Halloween in Grayling

The kids were super excited about treak-or-treating at Gramma’s house…and we were, too…until the Michigan weather happened. Yeah, it was 38° and rainy. Egads. If you look closely enough you can see Katie’s polka-dot long johns under her white tights (and she also had on pink tights!).

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On the front porch where my Halloween picture was taken every year…

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Everyone (including Uncle Rob) ready to head out!

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There weren’t many houses lit up but the ones that were were handing out TONS of candy! You see how full their bags look? We had only hit maybe six houses at this point!

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After about 15 minutes they gave up on the umbrellas and just ran from house to house while we waited at the road. Soon enough we were back at Gramma’s door!!

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Home after an hour of being out in the rain—they were soaked but happy!!

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Tom gave the kids a hot shower and put them in PJs while I made them hot cocoa!

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Eating Mallow cups from daddy and Uncle Rob—they were Grandma Marsha’s favorite treat and someone brought a bag of them for the boys.

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LOOKS AT THEIR HAUL!! The weather sure stunk but it was great for quick candy accumulation. They got 9# of candy from less than 20 houses!

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Kidisms 18

Owen: Mom, my tongue hurts.
Me: Why does your tongue hurt?
Owen: Because I really want to eat.
Me: Yeah it doesn’t work like that.

Owen: Burger King is delicious.
Me: Yes it is.
Owen: But the breakfast meals are deliciouser.

As we are driving in the car:
Tom, to Katie: Kisses!
Katie: I can’t reach! I’m in my seat!

At Costco after Katie said she had to go potty and was successful:
Me: Katie, you did such a great job! I’m so proud of you!
Katie: I know. Thank you.

Driving to Kalkaska:
Owen: Mom! You missed it! The white tree with black spots. Like in my game!
Me: Those are birch trees and we’ll see more!

Throwback Thursday + Brothers

We found LOTS of good pictures while cleaning out Marsha’s apartment. I posted a few of the best ones. The Facebook comments were all basically “WOW! That’s Owen!” 🙂

School pics from 1981-1983. Always in blue. Always matching. 🙂

Kind of blue and still matching. #unearthedtreasures #theboyshateme (Rob commented that they probably even had the same underwear.)

 

The same stage!

On the same stage where my school pictures were taken cough 30+ cough years ago. I’ve been wanting to visit the school for probably the last 15 years and finally just went and did it! It was a bonus that I was able to take the kids, the gym was empty, and I could take a picture! Funnily enough, I had forgotten my phone in the car so after our brief walk around, I had to go back to the car to get my phone so I could get my picture! I had waited so long to do it that I wasn’t going to miss my opportunity!

  
   
 

Unfortunately we’re not going home for a fun visit.

For about three weeks now, we’ve known that Tom’s mom’s cancer had spread to her liver…but she was dealing with it…and the prognosis, while not great, still gave us hope. Unfortunately, I just don’t think her heart was in it. She didn’t want to deal with chemo the last time around and was glad when she didn’t have to do it. So when she learned that was in her future this time…

Tom got a call from his brother last night that she had fallen and was taken to the ER. The doctors seemed to think that she would rebound once they re-hydrated her but Tom wanted to head up anyway so he left Saturday morning. Unfortunately, about four hours in to the drive he got the call that she had died. So he turned around to come get us and we will all leave for Michigan tomorrow morning.

Last T-ball game of the fall season!

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I love that his tongue is out the entire time. Click photo for larger image:
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He was in the pitcher position for an inning and he did REALLY well getting the ball and throwing it to first base! Click photo for larger image:
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And this is what Katie is busy doing during the game…sitting on the sidewalk by the parking lot, co-opting someone’s mitt and running around, and playing with someone’s dog. 🙂

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Stay tuned for the team photos! The fall season didn’t have official photos but the coaches wife took some!

Halloween starts tonight!

Owen’s school Fall Festival was tonight and we wanted some one-on-one time with him so asked friends to watch Katie. They were going to a Trunk or Treat event so she was excited! She was Rapunzel—with Pascal on her shoulder!

And then we had Harry Potter—SO stinkin’ cute!

With his fresh scar:

Getting his new shoes tied. I bought these shoes on clearance about four years ago and they’re finally the right size…and worked well with his costume!

Couldn’t you just eat him up?


We kept bouncing back and forth between the games in the gym and the music in the cafeteria. He didn’t want to dance but loved playing with the hula hoops! He was very shy because he didn’t know many of the kids.

And you’ll notice he’s missing the glasses. Yeah. He decided about 15 minutes in that he didn’t want to wear them. Or carry his broom. Kids. :/

Back to games!

And then since it was crazy crowded and he was pretty much done, we suggested frozen yogurt—and he wanted to leave immediately. 🙂

Katie actually got home later than us! They said she qas very well-behaved and had a BLAST! And she came home with a TON of candy!

The vampire teeth were the favorite thing.

And, lastly, pics from Katie’s night. Her friend Ainsley is Tinkerbell.

Why are girls such drama queens?

I’ve already gotten more drama from Katie at age 3 than I’ve gotten over Owen’s whole life. 

I get “I hate you” and “I’m mad at you” on a loop most every day. Just now I got both because I told her not to eat such a big bite (she was literally shoving a sandwich in her mouth and couldn’t even chew her mouth was so full).

Or maybe I told her to try to go potty and she didn’t want to. 

Or maybe I told her to step smashing a tomato on the counter. 

Or maybe I sad we couldn’t go to the park now but we could after lunch. 

It’s exhausting. 

Katie’s first text!

So I look over and Katie had the Messages app open on their iPad and she was enjoying looking at and touching all the emojis.

I heard stuff like “Cupcake…heart…pumpkin…flower giggle giggle cat…dog…bunny!”

I couldn’t figure out how she managed to find and open that app since I’ve buried it inside a folder. Then I realized that Tom had texted me and I obviously have the settings configured badly so that my texts appear on their iPad as well…so when he texted me, it popped up on the screen while she was playing her game, she touched it, and it opened the app. Of course, it was all her own curiosity that figured out how to then open the keyboard and emoji screens. 🙂

Anyway, I just sat and watched her…and then watched as she managed to hit send. 🙂

 

Surprise! Katie cat nap!

So she was watching a show on the couch and I was doing my own thing…when I looked over and saw this:

I had to get a closer look at the cuteness.

And then an hour or so in, this happened:

Fortunately…she slept through me watching TV, the phone ringing, Owen coming home, and Maggie jumping up next to her.

Unfortunately…once she did wake up shortly after daddy got home, she was a hot mess for about an hour and spent almost the entire time cuddled on Tom’s lap whining and whimpering.

Katie and the shovel

So we sold our deck box this past week so all of the stuff that had been in it was just sitting outside. Well…Katie saw the stuff out there and took it upon herself to go get it and play with it. This is where I found her when she wasn’t inside:

And then after I made her come inside (and let her bring he shovel because it wasn’t too dirty), I looked up to see this:

And then post-shoveling:

 

Owen’s classroom tour

I had to drop off the table signs for the fall festival and a bag of odds and ends containers to the STEAM class…so just took Owen to school. Since we had extra time before school actually started, I had him show me around his classroom. I learned more about his days in that 15 minutes than I have all year. 🙂

Hallway art:

Color: Blue
Food: Pizza
Animal: Cat
Book: Stop the Bot

  • I will look for [I can’t tell and he couldn’t remember]
  • I will look for ink for writing
  • I will build a house for living
  • I will discover Spain
  • I will discover America
  • I will find fresh water
  • I will find gold and food

I joked with him, asking if that was really his handwriting because it was SO much better than what I get from him at home. 🙂

In his classroom:

I had him walk me through what happens when he comes in every morning.

First, the coat gets stuffed in the box (behind his knees), the lunch box goes across the room to the big lunch bin (the teacher carries it down at lunchtime because they go straight from recess to lunch), the Book Baggie goes in a specific numbered basket (each kid has their own number), and the homework folder goes in a bin.

Some of the book bins:

Owen’s hopes and dreams: to learn to write. 🙂

Some of their daily schedule:

Work centers—he had to point to each column and read all the names and activities:

This picture was sitting on the teacher’s desk and he pointed it out saying “Look! I’m wearing my Minecraft shirt!” Not what the picture was for or when it was taken, LOL. I asked and he said “just because.” I’m guessing maybe it was the first say of school because I know that’s what he wore that day. (The teacher wasn’t in the room so I couldn’t ask her.)

Then he told me about a bunch of other stuff in his room…poetry center where you grab a sheet from the basket and read it, how when they read to self they grab a book and a pillow and can sit “anywhere in this section,” etc. He was so proud and so full of information! I told him THAT’S the stuff we wanted to know when we asked him about his day. 🙂

Lastly, when his teacher came back, I spoke with her separately for a few minutes to update her on his GI issues. We told her he had a change of clothes in his bag and we just recently put his underwear in a separate ziploc bag in case he had to change them during class and didn’t want to be obvious about it. We also let her know that it’s okay to tell him to go change if she notices anything, and maybe she can take special care to let him deal with it after everyone has left for recess or lunch or whatever so that the other kids don’t know. She was very nice about everything.