Josie, Kitty and Cleo

HALLOWEEN on a Saturday is the best! I have to say that it was a rockin' holiday this year since it fell on a weekend AND daylight savings time began. The day started out with M loosing her top front tooth, pulled out by K. She was thrilled! My girls had many activities and went in many different directions. We did carve one of two pumpkins because one (my favorite) went south prior to carving. There were parties all day and into late that night. We had neighborhood parties with M., teen gatherings and drop offs at haunted houses for L. (thus no photos) and then a costume "juniors only" party for K. I did not ever cook- but was invited for a chili dinner with neighbors, which was delicious! Two out of three spent the night at home each with a guest and the third was at a sleepover. Even the rain held off until after the trick-or-treating! Halloween rocked this year!

most boring field trip EVER!

Yesterday I accompanied my youngest on the worst field trip I have ever been on. Okay this is with number 3 so I have been on LOTS of field trips. The day did not start well because M was having a melt down before school- did not like clothes, breakfast, lunch choices, you name it she did not like it! She finally shouted that she did not want me to go. That was my out, if I had only known!! Well I showed up at the school by 8:25am. Did ride with 5 other moms (who also discovered that this field trip was terrible). The ride to and fro was by far the best part except for the 30 minutes of mining for "gems". We arrive at a "faux" castle in town (used to house a steam engine in late 1800s to crush rocks looking for gold) to tour the rock quarry. This ended up being a drive by, watching the dump truck and conveyor belts drop rocks, smash rocks into gravel and then dump if somewhere else. We then walked to a tent with the largest chandelier(yea, right) where they host wedding receptions. Then we walked to mining section to get a bucket of dirt and see if it had jewels in it. The buckets ranged from $5 to $100. We got the $5 buckets, dumped the sand into a tray and washed it through water. (THIS WAS THE BEST PART OF THE WHOLE DAY). After mining, we got to watch a 45 minute promo video for this "castle" as your destination for Oktoberfest (they even mentioned the beer), medieval feasts, proms and weddings. These first graders were all enthralled-NOT! The topper was a picnic lunch in a field that was swarming with bees. We ate in less than 5 minutes and 2 kids were stung. Before leaving the kids each got a silver coin to trade in for something on the .99 table. Oh boy! M choose a blue polished rock, which she lost before getting it home 1 hour later. OMG! I got home at 2pm. What a complete waste of time!

Boo Fest

Every year my husband's office has a halloween party for the kids. They go all out and have TONS of candy, games, prizes and lots of food! Thankfully they started having "dinner" food as well as the fun halloween desserts. So my kids have always looked forward to this event. Well this year only my youngest was excited! My oldest had to work and I drug my middle daughter (costumeless and cranky, texting her friends every second) with the promise of dinner -Chick Filet and pizza. So M dressed as a witch, complete with a sparkly broom, spider ring, big black earrings and a costume trimmed with a black boa. She had a ball, especially at the limbo and the mummy contest in which her friend, Hannah Montana, wrapped her in toilet paper! We brought home a huge bag of candy. And we ate it all!

Boo at the Zoo

Yesterday our family (minus the 2 big girls) headed to the zoo because my youngest claims to have never been to the zoo before. I did point out that she had in fact gone when she was almost 1. M says she has no memory of that so it doesn't count. SO we wake up early and head to the zoo- but not just any day at the zoo-it was "Boo at the Zoo". Got breakfast to go at Duncan Doughnuts then hit the highway. About 30 minutes later we were THERE! Kids were pouring in wearing their halloween costumes. Not us. I did not think it would be fun to try to walk all day in a thin witch costume as it was 60 degrees. Also we could not stay until the costume contest. M was not phased by this and just excited to FINALLY be at the zoo. (See why she is our current favorite!) But we did play lots of games that were run by college students, saw a fabulous magician and won lots of rubber fangs, candy, stickers and animal trading cards. And we saw all the animals! My daughter loved the sea lions and harbor seals. The polar bear was just curled up asleep and not very interesting which was disappointing. But we moved on to "Africa" to see flamingos (who get their pink color from eating shrimp), lions, zebras, elephants, rhinos and giraffe! We ended up spending about 3 hours walking around and M was thrilled and thought it was the "best day ever!" A good day all the way around!

Children of the Corn(maze)

We had big plans to go to a corn maze today! Got up and it looked like rain but wasn't raining. Good so far. As we got ready to head out the bottom dropped. So we looked at the hour by hour forcast and found a window of only 10-20% chance of rain at 12 pm. We were taking my youngest M and her friend. As we drove to the maze it was sprinkling but not bad. We arrived, parked, paid our $24 and ventured into the maze. It was shaped like a rooster with a bridge in the middle. They said it should take between 30 and 45 minutes to complete. The girls were very excited and took turns deciding if we were to go left or right of the paths. We found corn (duh!), slugs, lots of mud puddles, the bridge (3 times!) and the exit after only 1 hour and 15 minutes! It was fun and the rain held off until we were going back to the car. Thanks so much!!! After we got out of the maze there was a silo filled with corn kernels for the kids to play in. That really was fun! They had a ball making corn angels, singing goofy songs while inserting the word corn and generally wallowing around in kernels (think ball pit except with corn). So we had a great Saturday adventure then went to a local drug store with a lunch counter and had a yummy lunch!

Doughnuts for Dad

M has been waiting all month for "doughnuts for dad" at her school. It is a quick gathering before school starts that lets the dads meet other dads and hang with their kids, meet the teachers, etc... She was up early and excited about taking her dad this morning! I got a call about 8:10 am from my husband saying it had been a huge success! M was thrilled and a bit wired, he said, after 3 doughnuts in 20 minutes. Then he just walked her to her classroom and went to work. Good morning for us all! (See why we she is our favorite!?) P.S. Muffins for Moms is in the spring.

Girl Scouts Rock

Okay, I am a Girl Scout leader for 3 troops-one for each of my girls. Sometimes I love this job and sometimes not so much! This will be a big year for my two older girls because my oldest, K, will be completing her Gold Award (if I don't kill her first) and my middle, L, will be completing her Silver Award (OMG! we may both quit after this!). And my Daisy troop is just having fun, making new friends and gardening. So this week in my middle daughter's troop, all 12 girls, were presenting an issue/concern to our school board chairman. We had been practicing, trying to get the concerns more broad, instead of "I hate my math teacher" and trying to eliminate all the "like" and "yeah" and "um". Well on Thursday they did it! And they did it well! I was so impressed! The school board chairman was also impressed and addressed each girls' concern thoughtfully. Girl Scouts Rock!