Halloween

This year, we had a princess and an Indian join us for Halloween! (native American? American Indian? not sure what is PC for this costume!) Kaitlyn was quite certain that she was going to be a princess this year, but it was a toss up between Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty for a while. We finally settled on the latter (which thrilled me because it was the princess costume with the least amount of glitter on it--do you know how hard it is to get that stuff out of your carpets?!??!?!)

Ethan could care less what his costume was, and he was happy to wear whatever costume I could find for cheap at the consignment sale :) I'm guessing this may have been the last year that I'm able to get away with that!

The kids had Halloween parties at their school. There were 4 Spidermans in her class! Guess that's one popular superhero! The kids went "trick-or-treating" in Miss Pat's office and upstairs in the church offices. Then they came back down to their rooms to decorate cookies, eat snacks and play games.

Here's Kaitlyn decorating her cookie.

Parents are asked not to come to the 2-year-old Halloween party because it's so hard for the little ones to say goodbye to mommy after a party. But since I was there for Kaitlyn's party, I got to get a sneak-peek at Ethan when his class did their costume parade through her classroom.

A couple of days later, our church had their annual trunk-or-treat. I have never seen so many adorable little costumed kids in one place! Kaitlyn and Ethan could barely carry their pumpkins full of candy by the time they were done.

And these next two pictures have absolutely nothing to do with Halloween. But they were taken on the same weekend, so therefore they are being put in the Halloween post. The John Tune airport had another fly-in, so we went with the kids. We've been to several of these fly-ins now, and we've noticed that each one seems to get better and better. This time, there was a real helicopter and an open-air biplane that the kids could climb in and pretend to fly. And on top of seeing all the pilots arriving for the event in their planes, we got an up-close-and-personal view of a helicopter taking off and landing. Needless to say, the kids (and Jeff!) were enthralled!

First and Last

Our church family said goodbye to a precious place last month. Our congregation moved to a new building a few years ago, but the church preschool/kindergarten has remained at the old site while we built an addition to the new building. The new addition is now complete, so the school moved into the new digs over fall break. The Otter Creek school has been around for 50+ years, so it's hard to say goodbye to such a treasured history in a building. Many children have traveled up these steps and through the fabled red door. I had to snap a picture of Kaitlyn as she walked up the steps for the last time.

And I'm so glad that Ethan had the chance to start at the old building this year. At least he, too, will have a little bit of history at that place. His classroom door is the one with the smiley face :)

Of course, the new school building is incredible and more well-suited to the kids' needs. And it's nice to have the school be back together with the rest of the church. We're looking forward to making more memories there!

The last day at the old building was also the day for Kaitlyn's first field trip. She was beyond excited about going! The only thing that would have made it even better is if she could have ridden on a school bus :) Her class went to Walden Farm in Nolensville, and they got to pick pumpkins, go on a hayride, pet farm animals and run through mazes.

Here's her class posing in front of a wagon.

The crazy face picture...

Kaitlyn with the pumpkins she picked out.

What we've been up to...

We went to the zoo with our friends. I love how Kaitlyn and Hannah insisted on holding hands for a portion of our walk.

The Critter Encounters were a huge hit as always.

The girls liked Stormy the pony.

And so did Ethan!

Normally, we go to Walden Farm every year to enjoy the pumpkin patch and the farm experience. But since Kaitlyn's class was already planning to take a field trip to Walden Farm this year (pictures to follow in another post), we decided to switch things up a bit. So this year we headed to Gentry's farm for our annual pumpkin picking event.

The kids loved the hay ride, complete with a jaunt through the cow pasture where we saw lots of little calves.

And they had fun running through the soybean maze.

Trying to get them both to look at the camera at the same time...

Posing with the pumpkins they selected.

The kids have had tons of fun lately playing "Bear Mountain." This game they created works by piling all of the cushions from both couches into a huge pile in the living room, climbing up on the couch frame and gleefully jumping into the pile of cushions. A twist on Bear Mountain is called Bear Cave (not pictured), where I arrange dining room chairs in front of the cushion-less couch, drape blankets across the chairs and couch frame and create a cozy "cave" inside. If Bear Mountain and Bear Cave are set up at the same time, the kids can be entertained for hours...literally! For this reason, I am a big fan of these games.

Can you see the unbridled joy on their faces??

1, 2, 3, GO! They have so much fun together...

...until they inevitably bump into each other. But they usually recover quickly when I threaten to put away Bear Mountain if they can't get along :)

Other random stuff...

With the weather getting cooler, we've been harvesting the last of our cherry tomato crop. I've only had to pick a handful of tomatoes myself this year because my two helpers love this job.

And here's a picture of Ethan sound asleep. Not even the flash of a camera can wake this kid up when he's zonked out like this! Such a sweet little boy with his bunny rabbit!

More pictures to follow (hopefully!) soon about Kaitlyn's field trip. But seeing how frequently I post, it may wind up being a field trip/Halloween/Thanksgiving post all rolled into one! Ha!

Last Days of Summer

The days are getting shorter, and the weather is finally getting cooler. But before we bring out the fall wardrobe, here are a few pictures of the final lazy days of summer...

The kids love to ride bikes in the cul-de-sac. Ethan is still getting the hang of this pedaling thing, but he's improved a lot since earlier in the summer.

And sometimes after working up a sweat riding bikes, you just need to cool off with a garden hose! As you can see from the pictures below, the kids had a blast getting soaking wet in their clothes. Such a simple thing, but SO many giggles!!

We've been taking advantage of the cooler (but still nice) days to sample some of the wonderful parks around the city. One day, we went to Edwin Warner park to explore the nature center, walk some trails and play in the Nature Play area. Unfortunately, my camera battery died after the first picture, but they loved being outside in God's creation and exploring to their hearts' content. Kaitlyn loved collecting acorns and following the trails by "reading" the signs. Ethan was happy to collect rocks and dig in the big sand pit in the play area. Both were excited about "hiking" since they associate that with something that big people do.

And although I don't have any pictures, today we went to another park and waded in the stream, watched minnows, observed leaves traveling with the current, scooped up handfuls of tiny shell animals and watched them crawl around on shore. Our shoes and clothes were wet and our hands were dirty, and we all had a fabulous time.

We continued an annual tradition again this year...the Lincoln County Fair. We went on the very last day, so most of the animals were already gone. But there were a few horses still around for the kids to pet.

Ethan was able to do all the rides with Kaitlyn this year. And even though they definitely have their bickering moments, they really enjoy being with each other and love having a built-in playmate for everything.

Goodbye, Summer--hello, Fall!

1st Days of School

In August, Kaitlyn started Pre-K and Ethan started his first year of preschool! Ethan has watched Kaitlyn happily jump out of the car to go to preschool for two years now, so he was quite excited when HE was finally able to get out too!

Here they are as they get ready to go to Snoopy Day--a chance to meet their teachers and get a sneak peek into their classrooms before school starts.

After snooping around, they go outside and play for a bit while the parents meet with the teachers. Ethan clearly enjoyed his time there :)

Then came the first real day of school. Both kids were eager to head out the door with their lunchboxes and preschool bags.

I'm trying not to think about the fact that this is Kaitlyn's last year of preschool. Next August, she heads off to "big girl" school for five days each week. How is that possible?!?! Sniff, sniff.

Summer Fun, Part 4

Well I'm really on a roll these days with blog posts. Now that my summer course is over and my conference paper has been submitted, I'm giving myself permission to catch up on all the things I've wanted to do over the past 2 months! But I guess I'm going to have to come up with a more interesting title for my posts--Summer Fun, Part 15 just doesn't have a very catchy ring to it!

Okay, on to our adventures...

Last week, Kaitlyn went to VBS at Brentwood Baptist. I'd heard great things about this program from other Otter Creekers, and there were lots of OCers there--probably because we don't have our own VBS anymore and this is the next best thing! BB sure does know how to put on a VBS. There were over 1400 kids there! Yep, you read that right, 1400+ kids. There were 9 classes just for 4 year olds! So even though there were lots of folks from our church, Kaitlyn only wound up with one OC kid in her class. But she didn't seem to care. I wasn't sure how she would handle being dropped off in a strange building with strange people, so I told her that we would try it one day and if she didn't like it, then we didn't have to go back. When I picked her up at the end of Day 1, the first words out of her mouth were, "Mommy! I had so much fun today! Can we pleeeeeeeease come back tomorrow?" Trying to hide a smile, I said, "Sure, no problem."

The theme this year was Big Apple Adventure: Where Faith and Life Connect, so the decor included typical NYC stuff. I had to document the experience with a cheesy picture in front of the cardboard cab.

While Ethan was too young to go (you have to be 4), he still had lots of fun roaming the halls and stairwells of the building each day. When the heat index is 100+, an enormous, air-conditioned church building with lots of nooks and crannies to explore is the PERFECT place to let an active 2-year-old work off some energy. It made it much easier to run errands with him for the rest of the morning :)

One of the highlights of VBS for Kaitlyn was the music time each day. They had fun, energetic songs for them to sing and dance to, and BB conveniently provided a CD of music that you could listen to at home. And so we listened to those songs all week, over and over and over again. They liked to play the CD at home, get up on their "stage" and sing the songs. Ethan is just too cool for words in this picture.

Earlier this week, we went to the Browns for fun water play in kiddie pools and sprinklers. I didn't take my camera, but my friend Kristen captured these pictures of Kaitlyn and Ethan.

Notice that band-aid that Ethan is sporting on his forehead? Right before we left for the party, Ethan slipped in the bathroom and hit his head on the corner of a wall. It left a little gash in his head. Not deep enough for stitches, but deep enough to make it hard to stop the bleeding. And getting hot, sweaty and wet at a pool party didn't help matters! But they (esp. Kaitlyn) were so excited about going to this party, so I couldn't let a little gash stand in our way!

Last night, we made our annual pilgrimage to downtown Nashville to watch the late summer sunset over our city. We were a little later than normal this year because June was such a busy month. And we were thwarted last weekend by a sudden rain storm. But better late than never. You can read about last year's trek here (as well as see some pics from previous years). And unlike last year, they actually (mostly) cooperated for pictures--no tears shed!

And, TODAY (woohoo! I'm finally caught up with the blog!!) we tried to beat the heat a bit with a wading pool and sprinklers in our backyard. I love the sheer joy pictured on their faces.

Well, that's all for now. It feels good to finally be caught up with something! Thanks for catching up with us!