Whew!

Wow, what a day Friday was!  A fun day but a tiring one!!!  It started at 7:45 when I realized I was supposed to drop my car at the dealership at 7:00am!  Ooops!  So I loaded Riley very quickly in my car, shot over to the dealership, dropped it off and then we very briskly walked to her school from there.  Now, we've been in a major drought as I've mentioned before and it really hasn't rained in over a year but guess what the forecast was for Friday...yep, rain...ALL DAY LONG!  Go figure!  So our entire trot (I call it a trot because I continually was telling Riley to pick up the pace so we'd make it to class by the 8:35 bell!  My friend Alicia drove by us and was going to pick us up but couldn't logistically figure it out.  So once Riley and I finally got to school, I quickly threw her costume on her (didn't want her walking in the rain in her costume).  It started to rain just as I was getting her dressed and she was going into class.  Then I went to check into the school as a volunteer before lining up for the parade at 9:00 with fingers crossed that the rain would hold out. 

The parade was SUPER cute, lots of Anna's, Elsa's, Spidermans, Ninja Turtles but we had the only Merida in the school and all of the parents around me LOVED her red crazy hair!  We had a bow and arrow but that wasn't allowed at school.  It was a pretty bad-ass costume!

Riley's principal was BatMan and the Vice Principal was Wonder Woman, they are seriously fun.  I don't ever remember my principal and vice principal ever being so involved and fun!

One of the teachers was a blind ref - so funny!

And here comes Riley's class, her teacher must have decided to do reverse alphabetical order because Riley was first!

After the parade it was party time and since I am a co-room mom, I was there the entire day.  It was SUPER fun but I was dead tired at the end.  Spending 4 hours with 26 kindergarteners is exhausting.  Her teacher even sent an email saying how tired she was after the party as well but it was so fun being there. 

Riley's friend Quinn

Doing the craft at my station

Working hard with buddy Ryan

Halloween party selfie!

Cutie pumpkins

Snack time

Cutest kindergarten class ever, seriously, they are pretty much the cutest class in school. 

After we left school at 12:30 we went to lunch at Red Robin, then home real quick to attempt to have Riley rest and then we were off to Jacob's school for his Imagination Parade.  It had been pouring at this point since about 11:00AM so his parade was moved in doors.  They made their costumes based on the book "Where is My Mummy" and Jacob picked Bones from the book so he was a skeleton.  He did SO great in the parade, he was a little shell shocked but no tears or tantrums!

After Jacob's parade, it was time for the grand finale!  Trick or treating!  We did our normal trick or treating crew but on steroids.  Shari and Alex hosted so we just had to cross garages and we were joined by my friend Alicia and her two kids (her son is in first grade and her daughter is a little older than Jacob) plus another family down the street whose youngest son is also in Riley's class.  After dinner some other families from the neighborhood met up with us, the kids all know each other from school or the after school program.  I think we possibly had 30 kids at one point, I'm not sure our neighborhood will every recover!  Thank goodness for Riley's crazy wig, it kept her in our sights all night.  Oh and how could I forgot, we had Jacob's big costume reveal...Mike Wizoski (I totally spelled that wrong) from Monster's Inc.

Cutest Mike EVER

Jacob wanted to be in charge of the drinks again

Halloween is pretty much his favorite holiday

He was so cute going to each house

Jacob pretty much spent the whole night calling after Riley and her friends "Wait for me guys!"  Poor little guy just wants to be able to catch up!

This is the group we got to take a picture, I think we were missing a few here!

This boy had fun!  And I have no pictures of Riley because she was running around with the boys!

And that's a wrap!  It was an exhausting but fun day!

Pumpkin Carving

We carved our pumpkins last Sunday, I had high hopes that they would make it until Friday without rotting but I had no such luck and they are looking quite gnarly this morning...but that's ok because they made it through Halloween and the kids LOVED looking at them each day.  Jacob picked a happy face pumpkin for his and Riley picked Merida which went along with her costume.  I found these super seed scoopers at the craft store last weekend and they were well worth the money as the kids were actually able to scoop the guts out of their own pumpkins, which is pretty much my least favorite part because I always get cuts between my fingernail and skin but not with these super scoopers.  GENIUS!

Jacob decided that Sunday was pants optional

That's a good scoop!

He loved his pumpkin!

Merida!

Finished product

Finally got Jacob to put some pants on!

Annual Trek

We made our annual trek to Joan's Farm this weekend.  It was H-O-T!  I have a fundamental issue with it being 97 degrees in mid-October and picking out pumpkins.  You're supposed to be drinking Pumpkin Spice Lattes, wearing sweaters and feeling the crisp Fall air at pumpkin patch but instead we sweated.  But I digress, the kids have fun and that's all that matters.  Of course they wanted to ride the train.  Riley rode the ponies right off the bat but Jacob was scared.  Jacob was actually scared to go to the pumpkin patch once we got there, he's "scared Halloween" thanks to all of the creepy decorations at Safeway (reason 5000 I hate Safeway) but I convinced him it wasn't scary and we should check it out, once he saw the miles of pumpkins he was good to go.  After Riley rode the pony he decided he wanted to try and he "promised" he wouldn't be scared.  Welly my baby boy has certainly grown up because he was not scared one bit.  He was so proud of his big boy status telling me over and over that he had fun and he wasn't scared.  Ri of course had a blast and was kind enough to humor us with taking our normal pictures.

We ran into Ri's friend Eli at the Pumpkin Patch

Jacob was still unsure about this pumpkin patch thing

Starting to feel more comfortable

Love these two

They love each other a little

My pony girl!

It's tradition

Here come the annual pictures

A little bit taller...

Still catching up to big sister

Jacob was so excited to ride the choo-choo so fast...poor guy learned the hard way it only went 5 mi/hr

Still having fun!

With a little help from little brother

My handsome pants

Paying for his pony ride

Jacob was so proud that he wasn't scared, he's been talking about the pony ride for days

4 little pumpkins sitting in a wagon!

Another year in the books, it's now been 5 years that we've gone to Joan's Pumpkin Farm!

Trick or Treat! (2013)

Well Halloween is in books and it's officially holiday season in my opinion.  Hanukkah is just 26 days away!  (EEK) and everyone around here is in the festive season of holidays and birthdays galore.  It kicked off with a fabulous Halloween!  We spent it with the usual suspects, our neighbors Alex, Shari, and Ryan and our old neighbors, Elisabeth, Ian and Owen.  Fun times.  We hosted this year and trick or treated in our neighborhood, which is great because it's flat and easy to maneuver.  Ri was so excited to have her friends over and go trick or treating and Jacob caught on pretty quickly and spent his time trying to keep up with the big kids.

I was going to give Riley a freebie on her AFO for trick or treating.  She's supposed to wear it when she's active but I was going to let her do Halloween with out her, I'm sure Dr H wouldn't have opposed to that.  When I asked her if she wanted to take it off to leave it at home she said "No, I'm going to wear it because I'm proberry going to be running so I should have it on."  As much as Riley drives me crazy and gives me grey hairs, I am reminded of how truly special she is when she says stuff like this.  How many 4 1/2 year olds would respond like this!?!  I was so proud of her mature decision.

And at the same time, Jacob had a hard time keeping up with the big kids, elephants move slow!  So Ri would go to the houses and get candy and get some for him, well we all thought this was such a nice big sister gesture until we got home and went through the candy and put it in Ziploc bags for safe keeping and realized she had 3x the amount as Jacob.  She was getting candy for him and pocketing a few pieces every house.  I'm actually pretty impressed that she figured that out!  Oh Riley, always keeping me on my toes!

S'more cupcakes please!

Riley served Jacob, Doritos and guacamole. Nice and healthy

Buddies

These 3 have been trick or treating together since before they were 1!

Photo bomb ala Jacob

Don't worry!  Jacob has the beer!

Catching on

I still crack up over this costume.

Little man is all tuckered out!

Getting a little help from daddy!