Pre-school Halloween party

Today, was Beka's Halloween party at school. Oh excuse me "Fall Party", whatever, they all dressed up and got candy. Jared was invited to be an actual participant in the class too. The idea was to bring the kids to school. Then the parents went out to the cars and gave out candy from our trunks....thus it is called trick or trunking. The teachers were super and took Jared along with all the other kids.





After the trick or trunking, we went in and played games and had snack. It was neat and scary to see Jared acting like all the other three-year-olds. He is my baby so I am a little sad to see him fit in so well. But I am also excited that the transition next year won't be too hard. Jared listened to the teachers well and behaved. Beka was a great big sister too. She watched over him and kept him in line.



Lastly, here is a class picture.

Fall Activities

Fall has arrived here. Actually, I think winter has arrived. The kids have worn their heavy coats the last couple of days. Anyway, before that, we were enjoying some lovely fall weather. The leaves have changed color and started falling to the ground. Which meant we had to rake the yard. Luckily, the kids in the neighborhood plus our own wanted to help.



But you can't rake leaves without jumping in them.





I took Beka and Jared to pick out pumpkins the other day. Instead of carving them, we decided to paint them. Beka started out making a face and then just decided to decorate. Jared used the "polluck" method. He took two paintbrushes and just whipped the paint on there.





And I don't know where they got this idea. But suddenly, Beka started doing headstands on the couch and Jared followed.

Florida Vacation - Orlando

During the last few days of our vacation, we went to Orlando. We took the children to Sea World. It was the perfect place to take my two. We visited all the animals in about 4 hours.
One of our first stops was the stingrays and the kids tried to feed them.


The stingrays are kept in the big pool you see above and they just keep swimming around and around.

Then we saw the dolphins. I think those animals were Beka's favorites.


We also saw manatees....



...and sharks.



We made it to two of the shows. We went to the Shamu show and in my opinion it was overrated. There is only so much a killer whale can do. The other show was one with dolphins in it. It was awesome! There were divers, dolphins, and birds. The kids really enjoyed see in all the performers do their tricks.

We spent the next day in the pool at the hotel. The children did fine on the flight back too. When you ask Jared about vacation, his first response: "We flew on a big AIRPLANE!" So I am assuming that was his favorite part. Overall, it was a great time. Jared and Daddy really bonded more while we were there.

This and That

We have been so busy around here. The kids are growing up so much so fast.

Jared is talking almost as much as Beka now. He is still not doing any better about her going to preschool. The whole while she is gone I hear him whine: "I go preschool." "I big boy." I really do wish there was someway to send him too.

Beka is, of course, loving preschool. Surprisingly, she is the most popular girl in class. Everyone wants to play with her. She gets drawings and hugs from the other children before we leave. She is always very gracious about it though. She worried me a little when she came home and told me: "Mason likes my hair in a ponytail so I need to wear it that way." Fortunately, by the next preschool day she had forgotten that. Mason is the only boy in her class.

Andrew and I have been busy too. We are looking at houses. I know it is a surprise. I really never expected to move from where we live now. We have decided though to try to get in a neighborhood that has better schools for the kids. The school district here is changing all the schools into community K-8 schools. This change means that our children would go to a school with very low, below the state average, ISAT scores. I just don't like that idea. We looked into private schools, but they're just way too expensive in Peoria. So, that change has added some stress and taken away some of our time. Hopefully, house hunting will go smoothly.