More October

Our Cub Scout Pack organized (well, not really organized, more like had the idea and then followed through in a so-so sort of fashion) a Space Derby. I had never been to one before, and I guess neither had anyone else. But the boys enjoyed putting their rockets on the line and watching them zoom across the gym.

Here is Alex with his 'Best Rocket'.

Here is our Pack, which is three wards combined! Two of these boys are my Bear Den. And three other boys are in my CTR7 class.

I saw a great idea online for a Lego table. I was thinking it would be a fun family project or an excellent Christmas gift. Instead, we just went to Ikea and bought a table and storage bin. I was planning to glue the large building plates down, but I think I won't now. The boys are happy with the table and have been making movies with the Lego guys on it.

I went through and sorted the Legos. Why? I don't know exactly. But they did enjoy having all the people and accessories in one bucket for that one day...

There was a quidditch match played on this particular day. I still need to create a back drop so the movies are a little easier to watch. Oh, and I need to teach the boys how to make a movie with out making the viewer sea sick!

This last Saturday was a very busy day for us. Alex had his last soccer game of the season in the morning. They lost all the games they played (they did win on a forfeit game). But the team improved so much over the season. They really were hard workers. If they stick together for a few more seasons they will be really great.
After the game we came home and carved pumpkins. Macey carved a pumpkin pie pumpkin. Here is a girl not afraid to get dirty! Of course we had the usual whining from Alex and enthusiasm from Ryan.

Ah, and then the real fun for the day. I teach the CTR7 Primary class, which is Sunday School for the 7-8 year olds. We have 7 students in our class and a few have some very unique personalities, so I have been working on a reward chart to help them earn a class party. I pushed them to earn it so I could give them a Halloween party, and they did it!
Here are my two Harry Potters: school and quidditch.

Here are I am as Moaning Myrtle.

Here is my class minus one girl and add one of Alex's soccer friends.

We played Spooky Picitionary Man. Dan made a treasure Hunt. We decorated Halloween cookies.

And we decorated tiny pumpkins.

Here are the class' pumpkins.

Mini Fall Break

Our school district set up a mini fall break this last weekend. Friday was parent/teacher conferences and the boys got Monday off. The school makes it sound like they are so generous. Uh, don't they just tack the day on somewhere else? And wouldn't a short respite for the teachers and students be better than a one day longer summer vacation? Anyway, we used the time to work on Alex's space derby rocket. With the paints, I went ahead and had the other kids paint too.

Macey enjoyed painting. Hm, if I let my little girl paint everyday for the next 2.5 years until Kindergarten, what sort of artist would I have? It is something I am considering. She loves to color, draw and paint. It would be a great opportunity for her, if she enjoys it.

Moving on to our Monday. We went to the Dallas/Ft Worth zoo. And it was awesome! There were hardly any other guests. We mostly had it all to ourselves. It started out foggy and brisk, but ended up being a perfectly warm fall day. We started by taking the train up to the 'Texas Wild' section.

Here they had the 5 different terrains of Texas separated so you could study the animals, plants and industry of each section. The kids are in the hayloft.

The swamp section had this fabulous alligator.

The woodlands had this beautiful eagle.

As we journeyed through the rest of the zoo we found this parakeet palace. For $1 you could feed the birds. Here Alex has a clutch of cockatiels.

Ryan went to the farthest reaches of the place to find a hoard of parakeets.

Of course Ryan would find a way to get a bird to climb on him.

And then there was this white Bengal tiger which we will all be hearing about for the rest of our lives whenever a zoo is mentioned. He was up to the glass peering at the kids. He would put his large paws on the glass and scratch at it. Macey thought he was playing patty cake with her! He really liked Ryan's stripes and sat nice and close to him.

He, however, did not like Alex's blue shirt coming straight at him. He gave a nice roar right as Alex approached him. This frightened Alex a good deal. I don't know if he'll become more interested in tigers or just afraid of them.

By 1:30 everyone was tired, but we still had so much more to see! But we finished off our adventure and headed home.

Our last stop was to the gift shop where we came home with a penguin, a tiger, and a football (for sister).

October Happenings

Although Texas is in a drought, it still rains here more than in the desert. We wake up to thunderstorms quite often. And we have a reason to own galoshes. Macey loves her galoshes. On this day we went for a puddle stomp and nature walk.

We've got a great puddle spot right out front of our house.

Splish spalsh!

As we walked to the end of our street we saw a hawk perched in a tree. The birds we usually see are blue jays, blackbirds, and crows. We regularly see rabbits and squirrels scampering about. Our neighbors have seen a bobcat; one was captured two streets over.

On this journey we only found a creepy crawly creature. A worm! Sister picked it up and held it for a few seconds.

Slimey!

Ryan is obsessed with the girls next door. Mostly with the toys the girls next door have that he doesn't. Will he ever out grow his gimmes and coveting? Last Saturday the mom set up this cafe in between our houses. The 2 year olds cooked in the kitchen and the others ran the restaurant.

Macey loves to play with Megan next door.

Megan came to play on Friday morning. I found the girls sitting on my bed reading books together.

Alex will be racing in the space derby this week in scouts. Here he is sanding down his rocket. Macey was helping him while he worked. She was holding that sippy cup with the straw up to his mouth for sips of water.

Anxiety

When I got married at 22 I had a vague notion of anxiety. I thought it was an emotion, something you suffered from time to time based on significant events looming overhead. My experience with anxiety in college was something like this. A huge project would be underway. Perhaps on Friday we would have a pin-up (critique) in a classroom. The visiting speaker (a hot shot architect who is respected enough that he is hired by universities to come and speak) for the evening would join our class and, along with our vocal professors, give us feedback on our ideas. This is nerve wracking, it haunts you. But with time you learn a few tricks. 1) if you stay up for two days and only sleep during your non-essential classes, then you are past tired, and are complacent. the comments don't sting like you think they should because you are not thinking like you should 2) after a couple of years you're sufficiently humbled to know that you are not anyone special and you, along with everyone else, is going to be thrashed anyway (if you aren't, then your classmates give you a pat on the back afterwards) Thus anxiety, although real, was something I experienced a few times a semester, in front of a none too polite judge panel with a crowd of 15-100 people watching. Any other experience I had after that was a cake walk.
I did not know that anxiety can be part of a person's genetic makeup. That it can permeate every moment of one's life. That things like indoor recess, public bathrooms, and dental floss can be coated in it. I didn't know that abnormal or over reactions could be attributited to it. I didn't realize that anxiety is common and that a lot of people are enduring it, some vocally and most very quietly. I only this morning (at 4am to be exact) realized that anxiety can effect work ethic: you can become daunted by any seemingly difficult task and give up before you even start.
I don't know how to teach my child how to deal with it. Obviously my two steps above are not going to work when it comes to problems like having a substitute on a Tuesday. I still don't have any sympathy; I can't grasp what is really going on. I have a vague idea what must be going through his head, but I have never experienced anything remotely close to it. So, my tact has been to plow through it, ignore it, or face it only when I absolutely have to. Thankfully the Lord knows all of both sides of this story and he does give me clues and suggestions. At 4:30am after I came to understand one part of it, he gave me the outline for an action plan for combating the daily battle of homework and talent improvement. May Heaven help us so that I can do a little better everyday to fight the gene called anxiety.

Macey's playdate

 Here Macey is having a playdate with Sophia from down the street.

 These girls were doing 'voluntary' Acorn Patrol, which means I do not have to pay them for their work. The boys do Acorn Patrol for a price of 5 puffs per snack baggie filled with Acorn. 50 puffs equal $2, so you can see that I am getting off cheap, but they feel like they are making the big bucks.

 Here is the 5 gallon bucket with the already picked acorns. The season has only just begun! I could be poor before fall is over. Ryan asked where we could sell our acorns. An entrepreneur with bad product! However, if you Arizonans are thinking that acorns are just what you need for a craft project, to decorate with, or for a fun fall lesson, let me know and I'll get you some in the mail.

The girlies drawing with chalk. Sophia and Macey have regular playdates. At the last one S pulled M's hair. I have had to listen to Macey time and again as she recalls this hard time in her young life.

I wonder...

I wonder why Macey decided to sing this song? I'm thinking that Murray on Sesame Street has something to do with it. The title of this song is 'I wonder why my beltloops'. If you are unfamiliar with cub scouts then you do not recognize the belt she is wearing with the 'beltloop' awards Alex has earned displayed on it.

A battle of ships

On Friday I chalked out a dire warning for my opposing ship captains. Unfortunately, my fleet was sunk first. The victory went to team A&R. On the bright side, I had yummy cookies and bottled Dr Pepper to get me through.

Soccer pictures

End September

I decorated a little earlier than usual this year. Some of the neighbors had started so I went ahead and put mine up. Do you like the purple spider webs?

Inside I put out some of the decorations I got from super Saturday last year.

I made the wreath this year. It is so cute!

On Friday night we went camping with 2 other families. The men proceeded to night fish until midnight.

They were catching catfish.

Dan managed to bring in one!

Macey slept in until Dan had to wake her up so we could pack up. Alex had a soccer game, so we had to head back into town.

Macey enjoyed camping.

The lake is half empty because of the drought. The bank was the muddy bottom of the lake. So the boys came home very dirty. But they had a good time getting dirty with their friends.
There was only one hitch to our camping. At 7 am a group of teenagers came through camp. Unbeknown to us, there was a cross country meet at the campground and they ran around our campsite. Oh well, it was a beautiful day for a meet, and we got front row seats!

Macey fell asleep during conference on Saturday afternoon lying on top of the air hockey game. Cozy, eh? I might have dozed a bit, but I chose the couch instead!