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.