Kara stuff

Kara bear tested for the stripe on her green belt at Tae Kwon Do on Friday. She was the least nervous I've seen her for a test so far.

She did a pretty great job, as did all the kids. I'm always impressed that they can remember all of their forms and routines.

Kicks are one of her strong points, so that is great for Tae Kwon Do.

She earned the stripe. We had to hurry out of there because I was doing a 5K afterward. We cut it pretty close, but Ben dropped me off about 5 minutes before the start of the race.

She has also been participating in special chorus this year. This was something she really wanted to do, but Ben and I weren't so sure. She is a pretty busy kid, and I didn't know if she could handle another thing. They practice before school one day a week, so it hasn't been too hard for her after all.

She had her first concert on Tuesday at the Veteran's day assembly. She was very concerned about not having shoes that were all black. She said her teacher had really emphasized that they had to be straight black with no other color on them. So she ended up wearing her crocs. But it turned out that there were a few kids with non black shoes. I will have to get her some black shoes before the next concert so she will not stress about it.

The rest of the kids got to sit in on the gym floor for the assembly. They also had a singing part at the end. It was very sweet. I wish I had taken a video.

The girls were excited after the assembly when they spotted me there.

Evie wanted me to walk her back to class, and was disappointed that I had to leave. When she got home, she wrote a very cute story about soldiers and how much she loves them. I was very glad to see that she had been touched by attending this assembly. These kids sure give a parent lots of reasons to beam with pride.

Those trotting turkeys

Last week was the girls' annual turkey trot at school. Evie's was the earliest, so I got to go hang out with her first. This was the first year that the kindergarteners participated. They only had them run half a mile though.

She did such a good job reading a book to me. Her reading ability is really blowing up lately! I was impressed.

Pretty hard to get 90 5 year olds to all look in the same direction, especially when half of their parents are standing around on the field during school hours!

She did have a hard time, and complained a little, but she ran the whole way without stopping. It helped her along to have all of the 4th graders cheering.  Evie knows a lot of 4th graders thanks to Kara. At one point, she had about 8 big kids running with her and saying encouraging things.  I asked them to spread out, and help all of the other kids too.

The kindergarteners didn't get timed, but they all did great! They ran half the distance of the older kids, but it felt so much longer, and was much more eventful and dramatic.

Kara's class visit was next. She was there for a few minutes, but then had to leave early because she is a character congress representative, so she was helping with the race. Luckily, I knew several kids in her class, so I hung out with the ones who didn't have parents in attendance.

Kara shouted, "tacos" for some reason, right before the picture was taken.

Kara didn't want me to run with her. I did see her walking at the end, so that's probably why she didn't want me there, making her keep running. She finished 52nd, which was great for her. She hasn't broken the top 60 before, so that's an improvement.

Sweet Kiersten asked a friend to read with us because he was sad that his mom wasn't there. He was a sweetie too, and they both read so well.

The second graders are a pretty silly group.

Ready to go!

She said she wanted me to run with her that morning, but changed her mind before the race, because she was worried I would slow her down. Haha. Just for the record, her time was a little over 9 1/2 minutes, and I could have kept up! But it's easier to take pictures of her if I'm not running, so it's okay.

On her way up the finish line, a boy shoved her back, so she finished 29th. Her goal was to break the top 30, so she was very excited. (Though she still maintains she should have been #28)

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A pretty fun day! I just should have stayed at the school. I had about 45 minutes between each of their runs, and each time I came back, I had to park slightly further away. But we all need our exercise.

That is her teacher to the left behind the girls wearing a green shirt. She is awesome and Kiersten just adores her!

Here is what I ended up with for Bus Driver Appreciation Day. These whipped up pretty quickly.

I was going to make 3D ones, but ended up doing more of a gift tag style. I like the way they came out.

The final product. The kids enjoyed going to the school to hand these out to all of our amazing bus drivers. I think they were a hit!

That special, spooky night

This year for Halloween Kara wanted to be a can of Dr. Pepper, Kiersten wanted to be a pencil, and Evie wanted to be a cupcake. While I do think it's adorable that they had such cute ideas, it did cause me no small amount of anxiety, trying to figure out what I was going to do for the cupcake.

Kara thought it would be so funny to take a picture in her costume while drinking some Dr. Pepper. She kept calling herself a cannibal. I bought a six pack of the little short cans so I would have one to use for a headpiece. I thought of cutting the can up and making a flower or bow, but decided I'd like to keep all my fingers in tact. So we just went with the old can glued to a headband with some tulle look.

I had fun thinking of things to put on there as nutrition facts. She liked that for serving size I wrote, 1 girl.

She was happy to help me think of ideas for the ingredients list. I thought I would be more funny and put things on there to tease her, but at the end of the day, I could really only think of glowing compliments to describe her personality.

The pencil costume was the easiest to make. I'm still not sure why she wanted to be a pencil, but she was a cute one.

At trunk or treat she was going up to people and pretending to write on them with her sharpened pencil hat. She is a silly one. You can't really see well, but we did find some pencil socks at target to go with her ensemble.

I still can't believe how much sleep I lost over this cupcake costume. I ended up cutting the bottom off of a round laundry basket, and then folding cardstock like an accordion and gluing that around. Then I covered that with pink tulle. It was too monochromatic, so I spray painted the bottom with silver glitter spray paint. I made a sort of donut out of pink fabric, and stuffed that with quilt batting to give her some volume. Then I had her wear a long sleeved pink shirt, and pinned the pink organza around to look cupcakey. I would have preferred to do something more permanent, but I couldn't think of a way other than hand sewing, and I really did not have time for that since I was also planning Trunk or Treat for the school this year. I suppose I could have used hot glue, but was worried that would come apart unexpectedly. So she wore it with safety pins, and they didn't really show, so it was fine.

I also made cute little cupcake decorations for her shoes.

She wanted to be a two headed cupcake, so I put a cupcake liner on her head, and pulled her hair through into a bun. I sprayed her hair pink, and used bobby pins to attach a cherry that I crocheted. She was really in character for it too. A few days ago she said she would actually like to be a cupcake sheriff, but I talked her out of that. I think she actually decided she was a sheriff, but just she knew about it and no one else.

For trunk or treat, we went with an old favorite, the football player and ref. Though Ben said it looked more like a basketball ref outfit. (I was unaware they wore dresses in the NBA). So I quickly made a little yellow penalty flag to attach. It was a pouch, so it was a convenient place to keep my phone as well. Trunk or Treat went well, and we had tons of kids, close to 400. But it was a blast and mostly went smoothly and as planned. Ben was my hero as usual. He is so good at picking up the slack where I drop it, and thinking of all the things I miss. He's always there to help me tie up the loose ends when I get in over my head. (And to help set up tables, canopies, and hang Halloween lights!) So glad I have him!!!

 

Evie won the best homemade costume in Kindergarten. She was pretty darn excited. We had to bring our kitchen stool so she would be able to sit down. Luckily she didn't need to use the bathroom while we were there.

Second grade had some really fun costumes. I just love that group of kiddos.

4th grade was a very impressive, creative, and competitive group. I was relieved not to be judging those kids. There were some truly amazing costumes!

 

On Saturday we met up with friends to go trick or treating. The kids had so much candy. I don't know if my girls will ever get through theirs.

The adults took turns walking around with the girls, and they came back in between for chili and hot dogs. It rained a little at first, but was just a drizzle. Reminded me of living in Seattle.

These two backed off the group so they wouldn't get crowded at the doors. So I hung back and followed behind them for a bit.

 

A few pumpkin carving pictures. Kara did hers entirely by herself this year. She cut it, cleaned it, even found her own template online and printed it out.  

I helped Kiersten with an owl, and Ben helped Evie with her Tinkerbell pumpkin.

I let Kiersten help as much as possible, but she wouldn't make more than a few cuts before deferring back to me for help.

Owl

Tinkerbell

KC Chiefs arrowhead

All finished up and ready to hit the hay.

One last picture of the girls on career day. I kept calling Evie a farmer, and she would correct me that she was a cowgirl. Kiersten was a business woman/billionaire. Her teacher said she did jazz hands all day at school every time she said the word "billionaire". Kara was a basketball player. I don't know that she is aware of the WNBA salary cap situation.