Festival At the Switchyard

So the same day as our Trunk-or-treat, we had the city's annual Festival at the Switchyard.  It's a free music festival with big headliners.  This year they brought in Gin Blossoms and Blues Traveler.  Sadly, we missed them.  And even more sadly, Johnny missed the festival entirely.  

See, our water heater had been having problems for awhile, and it finally refused to relight the pilot.  So we had to call in a gas man to look at the heater.  It cost way more than it should have, so we won't be using that guy again.  Ironically enough, the washing machine also broke.  It's an 8 year old machine that's been moved to four different houses all across the US, so it wasn't a huge surprise, but since I was behind on laundry for the week (Halloween anyone?) it was a problem.  Johnny set out to fix the two problems with a vengeance, and while I managed three very cranky, sleep-deprived, post-sugared children alone at the Festival, he ran all around town and bought a new washing machine.  He even got it installed for me that day.  What a man!  

The Festival was awesome.  We are definitely going back all together next year.  They had a bunch of free children's stuff, (though the lines were ridiculously long and not conducive to grumpiness) including:

balloon animals,

The grumpiness was mostly concentrated here,
and manifested itself in whining, indecision,
and the unwillingness to try anything.

bouncy houses,

And rides.  Not that you can see it in this picture, but The Captain actually cracked a smile after I forced him to go on this ride that he really wanted to go on until we got in line for it.

I let the kids pick whatever food they wanted to eat, which helped with the whinges somewhat.  We even found a seat at one of the many tables set up by the stage.    

Sadly, I couldn't catch the bubbles in this picture
with my phone camera.  There were bubbles.

Also there was a fire truck, with nice firemen

who were great with kids.

Not pictured is Lee, who was so amazingly wonderful that she slept almost the whole time, waited until we were sitting to eat, and then went back to sleep.

Halloween is here . . . sort of

Yes, it's late, but I still want to document Halloween.  After all, it is one of our favorite holidays around here.  Since I was busy with a retirement party until the week before, I put off a lot of Halloween things because I didn't want to get overwhelmed.  Thus it came to pass that we were decorating pumpkins on October 30.

Joy with her pumpkin

The Captain with his pumpkin

The pumpkin we painted for Lee

Our Halloween dinner: Dracula soup, Halloween pasta, and
Ghost potatoes.

 And our Halloween costumes.  We actually took these pictures on the 1st, when our Ward had its Trunk-or-Treat, but by that point The Captain's costume had fallen apart.  So this is just a fraction of its Ninja Turtle Glory

He got many compliments for having a homemade shell, so I got a little kudos.  I tried to convince him to be Einstein, but he's past the age where he will let me pick his costume.


By contrast, Joy is easily manipulated sweet enough to do what I ask her to.  She literally asked me what I wanted her to be, and became very excited about being Amelia Earhart.

She's all about sticking her tongue out in
pictures these days.

And after much debate, it was determined that I would not be able to turn Lee into Einstein.  So in a twist, we decided to not make our baby cross dress, and instead present to you, Her Royal Highness, Queen Elizabeth I

  I decided to stay with the Girl Power theme and went as Rosie the Riveter.  I won Most Original Costume at the Ward Party.

We can do it!

 Represent ladies!

5 months

I bought this headband at the Dollar store and it went with the dress I made her so well.  But when we put it on, she looked like a flapper, so I added the pearls and went with it.

Retirement Party

This was a big reason why I was so busy in October.  Our favorite Preschool teacher was retiring, so I took it upon myself to throw her a party.  I was determined that she not fade quietly into the night.  After all, I had strangers at the park recommend her class to me when we first moved here.  It was obvious that she was an important part of the community and I knew that parents whose children had graduated out of her classes would be sad to learn that she had left without a chance to say goodbye.  

Luckily, I didn't have to do it alone.  I had great help from one of Miss Jill's friends, lots of Facebook involvement, and her coordinators at the city.  The party ended up amazing.  We had a wonderful turnout--easily more than 250 people, the food lasted, the kids had fun and we didn't have one injury.  I call that a success.  

This was the cake the city got for her. It says, "Best Wishes
From All Your Great Kids"

Miss Jill brought lollies. And we had name badges.

Getting a plaque from the city.

She wiped away lots of tears that day.

I made "I'm a Great Kid" t-shirts, since Miss Jill makes the
kids say that at the end of every class.  It was great to see a
wall-full of kids wearing them.

People brought presents

and gift cards.

And here she is with my two great kids.

We will miss her greatly.  I was so happy to be able to do something nice for her after 25 years of her teaching and loving children.  But I am not a party planner and hopefully I won't have to do that again for awhile.

Autumn at the Arboretum

I apologize for the neglect.  I have a month's worth of adventures to catch up on, but in my defense, we have had a very busy month.  Also Lee decided to sleep like a newborn again, so I haven't had evenings free to blog. 

Anyway, for our anniversary this year Johnny was out of town, plus it was Conference weekend, so we decided to celebrate a week later.  And since we didn't have babysitters for a night away, I stole an idea from my friend, Lauren, and decided to have a family birthday party.  We made a special dessert and went to the Arboretum.  I'd heard great things about it and it was their fall festival.  They had thousands of pumpkins and other gourds.  It was amazing. 

One of the pumpkin houses.

Say cheese

Family shot

Daddy and the girls

Hay bales!

Maze? I don't need no stinkin' maze!

Just imagine what this awesomeness would be in spring.

Fountains

It was actually quite chilly that day since it was raining, so
Joy shared her blanket with Lee, who was happy to have it.

We paid extra to go in the Children's Garden.  It was well worth it.  That place was amazing.  We spent most of our time there looking in kaleidoscopes, playing in playgrounds, learning cool stuff . . .

Building topiaries

Making reflective symmetry

Climbing like monkeys 

It wouldn't be an arboretum trip without a flower picture.  This one was was crazy awesome with curly-cue strings.  It almost looked glittery.  Nature be crazy.

Spinning water wheels

Hey, blue eyes.

Joy experienced a hurricane.  Her hair was awesome.

Building a river path down the sand
mountain.

Celery slide in the veggie garden.

In front of the water wall.

Oooh, a maze.