Thursday, October 17, 2013

End of September & Punkin Patch


Way back in September I hosted a neighborhood book club meeting at my house.

My book pick was 'The Watchmen'.

One of our guests brought these lovely cupcakes.

That is sheer awesomeness right there.

And proves that really, everyone is a geek on some level.



Katie wrote a book.

It's 50-something pages about a character she made up, Sara The Elf.

Sara is the same character that she portrayed in her summer camp play.

Here she is sharing her first novel with Mikey.




According to Katie, school is......okay.

I think if she could socialize and have recess all day, she'd be happy.

But, then they throw in all that learning.  UGH.

WHATEVER.

I think the thing she is most excited about is the science portion of her day.

Each kid in 2nd grade got their own caterpillar to study.

Katie's caterpillars name is Spikey.

She was very excited yesterday that Spikey went into the "J phase".

That means he was ready to get his chrysalis going.

Katie likes to sleep.  On weekends she frequently doesn't roll herself out of bed until 10am or later.  Sometimes it's approaching lunch time.

She even wrote on an "All About Me" project at school that in her free time she likes to sleep.

No lie.  She wrote that.

One morning I went into her room and found her like this.

Head stuffed into her pillow.



This was the result.



She is not a happy camper in the morning.

But, let her watch a show and get some food in her and
she's ready to go!

Especially if it's to the pumpkin patch!

Katie looks really old in this picture.
Where'd our little girl go?


Not to be out done by Big Sister, Mikey also got himself up on a tire.


What a ham.


OMG!  Is that a picture of me?
And a decent one at that?

Yeah.  Can't believe it myself.


The kids really liked the bouncy horses they had.



Everyone had to survey the land before we entered the no-corn maze.




There really wasn't any corn in the corn maze.

But, it was still fun just the same.

The kids had fun wandering as far from us as they could get.  Which wasn't an issue, 'cause we could see them no matter where they went.  Hurray for the no-corn maze.


Katie made a new friend in the maze.

Meet Fuzzy Wuzzy.


I love this one.
This is a mid-fall shot.
No Katies were hurt in the making of this photo.


See.  All good.


And then, it was TIME.

Time for PUMPKINS.


Mikey walked the ENTIRE field looking for his pumpkin.
The whole thing.

Not sure if he was being very selective or just having his own little adventure.

It took him forever to pick one.


Katie found one immediately.

Then fell in love with every other pumpkin in the field deeming them all, "Cute".

I love this picture because you can look in her eyes and see that she's thinking about something.

Maybe she's imagining that it's night.  All of the cute pumpkins have come to life and are having a dance off versus some fabulously accessorized zombies.  "Ghosts N Stuff" by deadmau5 is pumping.  The bass deep enough to vibrate your skeleton.  Strobes and stage lights are flaring.  Katie's rocking out behind the turn table; arm raised and pumping to the beat.  Her purple hair highlights are glowing in the black light and her awesomely evil hoop earrings are bouncing to the beat.

Or maybe she's thinking about what to carve into her pumpkin.



Here's the haul.


Mikey was selected to take home Wembly, the preschool bear this past weekend.

He was excited about it.



But, within 5 minutes of getting home, poor Wembly ended up like this.


Don't worry, he wasn't on the floor the whole time.

He accompanied the kids to get their flu shots.

He got lots of hugs.

"I don't wanna get a pokey."




In order to.....uh.....convince (yeah, that's the word) the kids to get their flu shots, I promised them fro-yo afterwards.



Again with the hamming.


Ham times two.


Katie might have been inspired by my attempt at creating her Halloween costume.

She decided to teach herself sewing.

Or maybe inspired isn't the right word.  

Maybe she saw what an absolute mess I'm making of it and decided someone around here should know how to sew.

Here is her first creation.

A hat!


Get to work!


Katie MADE HER OWN BREAKFAST this past weekend.

Toasted a waffle.  Put butter and syrup on it.  Poured herself some milk.

All without a disastrous mess.

Amazing.


Ha!  Fooled you.

Different caterpillar.

This one is named Mr. Cutie Pants.




Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Who Made Humans

We're about two minutes late leaving the house to get to preschool today and Mikey drops this on me......

Mikey: "Mommy?  Who made robots?"

Me: "Humans make robots."

Mikey: "But.  Mommy.  If humans make robots, who makes humans?"

Me, not quite paying attention in the rush to get out of the house: "Mommies and Daddies make babies."

Mikey: "I KNOW that.  How come you tell me that all the time?  I meant, who MADE humans?"

I stop what I'm doing.  I tell him about how babies are made all the time?  Hmm.  He kinda asks about that a lot.  Maybe I do.  But, what was that other thing?  Huh?  Who made humans?  

Who made HUMANS?  Now.  You ask that question NOW!?!?!?

So, I attempted to explain evolution to a 4 year old while rushing out the door to preschool.  He told me that he didn't get it.  Monkeys don't just turn into humans, he said.

I tried to elaborate in the truck on the way....but, that didn't quite work out.  The conversation worked it's way into dinosaurs and then back into robots.  Then it was completely lost when Mikey brought up WALL-E and how come he hadn't watched the whole movie yet.

It's TIME that's the problem.  He doesn't understand time.  I could say "a long, long, long, long, very long time ago" and that means, like, yesterday to him.

I promised him that when he got home from preschool I would show him some pictures that would help him understand (i.e. Lucy).  I'm just hoping that he's still interested.

On the way home, after dropping him off, I was pondering my explanation.  

Realizing the enormity of it all, I felt humbled.

We all came from somewhere.  We didn't start where we are now.  And our generations to come won't stay put.  They'll move too.

Life is amazing.

Okay.  Not my life.  The only spiciness in my life comes on taco night.

October & November 2023

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