Frankencrayon

We survived Fall Back. Well... so far so good anyway.

Yesterday we made a Frankencrayon.

You know the titular character from Michael Hall's acclaimed book?  

Don't worry I had never heard of it either. But C has been fairly obsessed with The Day the Crayons Quit and The Day the Crayons Came Home for a while so when he asked for Michael Hall's two crayon books from his book order, I figured he'd love them too. And he does. 

My kid loves crayons and art and reading. So... pretty much right up his alley. 

Books about crayons? Who knew? But anyway, we made a Frankencrayon and it was surprisingly harder than I anticipated. I went straight to melting them together and then bonding them with tape per the illustrations. Purple and orange bonded well from the start but green clearly had a higher melting point or something and it took a lot more TLC to get them to stick together. 

It was kind of fun though and since we used pieces that were in fact already broken we almost just redeemed them a little because now they are loved like no else. 

Today Frankencrayon has gone on many adventures and has been able to act out his book several times. And all for the low low cost of free. (And a little effort.) 

So if you need me today there is a good chance I'll be playing with crayons, reading about crayons or cleaning up crayons. 

Is Any Daylight Really Saved?

Before kids Madeline is dying inside. Dying. Because it's daylight savings time Fall Back tonight. And BKM was all like "an extra hour, let's stay up late, doing something fun and watch our phones switch over!" Seriously.

Because current Madeline is all like "Go to sleep immediately after the kids are in bed!" Because we are looking at a huge heaping dose of this: 

Woosh. Tomorrow morning is not going to be pretty. 

Today was it's own version of special too though. Never fear. Let's sum it all up by saying I have never been in an Old Navy with a line as long as the one I saw today. Never. And the employees had all the registers open too. 

Let me paint the picture for you appropriately. This is a quick little doodle of what our Old Navy is like. 

On your typical day the line to check out isn't that long. Maybe like the blue line that doesn't look blue in the picture but is surrounded by green. And they have like 2 registers open. But no. Today the line was the entire green line. Luckily they didn't have what we were looking for. And I rejoiced inside. 

Because we had just come from Michael's next door and it was so crowded there was a line of people waiting for our cart when we left. But that was at least a productive trip and we got some cute Thanksgiving crafts to do. 

So it redeemed the outing for sure! I like spending time with my kids doing fun things. Hopefully they remember those moments over the "It's so darn loud, please just be quiet for five seconds!" moments. 

And hopefully tomorrow goes smoother than I am currently anticipating. My prediction is that it won't. But I am open to being proven wrong! 

November

It's November. That feels crazy. It was just August yesterday people. But nevertheless it is in fact November.

We survived trick-or-treat. We started out by bopping over to Husband's Aunt and Uncle's house. They gave our kids Halloween treat bags with two books each and stickers and candy. Then we went around their cul-de-sac which is like twelve houses. M didn't even go to the last two houses, she was over it already. One of the house was the best house ever. They were handing out spiked hot apple cider to the adults. It was delicious.

We headed to our house to trick-or-treat in our neighborhood and M flat our refused. She just didn't want to. But C wanted to and he wanted to go with me. It was so super sweet going out just the two of us. Years past it's always been Husband going out so it was a real treat for me. He held my hand and we went from house to house. He did a good job with his manners. We did about 12 more houses and then headed back to our house. Even though we did ultimately buy a bag of candy just in case (my Native American name would for sure be Little High Hopes) we didn't get a single trick-or-treater. Boo.

And now it is November. Holy cow. M and I did the school Mass yesterday and she did a pretty good job. We bopped out just a smidge early because we had to pick C up across the street.

November came in as November usually does; gray, cold and damp. Yuck. November is definitely not my favorite but I am going to try really hard to not let it be a bad one. I bought a door decoration on Amazon so that at least my door is Festive.

We have hanging jack-o-lanterns for September/October and a Christmas Wreath. I also have a big yellow Sunflower from about May to the time I put up the jack-o-lanterns. Now I will have the Turkey for November and then I need to get a snowman or something for rest of the year.

November is here. I just can't believe it!

It's Almost Halloween!

Happy Almost Halloween!

Yesterday we carved pumpkins which is one of my favorite parts of Halloween. I really like the smell of pumpkin inards. Like, not all the time, but once a year? Yeah, okay! I am sure none of you will be shocked by my telling you that we made a Sorcerer Mickey pumpkin and a Minnie Pumpkin.

They look very cool lit up! We look forward to tomorrow night when they can shine all night, for no real reason since we never get any trick-or-treaters. But whatever. 

Today we had our friend's Halloween party. This was our 5th year going to their Halloween party and it's just so fun! The kids played games and ate treats and played. Childhood fun at it's core. Bingo was the hit game of the day and I think I am going to make a version for Thanksgiving because it was a great time and because it was pictures even M was doing a good job though she really wanted to eat her marshmallow markers. 

My little Minnie was tickled pink that her bestie was ALSO Minnie! Two Minnies running around the party was kind of a hoot. 

Here are my little Minnie Mouse and No. 2 Pencil in a not too shabby picture of them in costume. It's so hard to get a good picture!!

26 years ago the pencil costume was worn by ME! My grandma made me this costume for Halloween when I was 5! Now it's C's turn to be 5 and a pencil! I have no doubt in my mind that my grandma would LOVE that the pencil costume is still in good condition and that her great-grandson was wearing it. 

Tomorrow he will get to go out trick-or-treating wrapped in deep sentiment and I cannot wait! Today was our last day of Fall break and we are right back at school tomorrow! Pumpkin shirts for everyone! 

And Now Fall Break!

Hello friends! We made it to Fall Break!

C's Conference on Tuesday evening was just wonderful. A night and day difference from last year's. I always felt last year that they never really knew my kid. Does that make sense? They weren't unhelpful with their comments or his educational progress reports but they just never got C. 

But this year, they really see him for the unique and wonderful little boy that he is. As suspected academically he is kicking tush and taking names. Apparently he even read a book to his classmates during story time. (Things parents would love to hear from their kid instead of what they had for snack!) The very best part of the conference though was the way his teachers clearly delight in my child. They love him and it makes my heart so happy that he is in a class where he is seen and loved. That's what any parent wants from their child's teachers. 

Yesterday at school was the Pumpkin Patch. Which apparently parents were invited to? I missed that memo but C didn't seem to mind even though I felt terrible. But M wouldn't have handled it well since she would have wanted a pumpkin, so the story I am telling is that it was a totally conscious choice! He was excited to get a pumpkin. And then we we got home he made our own backyard patch. 

The chalk art is really hard to read because of the sun/shadows coming through the trees, but it says "Welcome to Are Patch!" I was only consulted on how to spell "welcome" so that's why the wrong use of are over our. 

Last night was also trunk-or-treat at school which was a wonderful kick off to the Halloween season! We got stuck behind a one-year-old and his parents would just not. pick. him. up. And it was frustrating because he didn't get it and was apparently crabby which I get, but he was slow and didn't want to trick-or-treat. But it was fun despite being kind of crazy and lots of people ran out of candy before we got to them. The only pictures I have that are good are ones from inside the fellowship hall before the pizza dinner. 

I kid you not that the pictures I took in my backyard all have my probably intoxicated neighbor in them. Luckily we have a few more opportunities for pictures in their costumes so we will try again! Hopefully sans my neighbor. 

And now we don't go back to school until Tuesday! Awesome! School is great but so is a break!

Fall Stuff

Today is the first real chill of the season. It's in the mid 40s. And dreary. It was rainy but I think that has passed for the day.

It called for a delicious crock pot meal of Mississippi Mud Roast. Which is a recipe I originally got from Beth. I fancy mine up just a little and add potatoes and carrots to the crock pot too. Because root veggies feel so very fall to me.

And if I was making a fall dinner, why not make a fall dessert? So I obviously have an apple pie in the oven.

So my house smells like Heaven right now, that is for darn sure!

Want to hear something kind of fun but really geeky? Well for our library and their ebook check out you can recommend books that they don't own. I recently started following Penguin Random House on Instagram and they have been posting about Turtles All the Way Down since it's a new release. Well I went to see if my library had a copy and they didn't.

So I recommended it and when you do that you are automatically added to the "hold" list so if they buy the book you have a spot in line. I recommended the book on October 20. Which was last Friday. Well YESTERDAY October 23 I got an email saying a book from my hold list was available. I was FLOORED when I logged in and saw that it was Turtles All the Way Down.

It is a pretty good YA book about a girl with severe anxiety as she copes with friendship and sort've kind of love. Not to spoil this book but it doesn't follow the usual teen relationship trope which was really refreshing. It was a very quick read as an adult but totally worth a read.

Tonight we also have C's conference, I am really excited about it. I am curious how he's doing and whether we made the right choice with the whole full day/half day/wait/go debate.

Celebrating A Third Birthday Minnie Style!

My girl turned THREE yesterday. Three. Golly that seems so darn big to me. We had a special weekend celebrating her! My parents came to town on Friday and that was greatly exciting. Because they brought her birthday balloons!

Saturday she woke up to her much anticipated Minnie decorations!

Mid morning we went with my parents to Shnucks which is the little tradition they have with my kids. After filling the kid carts with an all manner of things we didn't need but the kids wanted, we headed back for her birthday party!

The weather on Saturday was gorgeous and we had a Minnie Picnic! M just loves loves loves hot dogs. Which is apparently pretty common for kids but C doesn't care for them at all. Anyway, it was a very easy party, we had Minnie fruit bows, Mickey's Veggie Chips, potato chips and party punch to accompany the hot dogs/hamburgers.

After lunch we changed her into her party outfit. M loves ketchup but has a tendency to get it all over everything.

The Minnie leggings are Lularoe and the Happy Helpers embroidered shirt is from this wonderful Etsy shop!

Then we played the game we had planned, Put the Ring on Minnie. Thank you Party City! M took two turns, but she got the ring on the right spot on her first try. I don't know if somehow she could see or what?

Then we opened presents. After every. single. present. she said "I always wanted [insert item here.]" It was precious. My brother's Skyped in to join in the fun too! She has been saying for weeks how she just wanted a "Red Minnie" so she was pretty happy!

We had cake after presents and it was perfect. I kid you not, she picked this specific cake out in May and was anxiously awaiting it's presence in our house. It did not disappoint. She blew out her candles in one full swoop too so all that practicing on Thursday paid off.

And that was pretty much it for the "party." We spent the rest of the day just kind of hanging out and playing outside. 

Yesterday was a super gloomy day, a far cry from the near 80s the day before. We played with her new things, including at least four rounds of "Hi-Ho The Cherry-O." It slays me that she calls it that.

We had Happy Meals for lunch and incredibly liturgically correct Papa John's for dinner. Pope St. John Paul II was such a powerful intercessor for her birth and I love him so much!

I always feel like I am somehow letting JPII down by not celebrating him, but I know that he would absolutely support me celebrating a birthday with my family over focusing on him. I truly 100% believe that.

We ended the day snuggling together as a family and read "Happy Birthday Cupcake" and "On the Day You Were Born" and I only cried a little. All in all, the weekend was wonderful celebrating the best way we knew how.