Our first homemade ice cream!

I’ve had a simple/inexpensive Cuisinart ice cream maker on my Amazon watchlist for awhile now, and it hit it’s lowest price ever the other day, so I finally bought it. I figure we don’t eat that much ice cream anymore, so why not be able to make whatever flavors we want in much smaller quantities when we want it?

So we made peanut butter Oreo tonight. The kids helped me get the mix ready (no pics of that because I was too busy helping hold the mixer) and they were EXCITED.

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She would have spent the entire 15 minutes like this if we let her. 🙂

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I didn’t get any pics of the end product or of us eating it because we snarfed it down pretty quickly. (Also, we all had very small portions—maybe 3-4 spoonsful—with the rest going in the freezer.) It was quite tasty—and a soft-serve consistency which I really really like (similar to a DQ Blizzard!). So it was a success!

Owen’s Good Character Award

Owen’s teacher emailed me last night to let me know he was getting the award this morning and that he didn’t know about it—so she left it up to us whether or not to tell him. We opted to keep it a surprise—and Tom was luckily able to make it, so we kept that a surprise, too!

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He doesn’t see us…

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Doesn’t see us…

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Then sees daddy!!

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Such a happy little boy!

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Owen’s part is about at 2:11.

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Mrs. McLenigan and Mrs. Stulman did a great job with the kids—all four 1st grade award recipients were from their kindergarten class!

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A new family picture!

Tom was home this morning…because he was going to surprise Owen at school for Morning Program (Owen was getting a Good Character award—which was also a surprise for him!). So I took advantage of us all being home to snap a new pic! It turned out great!

These were the other pics I snapped beforehand. You see what trying to get a picture of the kids together can be like? Not one “good” one in the bunch. 🙂

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Owen’s first fall Nationals t-ball game!

The first official game was rained out last Saturday, so tonight’s game became the first actual game! It was held at a field in a neighboring city (if you wonder why it looks different). As usual, the first game has many more pictures than I’ll post for subsequent games! 🙂

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Tom is the Assistant Coach this season! The fall season isn’t as big as the spring season, so no official shirts for the coaches (boooo!)—only hats. (The kids also just get plain colored tees with the name of the little league county on it instead of a team name and logo.)

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Once more, he’s a head taller than everyone else on his team!

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Of course she doesn’t ever really watch the game, and tonight she was exploring a new park—throwing stones in the river.

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(No, he didn’t have to go potty. Apparently he’s a natural at the baseball moves.)

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Me: Katie, don’t play in the dirt.
Katie: Mom–it’s sand!

How did she get to be such a smart[ass] little girl? 🙂

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They’ve been trying to teach the catchers to tag out the runners (it still doesn’t count as an out since it’s t-ball) so Owen is doing his best…

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And actually CHASING them down. 🙂

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Fall Festival

Our local town center was having a small fall festival so we took the kids since it was a gorgeous day. When I saw small, I mean small—there were about 10-12 booths on the outside edge (cotton candy, face painting, Pampered Chef, jewelry, etc.) and there were a few kids projects in the center island. It was perfect—the kids had fun and things didn’t take too long. 🙂

Eating his special chocolate-covered Oreo treat once we got home.

Katie graduated to Turtle 1!

Pllaying before lessons started.

Then Katie had some successful jumps…

…and she graduated to Turtle 1 (red cap)! (It took her 11 classes, or just under 3 months of classes!) Unfortunately they were out of red caps, so hopefully she’ll get it next week and then we can take her official photo!

Now I just hope they can rearrange some students so that their classes are more convenient—there’s no Turtle 1 classes adjacent to Owen’s Shark 1 class so we have to be there from 11 (when his class starts) to 12:30 (when her class ends). They said they’d try to get us something better so we’re keeping our fingers crossed.