Ready for Christmas?

Since Mac knows how to read and write, she is all about making her Christmas list.  We received the Toys-r-Us catalog a week or two ago and each day after school she pulls it out and looks over what she wants to put on her list.  Since her birthday is at that time too - - - the list is extra long.  She cracks me up when I watch her, because she is justifying WHY she wants/needs each item and for which occasion - birthday or Christmas.  She had a day off of school when I didn't, so she got to spend the day at Grandma and Grandpa's where she got to make chocolate chip cookies with Grandma.  Her first year of school is off to a great start.

Mac writes down the toys she wants on her "whish list"

Here is the "wish list" - going to take some decoding to figure out where each item is on this sheet.  Everything runs together.

Baking with Grandma on a day off of school

 

Halloween

Our town does trick-or-treating the Sunday prior to Halloween.  It was a sunny yet chilly day.  We asked my sister and her family to come up to join us.  So we made a fiest out of it ... enchiladas, fajitas, and all the fixings.  We started off taking the kiddos out - bundled up - and trick-or-treated up and down the streets in my neighborhood.  We finally retired and Mac and Max decided they really wanted to hand out candy at our front door.  They only had the door slam on two or three kids as they argued over who was getting candy - HA! Here are a few photos before we went out.

Max the conductor and Josie a large bumble bee

Max, Mackenzie (swapped bee costume to be a warmer strawberry instead), Josie and Lauren a butterfly

Mac and Lo

Look at this cutie!

Kindergarten Fall Festival

I volunteered to help out with the Kindergarten Fall Festival (a.k.a. Halloween Party).  Her school did this on the Friday prior to Halloween.  What a great idea to end the week with a party.  It was a lot of fun and interesting to see who all these kids were that Mackenzie talks about at home.  Here are some photos from that.  Starting with the parade.

The full day Kindergarten class at Park School

Full day Kindergarten with teachers and program assistants (two on left are TA's and the two on right are teachers)

 

Mackenzie the bumble bee in the school parade

 

Mackenzie and her friend Tina matched the teachers that day, so they took a Buzzing Bee photo.  The teachers are Miss Canker (the morning teacher next door), Mrs. Ewen (Mac's all day teacher), and Miss Yun (soon to be the maternity sub for Mrs. Ewen).

Mackenzie's group played Bingo first.  Her group was Michael, Even P., Mac, Cami, and Mason.

We then moved on to play Bozo buckets with mini pumpkins

Mac did actually pretty good ... made 3 of the 5 buckets.

Pin the nose on the pumpkin

Mackenzie's nose was pretty perfect on the pumpkin ... cheater!

Before we left we took a "family" photo.  Our neighbor Olivia is in 7th grade and she was a student volunteer for the class party.  Lauren was so excited that "Viva" got to be with her during the party.

Jake Clement and Mackenzie - - - Jake's mom teaches at Fremd with me.  Mac and Jake were at Fremd's preschool together and now they are in Kindergarten together.  Future Homecoming King and Queen at GCHS.

 

Injuries and illnesses - yuck!

In the beginning of September, all the craziness began.  We had school, dance, cheerleading, and loads of other things to do each day.  One day after school Lauren and Mac went out to play on the swingset and BOOM ... Lauren pushed the double swing forward and didn't move when it came back at her.  Resulting in a really nice shiner.

Lauren's first shiner

Then later that same week, while at the sitter's house, she missed a step or two while going to play in her basement.  She cried when it happened but then seemed fine.  My sitter put her down for a nap and when she woke up ... she couldn't walk on her right leg.  It was really swollen later that day so we had to wrap it up.  Here is that photo.

Lauren's sprained ankle

We realized that it wasn't broken and just really sore.  We couldn't take her to the doctor, since she alread had a black eye from earlier in the week ... probably would have been taken away in cuffs and the kids would be taken by DCFS.  That was a fabulous week of injuries.

Thinking we were free of crazy messes ... I get a call while in a meeting one afternoon from my sitter that Lauren probably has pink eye.  She woke up from her nap with a crusty/pink eye.  Sure enough, I get to the sitter's house and her one eye was so swollen and completely disgusting.  Got her right in to the doctor and picked up drops.  She actually liked putting them in and did awesome!  Here is what she looked like on the way to the doctor's office.

Lauren's left eye - super swollen and pink

From the pink eye she then moved into a great head cold with a really ugly cough, Mackenzie got the fever/chills and then I got a sinus infection, sore throat, cough and laryngitis.  We are hoping that this was it ... all germs and sickness hit us and will be gone for good.