Fairies and legos

We had another fun Halloween this year. Sloane got really into dressing up and decided to get a Tinkerbell costume. She has had an obsession with "bad ladies" or female Disney villains for awhile. She was obsessed with the idea of these "bad ladies" and always wanted to read books and watch movies with them in it. It was funny but also a little worrisome. Sloane's favorite bad lady was Cruella Deville. So, she was all set to be Cruella for Halloween but out of the blue she developed a fear of all things scary. Now, she wants nothing to do with bad ladies or anything remotely spooky. So, Tinkerbell it was. Finn wanted to be a lego ninja figurine. I found a tutorial of how to make your own lego costume using Styrofoam and duct tape. I thought- oh, cheap and easy. No. hobby stories are running a racket on Styrofoam. It is way more expensive than you might think. And it was way more time consuming than we thought. Rick did most of the work. It turned out so cute. There was one small problem... Finn could barely walk in it. It took him like 10 minutes to go from one house to the next while trick or treating We tried pulling him in the wagon, but I think that was too embarrassing. So, the pieces of the costume started coming off piece by piece. Ugh. At least we got some good photo ops.

1K

Finn participated in another kids 1K this winter. He was joined by his buddy Aidan, and ran the whole time. They even participated in the Zumba warm-up together. Finn's school is starting a running program at school that will have them running the length of a marathon (in a few month's time span.) Finn has come a long way from his running on his heels all the time. Now he is considered one of the fastest runners on his sports teams.

It's that time of year

Finn had another season of football this year and has decided it is his favorite sport. We could see a lot of improvement from last year, and they even won two games (two more than last year!) Finn told everyone that he played white receiver (umm..make that wide receiver Finn, although it is technically accurate). Can't wait for another season, which Finn has decided will be this spring. He has decided against soccer and baseball and decided to focus on football and basketball.

Farewell Big Tex

We made our annual trek to the State Fair this year, right around my Dad's birthday. as always, it was quite the experience. The weather was chilly and misty so the fair was a lot less crowded than it usually is. Finn and rick rode a lot of "big kid" rides that Finn had never experienced before. He loved them. Sloane fell victim to a bad face painting job. She wanted her face painted like a panda, specifically a cute and cuddly one. What she got was a scary, Gothic panda face. It was bad. You know it's disturbing when you are the ones being stared at, at the State Fair. Seriously, there is some good people watching there. Erin and I were all about stuffing our faces on the interesting fair food. Some of the hits- deep fried cake balls and deep fried mashed potatoes. A couple of misses- the Picnic on a stick (still makes me gag to think about it) and the chocolate dipped jalapenos. The Fair is always a good time, and I hope it's always a family tradition. Unfortunately, this would be the last time we would see Big Tex in all of his glory. A week or so later Big Tex fell victim to an electrical fire. So sad!

Cake balls and Deep Fried Taters. Oh Yeah.

Erin experiencing chocolate dipped jalapenos. Dirty!

Finn and Pop Pop.

Creepy Panda girl

Finn's Steven Tyler impersonation

Umm... yeah. Others got their faces painted too.

Johnny Be Good

Every year the first graders at our school celebrate Johnny Appleseed Day. They learn about John Chapman's life, make homemade applesauce, and dress like Johnny Appleseed. He presumably wore a pot on his head and suspenders. Hence, Finn's outfit. He definitely did Johnny justice!

Tree huggers

Rick and Finn's summer project was to build a tree house in the backyard. I have always, always wanted a tree house ever since my childhood obsession with the movie Swiss Family Robinson. Rick felt like every little boy needed a tree house so the building began. Honestly, I had never seen Rick build anything before so my expectations for the tree house were pretty low. It actually turned out pretty great. Rick stained it burnt orange in an homage to the Longhorns and we hung a cow skull and a howdy sign on the door. Finn was hoping to hang a No Girls Allowed sign, but that wouldn't be fair to the little miss.

School is back in session

Wayyyy late on these....but wanted to post some pictures from the kids' first day of school. We were all really sad about summer ending but excited that Finn would get to go see his friends again. Finn was assigned one of the school's sweetest teachers (well, I actually had a little say), but none of his close buddies from last year were in his class. He is still adjusting to not being with his besties, but is making friends in his new class. Sloane fit right in to her new class. She has one of her same teachers and only one of the same classmates. All of her buddies from last year's class moved up to the three year old room. Sloane is now one of the oldest in her classroom and does really well as a leader (of course). Sloane will always do well when she gets to be the boss. Her teachers keep telling me that Sloane is meant to be a big sister and has really shown her compassionate and nurturing side with the younger kids in the class. We will have to see about that...