Halloween 2012

Halloween was an action packed day. Willem and Ellie are at different preschools this year and it was the first time they both had activities the same day. Luckily Mom and Erik were with me and we were able to go to both schools celebrations.

Ellie's school had a Costume Parade where the children watch each class walk around the courtyard until it's their classes turn to join in. From the moment we arrived Ellie wanted nothing to do with it. She was completely silent and clinging to me. She was not a fan of the costumes at all. Her own teacher was scary to her with a witches hat and broom. She ended up participating with me walking with her and she semi-warmed up to the idea, but definitely was not her cup of tea this year.

 

Erik surprised Ellie when he arrived as the Blue Wiggle. She wasn't too sure what to think of his costume but Mom and I were impressed.

At Willem's school they don't celebrate holidays but instead have an International Day Celebration. Each child chooses a country and then is supposed to learn about the country and dress in tradition garb and then bring a traditional food item to share with the class for their potluck. This year we went with Brazil. Willem wore his Brazil soccer outfit and we brought a fruit platter with mango, papaya and pineapple. The primary classes all sang The Children of the World Say Hello, it was really cute and the kids were quite proud of their performance.

After, we all went back to the classroom for a potluck meal. Willem has made a lot of friends this year, it was neat seeing how comfortable he was in his classroom. Ellie and I sat on the floor and he didn't even try to join us, he wanted to sit with his friends.

 

That night we went trick or treating to a few neighbors houses before heading over to the Bertolinos. We had planned on getting together with the Baldwins as well but William wasn't feeling well. They were definitely missed!

Jason got home just as we were getting ready to leave, so it was perfect timing! He just stayed in his scrubs for his costume.

This year he opted to paint the pumpkins. Willem had gotten glitter paint with Grandma and the kids had fun going to town with googly eyes and other doodads we had around the house.

 

 

 

  The Bertolinos brought their wagon along and were generous enough to make room for Willem. The configurations the kids put themselves in throughout the night was quite hilarious. Ellie was content walking until the very end, we are always amazed by how strong she is as we walked quite a ways.

Willem had asked what we were going to put the candy in. I had no cute baskets for them at the house so I told him how we used to use grocery bags or a pillowcase. He was pumped about using a pillowcase!

 

 

What a fun Halloween! They had a couple pieces of candy on the way home and fell asleep quickly. Not one mention of the Halloween candy since in almost 2 weeks. Lucky grown ups:)

 

 

Misc October Happenings

Work has picked up a lot the last few months as more houses have been closing and Ellie has been my big helper! She often rides along with me to inspect the houses and check out the work that's being done. She loves to take off her shoes and run around on the carpet. Then usually ends up playing in the empty bathtubs. Her other favorite game is "where are my shoes?". She's taken to hiding her shoes in a random cabinet in the house and then wants me to search them out. Can be fun at times, but not too funny when we are in a rush. 

Willem had a fall break this month so that Wednesday we picked up Reese from school and had her over to play. They got to see each other a ton during the Summer and are going through withdrawal.

Willem had his first soccer game and loves it! Realized how little we'd prepared him when we showed up and he asked why there were other kids who weren't on his team out on the field. Also think he's watched a bit too much professional soccer with Jason as he was pushing other players a bit the first few games, but now he's all about getting the ball.

Maw Maw turned 75 and we had a Birthday party for her at Dad's house. The kids helped make the jello salad and were thrilled to play with their cousins.

Marina turned 5 and we celebrated her birthday with the Bertolinos at Arcadia Park. Ellie kept her bday hat on for a record amount of time so I had to snap a picture. Willem loved that there was a pinata and is now planning to have one at his party. (along with a bounce house and a whole host of things that will probably not happen, but a pinata we can do)

Willem is on such a great team! The coaches are fantastic and the kids all get along really well and have a lot of fun.

I'm trying to take more time to do art projects and activities with Ellie while Willem is at school. Sometimes it feels like she's just running errands or hanging around the house with me during that time, so my goal is to be more intentional in carving out time for whatever she's interested in doing each day. Usually that's reading. Each morning she makes a huge stack of books on the couch and calls me over. Some mornings our special time doesn't happen but most mornings it is and we're both enjoying it.

 

Ellie picked out face paints with Grandma one day and Willem was all about it. He went out to lunch with this look and was a bit bummed when the make up around his mouth slowly disappeared as he ate. Ellie on the other hand is scared to death of face make up, masks, etc. She ran the other way when she saw Willem.

The kids do these yoga moves with Grandma from a Yoga book she bought them last Xmas. This one is called Burrito roll. Ellie brought me the blanket this morning and said "Burrito, Mommy."

Willem is really loving school this year. His teacher is doing an amazing job in engaging him in the work and Willem is now starting to sound out words and read some basic books like the Bob series. He also likes to read the books he's memorized to Ellie and she loves sitting on his lap for this. We really like how they both take an interest in each others interests. Ellie is all for dressing up like super heroes and reading Spiderman books and Willem will play babies and picnics with her.

 

At the end of the month, Tia Julie came over to visit for a couple of days. I don't have hardly any pictures from her visit but we had a great time. Willem loved having someone to play soccer with who can run around chase after him.

A family who cooks together...

Willem loves to help with dinner and often times for the past few months our meals have been casseroles or crockpot meals I make while he's at school. So for the past few weeks I've been trying to include the kids more in helping with dinner. Willem is really cautious and asked to learn to make tortiallas one day and did great. Like Jason, he accused me of backseat cooking a bit and to his credit, he did not burn a single tortilla. Unlike Mom, he was very focused and never left them unattended.

Ellie's now the stirrer of the family. We made a jello salad for Maw Maw's birthday and she was all about stirring in the ingredients and tried really hard not to have it spill all over.

We are loving the Montessori method of treating and teaching kids to be autonomous, contributing members of society. I don't know how comfortable I would have been giving Willem knives to work with if it weren't for what I've learned from his teacher and the books they've recommended. Willem is excellent with a paring knife. He cuts each grape meticulously into very thin pieces and takes great care with what he's doing. He's usually our mushroom, strawberry and grape cutter in the kitchen.

Suzuki Workshop

Each Fall the Arizona Suzuki Association holds a fall workshop. Last year Willem had just started so we didn't attend but this year he was ready for it. It was held 5 minutes from our house which was a big plus! The them this year was Fiddling and since he'd just been part of a Fiddle concert, he was familiar with the song they were going to play.

He and his friend Sookie were the only two participants from our studio this year and they had a lot of fun going to the various classes together. Willem said his favorite was the Country Line Dancing Class. We learned the Cotton Eyed Joe and the Electric Slide. I was sure the baby was going to be born that evening with all the jumping and dancing around we did. Willem loved running around the room to the music as much as he loved learning the dance moves. A great way to break up the day! 

They started the morning in a repertoire class going through the Suzuki music, then later in the day had a fiddling class to go through Boil the Cabbage Down as a group and then had a Master Class where they got a private 15 miinute lesson. We learned that Willem has outgrown his violin and is ready for the next size up and gained some other valuable tips from the teacher to help him improve his tone. They ended the day with a concert. We were both pretty worn out, but Willem really enjoyed performing with the other kids.

Dad Time

Jason has been on the busiest service we've experienced so far, for 4 months in a row now. 2 of the months he was working nights so we barely saw him except for on Saturdays and the other 2 months he was working days and every weekend with Tuesdays being his day off. In October he had Tuesdays off and we made the most of that time with him. The Tuesday of Willem's fall break Ellie still had school so we took Willem out on a Mom & Dad date and had breakfast at Matt's Big Breakfast.

Later that day Jason fulfilled his promise to Willem and dyed Willem's hair blue. A few weeks ago Willem had asked me if he could dye his hair blue and after say no for several days, I said, ask Dad. Knowing Jason would say no. Not the case... Anyway, this became a Daddy and Willem project and Willem was quite pleased with the results.

Jason was also able to make it to a couple of music classes this month which was a lot of fun. I'm not too mobile these days, so it was fun for the kids to have Daddy to dance around with.

We also went to the Science Center as we had heard the new Lego and Dinosaur exhibits were great. We only had an hour before the museum closed so we just checked out the Lego area this time around. The kids loved it. It was all about transportation, so they pretended to fly a plane and Willem dressedup as an astronaut at one point.

 

This time we just hung out in the large lego area but next time Jason's going to take Willem to the other side so they can build with the tiny legos. We also all built cars with the Duplos and raced them down a track they had there. That was probably Willem's favorite.

After, we headed to Trader Joe's to pick out our pumpkins. The kids were excited about having their own carts and are looking forward to decorating the pumpkins next week when Tia Julie comes to visit.

The last Tuesday of the month, Jason picked Willem up from school and took him to the Science Center to check out the dinosaur exhibit. Willem loved digging for dinosaur bones like a paleontologist but was a bit scared of the talking dinosaurs.