Thanksgiving Time

 I have thoroughly enjoyed Izzy's 3rd grade year.  This is in part due to her teacher and her creative teaching style.  One fun Thanksgiving project was to help Tom the turkey hid so he doesn't get eaten.  Izzy wanted Tom to be in a painting like the Mona Lisa.  With that though he ran the risk of being seen.  We opted for abstract art to help him blend in. 

 The 3rd grader's Tom the turkeys!  My two other favorites are the Santa turkey and the turkey in jail.

Izzy's paragraph about what she is thankful for.  Well said.

 As the children spent the actual day of Thanksgiving with their father, John and I celebrated with his mother.  The food was wonderful including my favorite... mashed potatoes and gravy.

I enjoyed Jackie's depression glass table setting.

The weather held out allowing us to covert John's lemonade stand into a cider & cocoa stand.  This was equally as fun as over the summer with lemonade.  They earned $12 in 30 minutes before losing focus.

 Over the weekend we headed to Great Wolf Lodge.  Izzy requested to do the ropes course again.  This time Victoria was brave and joined in.

Micah preferred to play games with John including air hockey.

 The arcade was on everyone's to do list.  This time Victoria hit the jackpot on the same game she did when we visited with Oma & Opa.  What are the chances!

Thanks to Victoria's jackpot, the kids walked away with fun prizes.

Happy Halloween!

Excitement was in the air from the moment all three woke up on Halloween.  This year all three were allowed to dress up for school.  All of 3rd grade was planning a Halloween party starting at 12:30pm till school dismissal.  I know very little learning was going to happen on this day.  Micah & Victoria's teacher requested that their actual Halloween costumes were not worn to school that day.  Instead their class voted to wear a costume from their favorite book.  Micah dressed up a Jay from Nijago.  John suggested that Victoria dress up as Fancy Nancy.  She quickly vetoed that one opting to be a fairy.

For trick-or-treating, we again headed to Brook Street.  This is a crazy three blocks area that is blocked off (love the safety from cars).  You are guaranteed to run into friends at any given moment and see some pretty amazing costumes.  We joined up with Izzy's BFF, Bonnie and her father.  They went as Morticia and Gomez Addams from the Addams Family.  On the way home we trick-or-treated in our neighborhood.  Afterwards, we handed out candy to those who stated our later than us.  All in all we must have had 20-30 trick-or-treaters if not more.  Not too bad this year.

 Boy Wonder seemed to be everywhere!

 Running into our 3rd grade friends.

 Victoria wasn't the only Harley Quinn.  But she was certainly the cutest!

 Even Micah & Victoria ran into several of their Kindergarten friends.  Having them all stand still for a picture was nearly impossible!

 Aside from these costumes, other favorites included two girls who dressed as sushi and a fire breathing Godzilla.

 By the end of the night, sugar driven goofiness was all that was happening on the walk back home.

Our goodies!  This year again Micah decided to stop trick-or-treating before his sisters.  I think the night was over whelming for him.

Fish, Fun & Fright

  To maximize our Halloween fun, we returned a 5th year to the New England Aquarium's Fish, Fun & Fright.  This year we can with no expectations other than having fun.  We entered the costume contest as well.  But alas, we were yet again not chosen.  There however was no disappointment for any of us this year, a sign of maturity.

 The caped crusader and his trusty side kick and the villainesses they chase.

We weren't the only dynamic duo that came!

 Besides trick or treating for candy, there were other Halloween themed activities including coloring with black light crayons (even mommy was ohhing and ahhing) and science experiments.