Field Trip and Fall Festival

Last week, Emily's school had special activities going on all week.  So she wore red on Monday, crazy socks on Tuesday, red white and blue on Wed, they went on a field trip on Thursday, and Friday was pajama day.  Here is Emily in her crazy socks:

 

We also had her friend Ashlyn over to play on Tuesday.  Ashlyn rode the bus home with Emily:

 

On Thursday Joe went as a chaperone on the kindergarten field trip.  They rode the bus to a pumpkin patch:

 They went on a hayride, watched a pig race, played in a jump house, fed some animals, and had a picnic lunch:

 

 

On Saturday afternoon we went to Abigail's school's Fall Festival. This is the 3rd year we have attended this festival.  The first time we went Emily was 21 months old! The girls dressed up:

 

They had a hayride:

 And games for the kids to play.  After each game they could get some candy:

 

 

 After they came off of their sugar high we got ready for bed and the girls played with one of Abigail's birthday presents:

 

 It was a very busy and fun week!

Birthday Party

On Sunday afternoon we celebrated Abigail's birthday and Mom's birthday:

 

Sam couldn't be there because he was at a baseball game:

 Mom and Dad got Emily a little present as well:

 

We also gave mom some gifts for her birthday:

 

Then we enjoyed some of Abigail's cake.  My parents' neighbor makes cakes so she made this one for Abigail:

 

Then we drove to Opelika to visit Joe's mom for a bit.  She had special Halloween suckers for the girls which they loved:

 She gave Abigail some birthday money so yesterday afternoon we went to the store and Abigail picked out a pony and a small baby doll with her money:

 After a busy weekend on the road it sure was hard getting up Monday morning for school:

Family Reunion

This weekend we had my mom's family reunion in Montgomery.  I went to this 2 years ago in Mississippi but this time the whole gang came to Montgomery since my dad can't travel.  We spent the day together at my parent's church fellowship hall.  It was a great day.

 

The kids had fun playing outside on their skooters and inside with board games.  The adults watched football, played cards, or dominoes:

 

There were 7 in the group that had October birthdays so we all sang Happy Birthday to them and had cake:

 

Mom and her 2 brothers:

10 grandchildren.  5 are Uncle Darrell's, 2 are Uncle David's, and 3 are my mom's children:

There are 21 great grandchildren.  2 are missing from the picture this year:

We wanted to get a picture of all the spouses added as well but after these pictures everyone was done : )

After dinner and cleaning up everyone went back to their hotels and headed home Sunday morning.  The girls enjoyed dress up with Sarah before bed:

Emily

Emily has had some fun activities at school lately.  Last Friday I was scheduled to read a book in her class so I went a little early and helped her pick out some books to buy at the book fair and then had lunch with her:

After lunch I walked with her to her classroom and read 2 books.  My gut told me to just read 1 but I wasn't sure what other parents had done and the teacher said to read 1 or 2 so I went with 2 . . . big mistake!  Emily sat next to me and I read Fancy Nancy to everyone.  The kids enjoyed that book.  Not too many words on each page so it kept them engaged because they had new pages to look at quickly.  The 2nd book was Beauty and the Beast and Emily had grabbed it on the way out the door that morning and said, "Mom read this one".  This story had too many words on each page so the kids were looking at one picture too long.  About halfway thru the book, Emily walked back to her desk and started going thru the book she had purchased at the book fair earlier.  Most of the kids started laying the heads down or working on other stuff.  I stared skipping sentences to get thru the book faster : )  So lesson learned.  On the way out I said "Bye Emily."  She didn't even look up at me.  I walked over to her desk and gave her a hug and she never glanced my way : (  I was so excited about going to read in her class and be a participating parent and it got deflated for me a little.  I did learn better for next time though!

Yesterday was the 50th day of school so all the kindergartners wore 50s attire:

Her class with the principal and her teacher:

Emily also got her first report card home on Wednesday.  She is at grade level and had either "progressing" or "meets standards" on everything she was tested on.  So we are very proud and glad that she is doing well.  There were a few site words she didn't know fast enough and the sheet said she didn't know all of her address so those are some things we can work on!

Princess Show

This past Sunday afternoon we went to see Disney on Ice.  I was proud of the seats we had.  It was hard figuring out online how to get a good price on tickets and not sit in the nose bleed section.  I think we did pretty good:

 They had Mickey and Minnie come out at the beginning and sing and skate and then they had different princess stories.  First was Ariel:

 Then Repunzel:

 Then they had an intermission.  This was where it got hairy for us.  I didn't bring in any snacks because I knew they would check our bags.  We loaded them up on snacks on the way to the show and told them that we weren't going to buy food inside the show because it was too expensive.  "OK Mom."  All that went out the window during intermission.  Emily was begging for food and saying she was "STARVING".  I reminded her that we had snacks in the car after the show and she was not in fact going to die.  At one point she turned and looked at the little girls behind us and said, "Mom, they are laughing and dancing around because they have food to eat."  Crazy nut!  We didn't cave on the buying of the food though.  But it did make for a LONG 20 minute intermission listening to their pleas for food.

After the intermission they had Brave:

 Then Belle

 Then a final song where everyone came out together:

 

I enjoyed the show.  And the girls did too.  It was a little long for Abigail.  She enjoyed the first half but the second half she went back and forth between Joe and me and sat in our laps and sucked her thumb.  And hopefully the next time we do something like this, Emily will grasp the concept of why we didn't buy overpriced food . . .  and maybe I'll sneak some crackers in my pocket : )