Jack-o-lanterns

We bought these color color-changing lights to put in the pumpkins this year. It's a really neat effect! (And in case you are wondering, the one with the lightning bolt scar is actually Ruby's pumpkin, not Keithen's! Jack-o-lanterns L to R - Matt, Keithen, Ruby, Kaylee, Carissa)

More hardware

Keithen with his coach at the pizza party.

Matching hardware.

Trophy #11 on his shelf.

These boots are made for walking.....

Ruby got these black boots a while back to wear as part of her Hannah Montana Halloween costume. She loves them and wants to wear them basically all the time. Reminded me of myself with my cowgirl boots around the same age. :-) I had to go download an MP3 of Nancy Sinatra singing "These Boots are Made for Walking" for her today. (Because of course that's what *I* danced to in *MY* boots when I was her age!)

Sparkling Red Ruby

When Ruby saw this dress today she just had to have it. It is so very much her! Very sparkly and fancy. This will be her Christmas dress this year. I've always wanted to buy one of the girls those "ruby red slippers" too. :-) She can't wait for Miss Johanna (ballet teacher) to see her new shoes.

She wants to wear the dress to go see So You Think You Can Dance when they come to town too. I tried to tell her that people probably won't be quite that dressed up, but she is determined. She also says she wants to make a sign for Lacey when we go to see the show. I guess we'll have to work on that next week.

Sweet Kaylee

Pumpkin patch

The night we reserved for our trip to the pumpkin patch turned out to be a rainy one. We came home with 5 pumpkins weighing a total of 63 pounds, but didn't get to do the wagon ride and such this year. (Kaylee and Ruby put together only outweighed the pumpkins by about 15 lbs.)




Kaylee in her new pink skirt, ready to go back to school. I wish she wasn't standing on one leg in the bottom one as it's a nice shot of her smile. Oh well.....I guess it looks more like her that way, huh? (Reminds me of our wedding pictures with the one-legged flower girl in them, LOL!)

Soccer Tourney

Thank goodness for the wonderful weather over the weekend because Saturday was an all day soccer day for us. The wind was a little cool when we first hit the field, but after that died down the sunshine was wonderful. Ruby played one game Saturday morning. Her team got their trophies after the game. Keithen's team played 3 games in a tourney. They tied their first game, won the second game and lost the third one. I think they were basically exhausted by the time the third game came around. They will get their trophies later this week at a pizza party.

Keithen coming in to block another player.

Run Ruby run!

The girl with her SERIOUS new hardware. That thing is HEAVY. It's the kind of thing that gets dusted for prints and then booked into evidence in a soap opera.

Robots

We finally got to go see the Robots exhibit at The Children's Museum this week.

They all three liked the remote contoled robots that you could play with. I think the raptor one was the favorite.

Keithen and I enjoyed playing with the light sensitive ones. I thought the ant colony was really interesting too. (Yes, there is an ant colony in the Robots exhibit.)


And of course we always have to visit the dinosaur nests and the merry go round before we go home.

Gymnastics

Ruby had her final gymnastics class today where the family got to go in and watch. Grandma Dollar, Daddy and I went along with Keithen and Kaylee. Ruby was as cute as can be in a new fuzzy blue leotard that we found her at the Oaklandon Sale this last weekend. She has really enjoyed this class and I'm sure we'll sign her up for it again the next time registration comes around. She did really well and you can tell that she's getting very strong.

Stretching and listening to her teacher.

Tuck jumps.

Handstand - she actually held it up there with her legs fairly straight for a couple of seconds.

Cartwheel - I could NEVER master these myself. She's doing pretty well for a 4 year old!

Springboard - I love this action shot of her airborne with the hair flying!

On the barre. Miss Joan let go of her and she did her flip around it almost unassisted.

And with her certificate at the end of class. Hopefully she won't forget everything before I can get her into another one when winter registration opens up.

Fall Vacation - week 2

We had a little time at the park to play after one of Ruby's classes. We met up with some of Kaylee's school friends to play at the school playground one afternoon. Kaylee got to go spend the afternoon at her friend Tori's house for the first time. They got along great.


We had 3 soccer practices during the week. On Wednesday and Thursday the grown ups (and little siblings) played against Keithen's team. That was a lot of fun! (And I actually scored two goals on Thursday!) Matt and I were feeling quite OLD after Wednesday night's scrimmage! Keithen and Ruby both had games over the weekend. Ruby scored 2 goals, one of which was a complete run-away with no one near her! Keithen's team tied.


Kaylee and I went to the Oaklandon Community Sale. We came home with 42 clothing items (including a couple of fancy dresses for the girls, some great name brand clothes for Keithen and a shirt with the store tags still on it) that were in great shape and 3 toys for only $103.15. What a haul! Saturday night Keithen went to a friend's birthday party and the girls stayed with their cousins while Matt and I saw a movie. Sunday night we made potato soup and played Keithen's new Harry Potter board game.

Keithen and Kaylee both had eye doctor appointments last week too. We saw a new doctor in the practice since our old one is no longer seeing patients. I really liked the new doc even better than our old one. He was much more personable and interacted better with the kids. (He has a kid of his own in KG.) He said that we will be very gradually phasing Kaylee out of her bifocals over the next 4-5 years and she should not need bifocal lenses by the time she starts middle school. Keithen's prescription had changed a bit so he got new glasses. (His old frames were badly wounded and I couldn't just get the lenses changed out this time.) The lady at the eyeglass place tried to show him oval frames and tell him they looked like Harry Potter's glasses. I think she was offended when I asked her if she knew what HP's glasses look like as she pretty much walked off and left us to our own devices after that. I hope she didn't get a commission off of us as she wasn't very helpful. Since they had no round frames that would fit his face, Keithen switched to some new funky glasses that come with magnetic sunglasses to go over them. They took a little getting used to after over 3 years in round frames, but I really think the shape flatters him and they make his eyes look so nice.

Felt art, library, soccer.....what a week.

The kids spent some time coloring some felt Halloween pictures this week.

Ruby had two classes at the park early in the week. After one of those we played at the park and after the other we went shopping for Alexi's birthday present and had lunch at Chick-fil-a.

We made a trip to the library and got a huge stack of books. I think Keithen finished two of them within a day.

Friday we looked around at Halloween costumes trying to get Keithen some ideas for what he wants to be. Hopefully he'll decide soon so we can get a costume and be done with it. We decided that we're putting a ton of those glow bracelets that Target has in the Dollar Spot right now into our cauldron for Halloween treats this year along with the candy. (They have tubes of 15 bracelets for $1.00 so I got several packages.)

We've had lots of soccer practices and games this week. Keithen's team lost for only the second time this season. It was so darned hot today that I think they just gave up. There coach wasn't too pleased so I expect practice this next week to be pretty tough. On Wednesday night we went out to dinner at Dairy Queen after soccer.

ISTEP testing moves to spring in 09-08 school year

Next year they will finally move the ISTEP test to the spring so that students will be tested on what they have learned in the current school year instead of the past school year. IMO, this should make the test results much more useful. And hopefully it will do away with some of the "cramming for the test" that happens in the first quarter of the school year now.

Unfortunately, it does mean that next year students will have to take ISTEP twice. Once in the fall to cover what they learned in the past school year and then again in the spring to cover what they've learned in the current year.

Dim (dumb?) bulbs!

Three dim little bulbs made a dumb choice today. I was cooking a pizza, so I assumed the burning smell was from the gunk in the bottom of the oven that needed cleaned out. But it didn't go away after the pizza was done and the fan had been run. I started sniffing it out. Three little dim bulbs decided that they liked the way the lights in the girls' room looked with half of a blue plastic egg balanced on top of the light bulbs. UGH! Thank goodness I found it before anything was totally ruined or a fire started. Hopefully I put the fear of God (and electricity) into their little hearts.

Fun at the park

The first leaf pile of the fall!

Our time at the park this week had the added bonus of running into some old friends! Hopefully we'll see you and your kiddos again next week.