Yay!

AC Moore, the craft store, was holding a costume contest today, that Muddy recommended we show up for. You can see there was stiff competition (or not) but anyway....

Ben won a $50 gift certificate to AC Moore, which will got Muddy. He didn't want to go to the contest all day long, because "What if I don't win?" so I ultimately convinced him it was a parade for him to walk in. After he won he said, "I'm so glad Muddy maked me this costume so I could win the contest. I didn't know if I would win, but I did!"

Halloween parade at school

Introducing.... Dancey the Robot

Not sure if you can see, but his right hand is one of those gripper claw things, his "computer" on the front lights up, as does the antenna on his head. Muddy made the whole thing.

Introducing....Addie the beautiful

Wearing her dress via Muddy's talents and the mask that Uncle J and Aunt A sent this week!

I just love how sweet she looks here

The back of her dress. Every other kid in her class had a store bought costume.

This is during the parade. They let Ben walk with Addie's class. He has this adorable robot shuffle thing since he's boxy. And Addie walked around like this the whole time- big movements, dancing, enjoying it all; while Dancey was focused on demonstrating his claw skills

Parading around the building...

Kids were enamored with Ben's costume. Seriously so cool to see and very cute to boot!

Oh and I should add, Benjamin named himself "Dancey." Obviously.

hip hop freestyle

Today was the last class for hip hop. We won't be participating again, simply because the "teaching" wasn't so much. Anywho, the kids had fun which is what matters most. The teacher asked them to choreograph their own routine tonight, and this is what Ben did. He's a hoot.

Ben's humor

If you say anything to Benjamin, he'll most likely refer back to you as "missy" or "mister." He says it with such sarcasm and authority; it's great. Be careful out there, Missy!

The package of all packages

Special package from Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Amanda. I love Ben's reaction when I read the card out loud!

Pumpkins and stuff

We carved our pumpkins this weekend. Ben and Addie each drew on their pumpkins and I carved out as best as I could what they depicted.

Addie really wanted this one to just have a circle mouth, but I thought it needed some more oomph.

Guess who's this is? He didn't draw it, but he told me what he wanted.

Addie told me what shapes she wanted on this one.

This is also Addie's. It's supposed to be glasses on the pumpkin.

This week is national anti-drug week at school, where apparently the red ribbon symbolizes being anti-drugs. And yes, it's funny to me to think of Addie at all of 5 years pledging to be drug free. She doesn't even know what drugs are. Anyway, so she had to wear red on Monday. It happens to be ridiculously warm here right now, like mid-70s warm, so Addie opted to wear a short-sleeved red shirt (the ONLY piece of red clothing she has, actually). I thought she looked so cute.

Ben just being adorable.

Posing outside again with our stairs o'pumpkin.

Homework and such

Couple of quick updates:
Muddy is staple-free again. She got them removed yesterday and her doctor said, "woah, you really did a number on yourself, didn't you?"
As I mentioned previously, homework is a big deal in our house right now, for all of the right reasons. Addie's assignment this week is to "ask ten people if they like the sun or rain better and then tally their answers." Obviously she started with Ben and me, since we were home. Then we had to call and leave messages for Daddy (he's in NYC) and Muddy and Guppy. Then we called Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Amanda and Aunt Kim and Uncle Tom, then Onkteb and then Uncle Richard (Aunt Wendy was at school), then we called and talked to PopPop and asked MomMom to call us back when she got home from work, then we called LouLou and Bub too. Now, you'll realize that's more than 10 people. Once she got going, she really wanted people's opinions! I am kicking myself now that I didn't record her calling people, because she was about the most enthusiastic survey asker I've ever seen.
The conversations went basically like this:
Hi, this is Addie. I'm need you to help me with my homework. I'm doing a survey. do you like rain more or sun?
At that point, almost everything was giggling and said, "wait, can you say it again?" because she ran the words together so much. The "rain more" actually sounds like "rain mow" since her r sound is soft, so some people thought she said "rainbow." Eventually she'd slow it down, and with a little background Mommy help, each responder understood the task at hand and each dutifully answered. Some even waited for more questions, even though there were none.
Now, of course, this has led Benjamin to want to do a homework survey too- so you may be getting a call from him tonight asking you a certain question. He tends to enunciate more clearly, so I don't anticipate as much confusion. And he only has one question as well.
Yesterday was Brian and my 8th wedding anniversary. Yes, like I said, he's in NYC. We'll go out to dinner on Saturday night. Picking him at such an early age was single-handedly the best decision I ever made. The other stuff has come easily because of who he is and who we are together. I'm lucky, I know.
Soccer is going on without a hitch. Tomorrow night is hiphop, then PTA meeting/dinner, then "drive in movie night" at Addie's school which is basically everyone is supposed to bring chairs and blankets and camp out on the blacktop to watch the "Legend of Sleepyhollow" short cartoon, followed by "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." Should be fun, assuming it's not too cold.
Saturday we have the soccer game and then the Fall Fest at her school. I'll be making balloon animals and supplying some goodies for the bake sale.
Phew- that's my life in a nutshell. Ben's latest zinger when I ask him something is "that's just part of life" as in "Benjamin, why are you so cute?" "That's just part of life." If only everything was that easy...or maybe it is?!

Annual Linvilla trip

The annual trip to Linvilla was held today. The weather was incredible.

Remember when my babies were babies in the pumpkins? Look at them now!

Really. Remember when they were less than the 2 feet measure mark? Look at 'em now.

Most of the photo spots were facing directly into the sunlight. We did the ole "close your eyes and when I count to 3, open them while smiling" to get this shot.

Muddy-with-staples can still smile with her favorite boy.

Aunt Kim, Uncle Tom and Addie posing in the new garden center.

Family shot on the hayride.

Aunt Kim "helped" Muddy-with-staples-in-her-scalp off of the hayride.

The crew watching us do the corn maze- that's PopPop, Aunt Wendy, Muddy and Guppy. MomMom must be tucked behind Wendy in this shot.

The crew getting ready to head into the corn maze- that's Brian, Uncle Tom, Aunt Kim, Onkteb, Uncle Scott's girlfriend Carey, Uncle Scott, and Addie, Ben and Graham.

And they're off. I love the action captured in this picture!

Stopping along the way for a shot

Notice Addie's dirty knees? She face planted while running through the corn. You can tell how seriously bummed she was she did that. Yup, she looks miserable.

Afterwards we had apple cider slushies, and Ben was in a zone. Luckily Onkteb was there to keep control of Ben in the parking lot.

Overall, a lovely fall day. It's amazing to see how much they've grown each year.

Soccer

I love how involved she is in this play, right? "Oh. Am I playing a game? I didn't realize..."

I didn't realize that Ben was the one who dribbled the ball all the way up the field for this goal.

I don't think I caught this on the camera, but Ben did his first own-goal today and didn't even realize it. He scored and was like "Yeaaaa!" and his teammate said, "that was our goal, Ben." And Ben did one of those "doh!" smacks-himself-in-the-forehead moves. He got over it though and the Hornets won 4-3.

Muddy fell down and go boom

Last night was as interesting as ever in the Nourie household. Muddy was at a store, no employee was around to assist her and in the need to get it done, she tried to get an item herself, when a piece of it snapped and threw Muddy backwards and down, hitting her head on the bottom of a cart. Long story short, she walked out of the ER last night with 7 staples holding her scalp together. She's sore today, but incredibly grateful to be alive. Head injuries bleed a lot.

In the midst of getting to Muddy, Brian had Addie and Ben in the car en route to the ER. The kids were really excited to go to the hospital for some odd reason. I knew they wouldn't be allowed in. So in the waiting room when Guppy came out to greet us and send us away, Addie gave Guppy these two flower buds for Muddy. The whole car ride home we addressed questions like "but why can't kids go to the hospital?" "Because hospitals are for sick people" "but Muddy's not sick" "for sick and hurt people" "but then why can't we see her if she's hurt?" "because they don't want you to get the germs of the sick people" "but we won't talk to any sick people" "germs are everywhere" "how do you know? what do they look like? what color are they?" and so on and so forth.

By the time Muddy was released last night, Addie and Ben were long asleep. So this morning when they woke up I explained that Muddy was ok, that she had special staples in her head, etc. Addie immediately wanted to know, "Did she get my flowers?" "Yes, she did." "Did they calm her down?" "Yes, they did." and then the world's biggest smile engulfed her face. She had comforted Muddy in her time of angst and she couldn't be prouder of that fact.

Here's a picture of Muddy with her bandage on her head. The neck collar was still on because they were waiting the CT scan results, which were fine and she was able to leave without the collar. I'll spare you the image of her stapled-shut-scalp. :)

School conference

Believe it or not, it's already parent-teacher conference time! I scheduled Addie's for last Friday, since I'll be out of town this week when they are actually being held. At 6:13am on Friday I get an email from her teacher saying, "we don't really 'need' to meet. You know how smart and wonderful your daughter is :) She's doing wonderfully both with transitioning into the classroom, and with her academics. It's up to you. I'll be in the classroom regardless."
Well, obviously, I know how smart and wonderful she is, but it's not the same to not hear it from the teacher herself, right? So of course I went in.
We started with going over the basic testing they did as a baseline the second week of school, to determine how many letters (uppercase and lowercase) each child can identify within one minute and how many numbers they can identify up to 100 (plus how high can they count). Addie knew all of her letters with 100% accuracy. She correctly identified most numbers to 100, and could count to 100 with no problem. She could make all of the rhyming sounds with no problem, etc. The only thing that she didn't know was the structure of a sentence. (I was quickly assured that they have covered that now and that Addie knows it. I agreed, saying "oh yes, we're really into putting periods at the end of sentences now, and capitalizing the first letter.)
We talked about her writing skills and how she is so into trying to correctly spell words. I joked about "hot" and "heart" and we talked about how right now she's encouraged to "write whatever sounds you hear," hence the total skipping of some syllables, etc. There is a four stage process to writing/comprehension and Addie is clearly in the 2nd stage, where she has sentences that have most of the sounds- all in the correct order- but still misses some whole sounds too. The next stage is to have almost all of the sounds written in the correct order, and then the final stage is phonetic sounds all down on paper. As Muddy explains, she's in her "texting" stage right now, where it's a shorthands of most of words. :) Anyway, her teacher thinks she'll be in the fourth stage by year's end.
She told me "we send kids to first grade with the skills that Addie has right now, and it's the beginning of the year." I knew that, but it's nice to hear too.
So then I put the academics aside, and said I wanted to make sure from the social justice standpoint that she is a good citizen and helper. Of course she is. She's very mother-henlike. She is purposely assign-seated next to the child who has the biggest needs. Her teacher said Addie takes the time to help explain things to him, because "he may not get what's going on at first, but when it's explained to him a few times he can participate" and doesn't jump the gun with interjecting help.
We talked about her big personality and her incredible sense of who she is and how the world works. Her teacher said she loves Addie's observations and what she has to say, because there aren't many kindergartners like her. She said, "I laugh a lot and it's entertaining to hear what comes out of her mouth." That immediately made me say, "Oh my God, she hasn't said anything inappropriate, has she?" Nope. Just her everyday observations and beliefs that each of her classmates thinks about things the same way she does.
A funny note is that her teacher said, "Did Addie tell you that I had to turn the cd player on the other day?" I was like, "no." She said, "phew. I was teaching them a song, and it's to the tune of Three Blind Mice, I kept trying to get it right and it just wasn't working, so I opted to put the cd on so they could hear it. And the whole time I'm thinking 'Oh no! Addie is going to go home and tell her parents I had to turn the cd on." I assured her that wasn't a big deal. She also said that she caught an episode of Glee a few weeks ago and wondered "Is Addie watching this right now?" I assured her that in working on increasing my Mommy-of-the-Year points, that since Addie started school she and Ben don't watch any tv during the week and are in bed by 8pm (really!!!! I know, I know, I know, you're all shocked- sometimes I am too!).
Overall, she's stellar, as I expected. There is a group of 4 students who are sort of the ambassadors of the classroom who academically/behaviorally are ahead of their peers. It's not surprising that Addie is in the group and I'm extremely happy that she's considered a peer-support person.

Waiting...

This afternoon I told Addie and Ben that a special guest was coming over and to be ready. They asked about a billion questions to try to figure out who it could be. Ultimately, they waited so patiently on the front steps, as in the picture below.

Finally, Addie's classmate Elijah G and his brother and parents walked up. They live 4 blocks away from us, and it was their first time at our house.

You can see the scarecrow we made today above as well. And if you click on the picture, you can see hanging from the lantern a bat. Ben LOVES the fact that that bat is there to greet guests.

Hip hop

Hip hop continues to be fun.

the "S" word

Addie has informed me that she doesn't say "the 's' word" around any children. Yes, you know the S word. It's sexy. Shhhhhhh.

Dynamite

Car conversations

This weekend we were on the move, playing catch-up on lots of things. During our rides between errands, we had my latest mix cd playing, of course. One of the songs on there is "Home To You," which was Brian and my first dance song at our wedding. While listening to the words/singing along with it, Addie said to Ben, "Ben, when I go out on the playground and there's not too many kids for me to play with, I think of you, and how I get to come home to you after kindergarten." It was very sweet.
Then Addie asked for "number 7," since they have the order of songs memorized. "Number 1" is Dynamite, Ben's song aka "put my hands up in the air sometimes." Anyways, so Addie asks for "Number 7" and says when she says "Blip" that means to turn it up really loudly, because she wants Brian and I to listen to it. Now, mind you, we listen to the songs all of the time, so there's no parts we are not completely familiar with. "Number 7" is known to the greater world as "Just the Way You Are" by Bruno Mars. So we start listening and darned if she didn't say "Blip" just as the line is "but I think it's so sexy." And then she exclaims, "SEXY!!!AHAHAHWHAH." She's tickled pink because she has said "sexy" which we discussed a while ago is "a grown-up word, and not one that kids should say." But there it is, plain as day in the song that we are listening to, so she's beyond thrilled that she gets to sing along with it. She's said it fair-and-squarely. For what it's worth, "sexy" isn't the worst word she could say. I think it just sounds funny coming out of the mouth of a 5 year old. She doesn't understand what it means beyond "when someone thinks someone else is really attractive." So for me, it's just one of those times when she gets to break a rule while under our supervision, and not really be doing anything grossly wrong. Does that make any sense? As a former colleague of mine once told me, "kids need a chance to be naughty." She told her daughter from an early age that eating anything blue was naughty. So as her daughter got older and wasn't so afraid to spread her wings, she automatically gravitated towards blue candy, since it was the forbidden fruit. Addie's doing the same thing here, with the word sexy being in a song and therefore being able to sing along. It makes it even funnier to see how she put herself out there with what she was doing, talk about getting caught!! She wasn't even trying to be sneaky about it. By the way, I think that song has a very good message in the lyrics, and as Addie will tell you, "every teenage girl should listen to the words." She has no idea why, but knows I say that.

First time for everything

As you're probably aware, the East Coast got slammed by major rains over the past two days. In the past 24 hours, we've had 9 inches of rain! At 6:00am I was awaken by a phone call from the school district telling me that school was closed today due to transportation difficulties with flooding.
So Addie got her first day off of school for inclement weather! She and Ben were so excited to be able to fool Muddy into thinking they were "late for school" because they were still in bed when in fact there is no school.