Yeah yeah yeah, these are late this month, too! 🙂
>>> October 2014 pictures at Shutterdfly!
Of course, this should have been posted on November 10, but I’m way behind on lots of things. At least I remembered to take the picture! 🙂
A better smile, but I screwed up her placement (centered her instead of having her on the left to leave room for the text). See, it’s not as easy as point-and-shoot! 🙂
And some outtakes!
Ironically, I had planned on coming in for Owen’s lunch today (since Tom was going to be home!) and he was super excited about that. When I got there, I saw them still out at recess.
I watched him play for a good five minutes before one of his friends saw me and pointed me out! Then he came running over to give me a hug over the fence. 🙂
Eating lunch! He is SUCH a card—I was stealing his apple pieces and he thought that was hilarious and kept laughing and telling all his buddies that I was an apple stealer. I do have to say that I am glad Owen eats all of his lunch—I’d say maybe one kid aside from Owen ate his whole lunch, maybe four picked at about half of it, and two didn’t eat more than a few bites.
While we were there, his classroom assistant teacher came up and said hello then said “Aren’t you proud of Owen for his award?” And I basically said “Yeah, but I didn’t know anything about it so we weren’t there! And his dad was home, too!” You could see the light bulb go off and she apologized, saying they were working late at school last night and totally forgot to email or call, that she remembered at 10 and assumed it was too late, and then forgot in the morning. She seemed to feel badly. I felt a little better since she did apologize, but honestly I was still pissed. Of course it would be US this happened to and no one else since the beginning of school. 🙁 She did say she had him keep the award so they could take a picture of him with it sitting in the teacher’s chair so hopefully I’ll at least get that. [[Note: Owen didn’t bring the award home and I haven’t received any word of any picture and he said they didn’t take one. Sigh.]]
Anyway.
I heard her mention that they were going to the library after lunch and Owen asked if I was coming, too. I said I sure could!
It’s a process, let me tell you. They all had their coats (since they had had recess right before lunch) and their lunch bags (since they had just been at lunch) so they had to deposit all that stuff outside the library! Well, actually, the coats went in a pile outside the door and their lunches went in a pile inside the door. Then they all filed in to the story area where the librarian read them a book.
Then she handed out apples with their names on it (which I later learned has their borrower code on it for checking out books) and told them to go get their books! I had thought we would be in there for 10-15 minutes with kids looking for and picking out books, but by the time the last kid got his apple, the first ones were checking out. By the time I walked over, Owen had his book already checked out, had his lunch box, and was waiting in line to leave! Apparently the library is a very well-oiled machine. 🙂 Then on their way out, they had to grab their coat (which the teacher had lined up all along the hallway). I hugged Owen and said goodbye!
So I was sitting at home minding my own business when I got this text from our neighbor:
BIG CONGRATS TO OWEN!
Wait, what?! He got a good character award and no one told us?!?! I was PISSED. There was no email, no note in his daily folder, nothing. And Tom was actually home and we ALL could have been there!
I know in the grand scheme of things it’s not a big deal, but he gets SO excited when we’re there and he would have been over the moon about this. I actually momentarily had thought about just going (since I go on random Fridays), but this morning was a bit crazy as there was someone supposed to be here working on the garage so we were waiting and waiting but then they canceled…
So, I was happy that at least she was there and grabbed a few shots for me…but I literally wanted to cry because we missed it. 🙁
I sent a quick email to the teacher asking why we hadn’t been told in advance. (Past awardees have been alerted via email so precedent has been set, otherwise I wouldn’t think twice about it.) I am sure it’s just my bad luck. 🙁
But…YAY OWEN! 🙂
We had a MOPS get together at Flight, a trampoline park (the same one Owen went to recently for a birthday party). She LOVED it—as if there was any doubt. 🙂
There was one tiny accident at the end where another little girl slid down the trampoline and apparently ran over Katie’s finger. Both were crying but Katie was over it in about a minute. 🙂
It’s a little expensive (we had a group discount today) but we’ll definitely go back. 🙂
That’s a board game, a skateboard, and Legos. 🙂
I clarified which board game, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t mean a real skateboard (he has a cheap 3″ toy one from a birthday party that he loves so I’m guessing that’s what he’s thinking), and any Legos will apparently do. 🙂
I’ll get him to write a REAL list soon. And hopefully nudge him in the direction of some things I already have (though the Legos won’t be a problem)!
We were at Five Guys for dinner. After we’d been sitting there for a bit, out of nowhere:
Owen: There are only four guys.
Me & Tom: Huh? Ohhh.
Me: Five Guys is just the name of the restaurant—
Tom: It’s not how many people work here.
Owen: Oh!
Time passes. We’re all eating.
Owen: LOOK! There’s five guys now!
Owen: Where does Aladdin live?
Me: In Arabia. I show him on a map compared to where we live. It’s a different country.
Owen: So we can’t go there, right?
Me: Right.
Owen: Because we’re not country people.
Owen saw a commercial for a toy: We can go online to get that, right?
Owen: Mama, I’m sad.
Me: Why?
Owen: I miss Miss Sheryl and Mister Eddy. He’s fun and he’s weird.
We checked out a new-to-us Costco after dropping our last guest at the airport—we have learned that different Costcos have different products and it’s fun to explore.
This was one of the new and different things—a chocolate Pentagon (they also had the Capitol!):
The other different thing was an entire walk-in cooler for JUST milk:
Prepping the bar!
My Andrew!
The kitchen table ended up being the center of the party. We definitely need a bigger kitchen AND a bigger table! 🙂
Skyping with a good friend who couldn’t make it!
About 1/3 of the food that we had. Which was way too much. 🙂
The sign comes out! I gave the background story and told them that since he’s five, you know even if I HAD tried to tell him to do it he would have likely screwed it up, so it had to have been completely random! Everyone LOVED it!
The only two guests who weren’t Tivo peeps—our realtor (who helped us find this house) and her friend “Moral Support.” 🙂 They got along with everyone and had a good time!
I learned later that they were making fun of my pantry labeling—this ketchup was the “LAST ONE.” 🙂
Maggie got along with everyone and actually wasn’t too much of a pain!
Charlie was right in the thick of things, too. I know she’s the people person cat, but we didn’t think she’d stick around with 25 loud people…but she did. She was in the middle of it for the most part…and didn’t mind the attention! 🙂
Amy wanted to steal the kids’ minion backpack.
Those of you who know…KNOW what this box means!
Rivals…on the chair of truth. I’m not quite sure how it got called that, but by the end of the night it was THE name and probably half the people had been in it. 🙂
The kids came home from the sitter’s at 8 and stayed up for a bit since there was just so much going on it was way too exciting to go to bed. 🙂
One of the many, many things I never saw happen until I was looking at other people’s pictures!
The night was pretty much wrapped up by 10:30 or so, with most of the major cleaning done and the last people leaving about 11 (gone are the days when we were partying hard until 2am!). 🙂
We agreed the party was a great success! There was too much food, lots of laughs, and lots of wine…and no one got hurt and nothing got broken! There was one red wine spill at the very end of the night, but considering how many people were drinking and sloshing red wine glasses it could have been lots worse many times over.
And we can’t wait to do it again!
Morning relaxing…Eddy was encroaching on what Maggie thinks is her new bed. 🙂
So this just blew. my. mind. Owen apparently brought this home from school Friday—just a completely random art project they did. But the letters? TCF? The abbreviation for the Tivo forum where we all met and how we have always referred to the group! I asked Owen how he came up with those letters. No reason, he liked them. He knows NOTHING of TCF. He knows the word Tivo, of course, and knew we had Tivo friends coming, but we have NEVER said or mentioned TCF in any capacity. I KNOW, RIGHT?!?!?!?!?!?!? I decided right then that we would have to incorporate it into the party later!
Katie said she wanted to help…until she actually stuck her hands in the bowl and got flour on her. That was all she wrote.
Eddy finishing mixing the sausage balls!
Mark and Karen are BIG Ohio State fans so there’s a loving rivalry between them and Tom, of course being an MSU fan. And the MSU-OSU game was going to be on the night of the party! They had stopped at our house to say hello and as they were leaving, Tom slapped the Sparty S magnet on the back of their car! 🙂
My Tivo friends all promised they’d come to our housewarming—and they came through! Eddy flew in from Florida, Sheryl drove down from New York (as seen in the last post!), Amy and Bill drove down from New Jersey (not seen below), Mark and Karen drove over from Ohio, and multiple people came in from around the entire metro DC area!
Tonight we went out to dinner at La Tasca, a delicious tapas place. I had never done tapas but I’m a convert now (it’s great for large parties because you all get to try a little bit of everything).
Our gnomes got to hang out with an old friend.
Our sangria flights. YUM.
Just pretending, but I really could have drank that entire thing with a straw. It was GOOD.
The whole group!
Katie was napping when Sheryl arrived and had asked if Katie would be shy. I said NO WAY, she doesn’t have a shy bone in her body, she will be a total show off, and will warm to you immediately.
Ha.
She spent the first 45 minutes laying in the bean bag with her hands over her eyes and then when we made her get up, this is what she did:
Then she started to come alive and be her cute self. 🙂