Halloween–Two Thousand Twelve

Mason told me he wanted to be a pumpkin with blood coming out of his mouth to scare his friends.  Hagen said he wanted to be a spider.  Soooo…. I went to the party store and looked for inspiration. 

I saw a wig and the perfect idea came to mind.  I only felt a tiny bit bad when I came home and showed Hagen what I got.  The first words out of his mouth were: What is this?  I said a spider!!

Opps.  But, when he saw all the reactions, I think he was happy with not being a spider.

Welcome to Hippieville.

We went to a Halloween party and Mason flat out refused to wear the wig, mustache and chest hair (did you notice the chest hair?).  In the picture Mason has the chest hair on, but it was gone by the time we got to the car. 

I could NOT look at Hagen without laughing!!!!  He was so funny!

The pictures below are from Halloween night when we went trick-or-treating in our neighborhood.

We finally convinced Mason to wear the wig and chest hair, no mustache though.

I wish I had thought the picture through, because the backdrop is the black door, you can’t truly see the afros.  Oh, well…

Pumpkin Patch

Checking out the animals…

We did the corn maze and I’m so glad we did.  The boys LOVED it.  At one point Mason and I got separated from Jeremy and Hagen (J did this on purpose).  Mason was visibly frustrated and somewhat upset every time he came to a dead end and couldn’t find H and J.

Dinner with Gran

Hagen and I introduced Gran to our favorite burger joint.  She loved it … and the company, too.

Changes … and Kindergarten or First Grade

Well, teaching 7 classes (up from 4 last semester) and the boys starting Kindergarten… let’s just say this first 6 weeks has been… hmmm…. an adjustment?

We had our first call from a teacher, a nurse, the principal, and paid for another child’s classes within the first 3 weeks of school. 

My Friday schedule looked great on paper, but leaving at 8 am and getting home at 9:30pm in reality is also shall we say … an adjustment.

We had our first 6 weeks conference and found out some things we knew and some things we didn’t.  Mason is a ham (we knew) and Hagen is adjusting well without Mason in his class (awesome!).  They both see each other at lunch and play together at recess.

Mason is *still* our little sponge, he is already reading on a second semester kinder level – almost reading at the minimum level they want them to be at for entering 1st.  Here is a sample of Mason’s drawing with his words.  (The boy does not like to color… it’s like torture to him!)

 

Hagen’s teacher is new to the district (but not to teaching), so she seems to have her hands a little full – she is very sweet and I know Hagen really likes her.  He cracks me up – every day he comes home with his friend count!  Almost every time we are in the park, some random kid walks up to Hagen and says ‘Hi Hagen!’ 

Our conference with his teacher differed some compared to Mason, but I also know (and knew a while ago), Hagen does not like getting put on the spot… so I went over some of the items he was tested on at school and he did much better at home.  So – we are working on lots of reinforcement at home, so hopefully when he is tested again he won’t be so nervous that he will forget all he knows.  Again – what an adjustment!   Here is his picture with his ‘words’.

During our Parent Orientation Night we learned many of the objectives that used to be First Grade objectives have now trickled down to Kindergarten.  I believe it!  They showed us what they should master before entering First Grade.  Is Kindergarten still considered optional??  If so, I CAN NOT imagine someone ‘opting’ out.  W.O.W.

Fall Pictures

We had our family pictures taken out at J’s really good friend Josh’s house.  His wife does photography and offered to take them for us this year. 
The boys had lots of fun.  When we get them back, I’ll share them on here.
Here are the boys before we left …

I got a preview on facebook the other day, thought I would share

Makes me anxious to see all of them!!

Bran and Chance

Aunt Beee, Uncle H and Chance came to visit one night.  Mason was ate up with the attention from his Aunt Bee and Chance

We also got to have a dinner date together one night.

And then another night, this cutie joined us!!

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Isn’t he just the cutest thing ever!  I’m glad we had chips and queso… or I might have eaten him!

Mason’s Many Faces

I was going through my IPhone pictures and found these…

Jeremy and Hagen were out, so Mason and I decided to go to our favorite burger joint.  He told me to take his picture… Crack – me – up!!

I just didn’t think it was possible to love this little stinker more.  The other day, we were driving home and he said, ‘Momma – I love you to heaven.’  I said, ‘Mason, I love you to heaven and back!’  He started to laugh and said, ‘Momma!! You are silly!’

This post reminded me of one I did ‘a long time ago’ (it seems)… Mason’s other many faces are toward the bottom of the post:

Mason's other silly Faces!

Skills Night

The boys (well, I guess it was me) signed up to attend a skills night once a week during Soccer Season.  It is put on by our soccer association.

So far it has been lots of fun.  Since all they focus on is skills, they make them into games and the boys have lots of fun.

I didn’t get any pictures during the skills night, but after one of the sessions, J and the boys stuck around and worked a little.

The first one we went to, Hagen was so disappointed!  He came running over to me and said, ‘Where is Coach?  That isn’t Coach?!’

We love our coach and Hagen thought he would have our coach coaching him.  After the second skills night, we were talking to one of the coaches and when he found out who our coach was, he said we are in VERY good hands and our coach is known as one of the best in the leagues.  Yep, we knew it !