St. Luke's Christmas Program

 The Sunday before Christmas is the children's Christmas program at St. Luke's.  Izzy was a reader.

 Victoria and the angels.

 Micah and one of the shepherds.

 Victoria and Micah were Mary & Joseph.

 Gabriel and Mary

 Joseph & Mary.. they didn't do too bad being up there by themselves.

 Mary taking care of baby Jesus.  She was totally unaware of accidentally poking Joseph in the eye.  I'm proud of Micah being able to stay up there despite the minor injury. 

Percy is Back!

 December 1st marked the return of our Elf on the Shelf.. Percy.  As his style, some days he was a bit mischievous.

 Elsa wasn't going to stand for his antics... thus he got himself frozen.

 Some days he just enjoyed hanging around.

He has a knack of getting the other toys to come out and play.

 This year Percy tried to make it back to our place in time during a snow storm.  Unfortunately he was injured during the journey.

 He required some R and R at his friend Barbie's house.  Of course Ken was a bit jealous and wanted to keep an eye on Percy.

 Soon Percy was up and about after a short stent in rehab.

Percy showing his love for all the help and support during this difficult time.

Percy was good as new by Christmas Eve and ready to keep watch over Santa's treats.

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.

Halloween Party

 So far it's been a busy fall for us.  John and I wanted to make it even more busier!  We threw a costume party last week.  Each of the kids invited 3 friends.  I've decided that John needs to go into the Event business after this party.  He worked on this for at least a week planning.  The day of, we were both relieved to have 75 degree weather.  That allowed us to ship the kids outside to play while we prepared.  We worked up until the deadline with John finally jumping into the shower at 4:38pm and guests arriving at 5pm.... yikes!  The menu included 3 different poisons for drinks, a vegetable skeleton, mummy meatballs, candy corn cheese quesadillas, sugar cookie bones, jack-o-lantern fruit cups and a dia de los Muertos cake.

 The dynamic duo ready for action! - Batman and Robin

 They won't be able to catch us though! - Harley Quinn, Catwoman & Poison Ivy

Izzy's friend, Michael, and his family dressed up as Dorothy & the wizard of Oz.

 Given the beautiful weather outside, one activity we set up was a relay race.  Two adults were needed to complete teams.  Teammates were to balance a candy corn on a spoon handing it off to the next player.  Obstacles included running around cones, balancing on a beam and catching the candy thrown to them.  The final team member had to run all the way back to the start.  The adults even played once after the kids were done.

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 The relay was then followed by a surprise appearance from Dr. Morgue.  He invited everyone to feel what he brought up from the morgue.

 Body parts included intestines (spaghetti), a heart (skinless tomato), eye balls (skinless grapes) and a brain (brain molded jello).

Lightning kept watch over the body parts during the party.

 Victoria and her girl friends enjoyed playing in her room most of the night.

 Micah and his friends did what boys do... epic sword fights.

 Izzy and her friends stayed outside on the balcony or running up and down in the basement.

 Bobbing for apples.

 The party goers.

 John and Bill won the adult costume contest.  Many of the adults decided not to dress up.  They need to work on channeling their inner child!