Happy Birthday

ENDEAVOURS.

And, even should misfortunes come,
-I, here wha sit, hae met wi' some,
An's thankfu' for them yet,
They gie the wit of age to youth;
They let us ken oursel';
They mak' us see the naked truth,
The real guid and ill.
Tho' losses, and crosses,
Be lessons right severe,
There's wit there, ye'll get there,
Ye'll find nae other where.


BURNS

Halloween Night

I took the kids to our ward's trunk-or-treat after dinner. Emily stuck with her sorceress costume while Caitlyn went to plan C, which was the Betsy Ross costume she originally wanted to go to the Halloween party in over the weekend. The only house we stopped by to trick-or-treat was our immediate neighbor's house. Christian stayed home to hand out candy for the handful of kids that might find their way up our street.

There were cars that just handed out candy but there were also lots of them that were set up for carnival type games.

There were several fishing type games, ring toss, an electronic duck shooting game (Caitlyn did extraordinarily well at that one), pumpkin bowling, eating donuts on a string (no hands), tossing bean bags into buckets and other targets. I can't even remember them all.

True to the carnival nature of some of the games, the girls tossed ping pong balls into little cups of water with fish and won some little feeder fishes. Lots of the parents didn't know what to do with them though and they tried to give them away or return them.

Emily and Caitlyn wasn't sure what to do with them either but wanted to keep them. Luckily, we still had an old tank in the garage that I dusted off for their new home.  We'll see if they live or not.

The mean mom that I am, I only let them go to each car once instead of letting them make their rounds through the parking lot over and over like some of their friends until the candy ran out. There was plenty of candy already. There is no reason to get an insane amount. They came home and sorted through their loot to see what they got.

We only got a few more trick-or-treaters when we got home. So, still not a whole lot. We thought there might be more this year since some families moved in at the end of the block, but we got our usual handful and that was it. The girls got to pick one candy each to have that night (plus Christian and I demanded a tribute from each of the girls...which we really didn't need to eat, but it was Halloween, what's a person to do?)

After the girls went to bed, Christian and I donned our Halloween costumes and took a few snapshots for posterity.

I found these Venetian masks at Target and put together some clothing for a masquerade. I actually sewed Christian's cape. I'm not that great at sewing but I figured a costume might be the way to go to practice since it doesn't really need to be perfect and it's worn in the dark anyway. A hooded black cape is versatile and can be used for any number of costumes in the future anyway.

The great thing about these outfits is that masks are not really allowed at most of the functions we go to and so we just wore them on our heads. We were just wearing normal clothes for the most part but we could still say that we are dressed up!

Halloween Day

Emily decided to go as a sorceress to school. Caitlyn went as a witch. Of course, everyone just thought Emily was a witch too. The kids had their usual Halloween party and costume parade around the school in the afternoon.

I liked Caitlyn's party this year. They really didn't do a lot of candy. They had more of an indoor "campout." They made a makeshift fire pit with construction paper. They sat around the campfire and told silly or spooky stories. Each of the kids had worked on writing on story draft this week and they practiced telling the story to their family as part of their homework. Then they took turns telling their stories in class around the campfire. They made star diagrams of the big dipper and put them up on the ceiling so that they could lay back and watch the stars. Then they were supposed to start their party with smores and apple cider. We ended up saving the apple juice for another day though, as we got heaps of juice boxes and things from other parents for the party. Plus they had healthy snacks like cheese sticks and carrots. Of course, they got chips and things too but for the most part, it was not the sugar fest that is normally at these parties.

As I was volunteering in Caitlyn's class, I missed the beginning of Emily's party. But they just passed out goodies and ate them. There was no shortage of sugar flowing at their party though. They tried to introduce something healthy like celery sticks but that didn't go very well. Who would want celery sticks when they had cookies smothered with frosting, chips, juice boxes and handfuls of candy?

The parade itself seemed a bit more chaotic than usual. Most of the little kids didn't even seem as cute as they normally do. Their costumes just aren't as innocent and cute any more. Too many of society's corrupt ideas have influenced even the costumes of the kindergarteners. It's very sad. They did ban the parents from dressing up this year, which I was really happy about, but that didn't really stop a few parents from doing it anyway, and of course, a couple of them could not help showing off their inner skank even at their children's school events. I had to admit though, that it was a little toned down from the previous year. I suppose we have to be happy with what we can get...

Pumpkin Carving

We seemed to be so busy this week, we had to do the pumpkin carving in shifts. One day to design and hallow it out, and another to do the actual carving. And there was a couple of days in between them that we couldn't even work on it. Luckily it didn't start molding or anything meanwhile.

Emily wanted and owl and Caitlyn did a kitty cat head. You can tell that the girls picked out the designs this year. Plus, they managed to do it mostly on their own. Christian helped transfer their designs on their pumpkins and helped cut the tops open. Emily pretty much did the rest herself and Caitlyn needed a little help with the eyes and one of the ears which got  a little tweaked.

We were so busy, that I had kind of thought to just skip it this year, but the girls would have been so disappointed. We managed to get it done eventually though and now we get to enjoy the roasted pumpkin seeds too!

Halloween Party

We went to our friends' annual Halloween party on Saturday. We got to visit with some old friends which is always nice. Christian and I dressed up in Venetian masquerade outfits, but as usual, we didn't seem to ever get a chance to take a picture of us in them.

Emily went as a princess. Caitlyn was going to go as Betsy Ross but at the last minute, ditched it in lieu of a butterfly. I don't know how that happened exactly. We stayed too late and ate too many sweets, but other than that, we had a good time!

Legoland

On Thursday, all the second graders got to go to Legoland. Christian and I are never happy about this trip as it takes the kids 2 hours away. Plus, the education value of such a trip is a bit questionable. There are so many other places they could go that is a bit more local that is more educational. But as Emily got to go, we could not help but let Caitlyn go as well. The good thing about this trip is that they actually made room on the buses for chaperones. When Emily went, they expected us to drive ourselves down to San Diego to meet them. I don't see how you can be much of a chaperone, if you don't even go together!

But I digress, I did chaperone Caitlyn's group to Legoland. It was fun for the brief time that we were there. We literally spent more time on the bus than at Legoland itself. It's a bit frustrating when you take all the effort to go all the way, only to have to leave again shortly after.

We started off with a little presentation on building from Legoland. The kids learned about gravity and friction and things of that nature. Then they got to pair up and build racecars. Then they got to try them out and see if they worked and see how fast they moved against other teams. They could then, make adjustments or rebuild according to need.

The kids had a blast. Caitlyn's first race car managed to make it to the finish line, but it was slow. They made some changes and it seemed to get worse. After the second change, it wouldn't even get down the ramp. They decided to take it apart and rebuild from ground zero. They managed to made a smaller car that was a lot faster. They won about half the races against other kids. Then they ran out of time and had to disassemble the cars for the next group of kids.

We had lunch and had some time to take a tour of some of the amazing lego structures and ride a couple of rides.

We had a fairly large class so that made it even harder to herd them around the park and through lines. We really only got to see the beginning of the park before it was time to head back.

But we got home more or less on time with no incidences and the kids had a great time so all is well.

STEP Conference

Emily had her first field trip this year, which was to the STEP (Science and Technology Education Partnership) at Bourn's Inc., which was conveniently, right down the road.

They started off with a science show. They mostly focused on magnetism, electricity and expanding gases.

Then the kids were rotated through 3 different exhibit rooms...all with interactive technology exhibits.

The kids had a lot of fun (and hopefully they learned something). There were kids from 4th through 8th grades in attendance. It was pretty crowded. It was still over a hundred degrees out (even though it is October) so the outdoor exhibits were not quite so fun. Looking at the sun through a telescope when it is beating down over your head, isn't that pleasant. Plus, my sinus' were working over time. I couldn't wait to get home to get an antihistamine!

Emily update: Emily seems to be adjusting well to her new class. Her teacher says that she fits right in so I think we made a good choice in the end to accelerate her to the fifth grade. We decided in the end, to hold off on the extracurricular activities though to make sure that she adjusts well. And if she wants to participate in more extracurricular activities, she will have to learn to be more efficient with her time to show that she can do it.