Happy Halloween!!

Our mermaid and ninja!!

Friends

It's been a while since we've seen K, W, & E - so we had a nice day on the weekend with them - including Teppanyaki on kids eat free night!! :)

Halloween Block Parties

There were two Halloween parties around us over the weekend!  The Ninja and Mermaid have had quite the lead-up to Halloween!

Annual Fall Photos

Last weekend we did our annual Fall photo shoot at the Arnold Arboretum.  There was a light mist in the air - but it was one of the last time slots available between birthday parties and cub scout meetings over these few weeks!  They all turned out pretty good - hard to pick the best so I uploaded them all!

She's the Piano Girl

After a month and a half of lessons - I'm amazed at the progress Wee M has made on the piano!!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Camporee

It's official -- he's a Cub Scout!  After a couple Den meetings, this Tiger attended his first Camporee in the N. Forest.  Next up - popcorn sales!

Fast Runner

Chippy was helping me to train for my big walk walking over 8 miles with me one day ... one of the pictures is when we were going over the bridge at 128 ... they are doing construction on it and Chippy had the great idea that he have a picture at it now and we can compare it to a picture when construction is done!  As part of training we did his first 5k!  He did an awesome job for someone who had never run before!  We were a little over 39 minutes ... he was a bit tired!

Last picture is after my big walk.  The kids brought in all their dollies and blankets and Wee M make me a picture. For about 24 hours the kids listened to EVERYTHING I said and I even got head and back rubs!  I'm thinking that the pain of the walk was worth it for two perfectly behaved munchkins!

School Visits

Both schools had us in to visit classrooms and see what the kids were working on.  Looks like Chippy's favourite class is Math.  At home he is able to add and subtract into the hundreds and also figure out a good amount of multiplication and division!  The matching of shapes in class isn't quite cutting it!!  Last picture is of Chippy doing his first homework!  He gets a homework packet each Monday that he has to take back on Friday.

Wee M's favourite class is 'dramatic play'.  Her and Anders, her new boyfriend, have a good time with all the dress-up, kitchen, etc. scenarios they dream up!  She really likes her new teacher - the same teacher Chippy had.  At dinner she describes who was playing with whom, who was not speaking with whom, and what *disaster* took place on the playground that day.  If this is her at 4 ... can't wait until 14!!

First Day of School

The kids didn't have much time to get ready for school once they got back to Beantown.  Chippy has settled nicely into Gr 1 (or 'First Grade'), and Wee M is in her final year at Junior K / PreK!  They are so independent getting ready for school - they both dress themselves in the morning and won't take much instruction from us.  Chippy is 99% always a sports outfit and high socks and Wee M is either a dress or legging pants and a shirt of her choosing after asking Dad the weather forecast.  Some mornings Chippy will have breakfast before we even get up.  We're now into October and Chippy spent a couple weeks sleeping on the floor under his bed - I finally got him to sleep on the top bunk lat night -- but now he has pulled in Dunning's bed and Dunning now sleeps under his bed!

The River

Mummy got to stick around a little longer and then it was Daddy and Grammy/Pa's turn to spend a fun month with the kids.  The few weeks was packed with a trip to Comicon in Marine City, 2nd annual Lobsterfest on the parkway, a Tigers/Red Sox baseball game where they got to walk onto the field (Again!  This is 2 for 3 for Wee M walking out on big league fields), lots of swimming lessons and swimming in the river, outings with cousins L&M and A, a 2nd annual sleepover at Bubba 2's and a trip to Aunt Elaine's cottage with Alan and Evan!  Pa put the kids to work on the new John Deere!