This is a 1st for her. She has always been slightly shy around my dad. She was teaching him how to play Mario bros. He probably couldn't see the screen, but he sat there for an hour with her as she explained everything. My heart just smiled at this huge break in her defense. When they left that evening..she was hugging him and not wanting to let go. :-D
Of course we picked Austin up from school. He loved having my parents there for that. I was kind of invisible to them that day! :-) We went to dinner once Dan got home from work and they had to leave to drive back. But this is what I snapped at a red light.

He has Caitlin's scout hat on and acting all the part of a 5 yr old. He was completely obnoxious and getting the kids wound up. I guess it shouldn't surprise me. He turned 53 this past month (Oct. 28th) but he is very much a big kid at heart still! And I am glad for that!

OK now my Race for the Cure in Dallas Oct 18th.
Yes I did 2 of them in 2 weeks. A total of 6.5 miles in 2 weeks. Not bad for my out of shape body! I did manage about the same time at both races..so that was good!
This one Dan and the kids got to go too. They didn't complain too much about getting up at 4:45am and heading to Dallas before there was any sign of the sun. Here are a few pictures:



Caitlin would NOT take a picture with Ronald McDonald....she was excited to see him, but didn't want to go near him. She has always had a fear for "humans" with mask or painted faces. BUT she is ok with the stuffed animals dressed ones. Who knows!!


Teacher Birthday's...
yes both Teachers had birthdays 10 days apart. So I planned and gathered money and we did an awesome group gift for both teachers from their classes.

Austin is giving his teacher 'bunny ears'



Red Ribbon week
Which is a week spent to promoting drug awareness to kids and reminding them to JUST SAY NO!! Well Dan and I had a lot of ties with this at the kids school. We hung red crepe paper zig zag down all the halls in the school and placed red bows on every pillar on the outside of the school and a few on our school sign. It was perfect and more like I remember Red Ribbon week being at school when I was a kid. We also created the posters for our kids class. THe kids colored the things I brought in and Dan and I made the posters at home. THey turned out AWESOME!! Here is a picture of both of them.

Kindergarten

2nd grade
We did not win the poster competition. Dan was sad! :-( He truely did a lot of work on these. The tree was all him. I just had the plan and he created it. I lvoe when we work on projects together...even if there is a bit of arguing about the fact that you should measure and calculate before drawing lines :-D. I pulled out the calculator and told him the exact spaces we needed and we had to erase all his lines he already drew. haha

TWILIGHT

OK I am now a Twilight person..hahah I have had a girlfriend trying to talk me into reading these books for a few months. They are 2 inches thick and all I kept thinking is I have NO time to read that. And wasn't sure I would even enjoy reading something about Vampires. Well I was wrong!
I picked up the book the Sunday before Halloween and didn't put it down. Things were slowing down a bit for me...so I figured I could spend a little time reading here and there. Well I didn't anticipate the addiciting nature of these books (there are 4 or them in the series and an unfinished book online...so 4 1/2 books). I finished the 1st book Monday evening and bought the 2nd book, New Moon . I finsihed that one on Wed evening. I bought the 3rd book (Eclipse) and finished it right as everyone was trick or treating. I made a book run Halloween night for the 4th book, Breaking Dawn (purple hair and all..ooo you will see. The last book is the thickest. It is about 3 inches. I was completely absorbed into this series. I was getting sick..so it was good I did very little and just laid around all day. It is a very easy read and a page turner. I finished the last book on Sunday. So I read the entire series in a week! My house showed it. I am still trying to catch up! :-)
Now my girlfriend, Katy who got me addicited, has also talked me into going to the midnight showing when Twilight comes out in thearters on Nov 21st. I have never been to a midnight show..so this will be a new thing for me. Not sure what the hype is about on seeing a movie before anyone else..but I have to do it at least ONCE! :-)

HALLOWEEN
We love Halloween..it is soo much fun to dress up. Caitlin was a Devil Queen (I got it for $4.50..so I can not complain) and Austin was Commander Cody a Storn trooper from Star Wars. I was a diva witch again! I had purple hair. It was fun!





Caitlin thought I needed a little pet, since I was a witch!

And Austin thought I needed protecting from Michael Phelps (one of our teen age neighbors)

neighborhood kids in front of our house!

Now we have Thanksgiving and Christmas a head of us. It will be an even busier time for me. I will be planning 2 class parties, 2 class field trips, Sunday school, and a sunday school program. I am sure there is more I am missing right now. Dan has to work on Thanksgiving this year for a few hours..so no quick trip to OKC to spend with my family, but we will make the most of it here. I think my mom is coming down, since my brother, Ashley, and dad will be gone.
May your Holiday season be filled with all the things that are important to you. Christ, your family, friends and health.

I will try hard to update more often!! ;-)