Halloween Festivities

We had several fun opportunities for Kendra to sport her costume this year (which was good, since I went the lazy route and paid for the whole she-bang this year instead of being inventive and creative).

First, we had a little fall carnival thingy in our neighborhood.  Not a whole lot going on...a few cheesy games and a few "vendors" hawking their stuff.  They did have a cake walk, which is Kendra's fave, and also a cute petting zoo.

Kendra must've done the cake walk 10 times and the lady running it finally just had mercy on her and gave her a cupcake!  :-)

The same day we had a fall carnival at church hosted by our Young Women.  Kid games and cake walks were there, too, as well as our church friends!

Coloring a little Halloween bag thingy.

With sweet friend Rapunzel (a.k.a. Cloey)

Best game of the night---marshmallow shooter!  (They Germ-Xed them after each use, of course!)

 

 

 

I love costumes that are plays on words.  I strung a bunch of snack sized Milky Way candy bars into a circle and wore it.  I was "Center of the Galaxy".  :-)

We also went out on Halloween night, of course.  Usually we hit the streets that are perpendicular to our street--there are three blocks for that, but we've found them to be pretty sparse in the candy department.  This year, we headed to the part of the neighborhood behind our house and hit the Mother Lode.  There was even a house that was cooking hotdogs for the whole neighborhood!  (Too bad I rushed home and cooked dinner before we left!).  We had a great time and Kendra's little plastic pumpkin was filled in no-time flat.  The weather was PERFECT--no need for a jacket at all!  We took Grady with us because I didn't want him to bark the whole night.  I don't think we'll do that again--it wore him out to walk that much!  Every time I'd stop while Kendra went to a house he would plop down and it would be hard to get him moving again!  One of our last houses was some people we know just from walking the neighborhood and they love Grady.   He laid down on their grass and put his muzzle on the shoe of the lady--she even took a picture of him because she thought he was so dang cute.  But when it was time to go, I had to pull and pull and literally dragged him across the grass for a bit before he would stand up!  Crazy hound.

The (Not So) Great Pumpkin

It took this many years to come to this realization--I really, really do NOT like carving pumpkins!  I admire all those really neat designs that I see all over place, but the thought of trying to do one like that just makes me groan.  I don't really mind scooping out the guts.  No, it's not totally pleasant, but I can handle it.  I just do not like carving!  Maybe I don't have the right tools.  Maybe I should buy one of those little knives that they say work wonders and that kids can use themselves.  But I have a hard time believing a cheapo orange plastic handled pumpkin knife is going to out-do my Cutco serrated bad-boy. 

But I'm a mama.  And I do things because I'm a mama and it makes Kendra happy. So here you go...our pumpkin carving evening in photos, and the resultant Not So Great Pumpkin.

I carve, she designs on tiny pumpkins

The Finale Science Hat!!!

Our school has an annual tradition...the Science Vocabulary Hat Parade!  We always have it right around Halloween since they are lame down here and don't let kids have Halloween fun at school.  Oh.  Did I say that out loud?  I digress...

This is Kendra's last year to participate in the parade, as she is a fifth grader (sigh).  The word she was assigned this year is Natural Resources.  I think we did a bang-up job for her finale hat!

We taped a small box to a flat section of another box first.  Then, we spray painted the whole thing brown.  On the top is a piece of rock scrapbooking paper and an oil rig made from chenille sticks and slices of a black trash bag for the "gusher" effect.  On the bottom is a couple of trees made from tubes of brown craft foam and real crafting moss.  Then there is Kendra's favorite (and her brainchild, too)---a river made from glue we colored with food coloring, bordered by real rocks and pieces of wood.  Pretty awesome, if we do say so ourselves!

School Carnival

Our school has a pretty fun little carnival each year.  This year, Kendra had a decision to make.  The Activity Days leaders at church had planned a "field trip" on the same Saturday to a large cat sanctuary (lions, tigers, etc).  Kendra decided that she wanted to go to the carnival because it was her last year in elementary school.

It was a gorgeous day--sunny and about 80 degrees.  Perfect because most of our carnival games take place outside.  Here are a few pics to document the day:

Kendra's cute teacher in the dunk tank.  I narrowly avoided having to perch there myself!

Kendra with Ms. Latino North Texas, who is a mom at our school!

Kendra in line to try to dunk my partner, Mr. Hopkins.

There's my partner, Mr. Hopkins.  Kendra didn't dunk him, but lots of our kiddos did!  Glad he took one for the team!!!

Andy Armadillo from Texas Roadhouse paid a visit.

The Great Baileeny (a.k.a. our fantastic librarian) read Kendra's fortune.  She doesn't look thrilled...this one said she is going to a certain high school (the one my school feeds to..nope, she isn't going there!)

Leadership Award!

(My apologies to the two or three of you who are regular readers of my blog.  We've been running with our hair on fire since school started eight weeks ago and grading papers/cleaning house/grocery shopping/laundry isn't really post-able!!  But I have a few more things to blog in the next weeks so we're baaaccck!  :-) )

Our school gives report cards every six weeks, and with that comes an awards assembly.  We recognize students with academic achievements of all A's or A's/B's as well as perfect attendance.  This year we changed things up a bit and are also giving six special awards in each classroom.  We are honoring math achievement, science achievement, honor roll (exceptional grades or great growth), most improved, core values (a different one each six weeks) and leadership.  Our school has decided to adopt the Leader in Me model for leadership using the 7 Habits for Highly Successful People.  We have taught the 7 Habits to all our students and it is really awesome seeing them using the habits and recognizing those leadership qualities in others.

In addition to earning all A's this six weeks marking period, Kendra was chosen by her class to receive the leadership award!  Way to go, Boo!!!

We are giving out these neat "dog tags" for the awards this year.  The idea is that the kids will collect the dog tags and have a nice record of their elementary accomplishments by the time they leave our school.  I'm so proud of my girl...she really is a great leader and example to everyone--including her mom!

Before and after the 100 degree days!

For those that don't live in the fair state of Texas, you may be unaware that we have had quite the summer.  Blistering hot, to be exact.  We had 65 days of 100+ degree temperatures.  SIXTY-FIVE days.  Not to mention no rain.  I mean NONE.  It rained once in June and once in August.  That's it.  To say it has felt rather extreme is an understatement. 

Some people buck up and face the heat for the sake of their gardens.  I am NOT such a person.  Therefore, my front bed looked like this:

 

Overgrown shrubs, overgrown annuals, overgrown crepe myrtle tree, and a random tree that sprouted out of one of my shrub bushes.  Was it an embarrassing site?  Yep.  Was it worth working in 108 degree heat?  Nope.  Not a bit.

But then.  Lo and behold.  One day it is 100 degrees and the next it is 66 upon waking in the morning with a promise of the high only reaching 83 degrees.  Today was that day.  Glory, glory Hallelujah.  I headed to the big Orange Depot and got me some pruning sheers and a pruning saw.  Texas is really windy, so it is pretty normal to have trees just come up from out of nowhere from seeds being scattered to and fro.  I had the one in the front shrub and several big suckers in the back yard to tackle, too.

The front bed--AFTER:

Holy so much better, Batman! 

Next came those trees in the back.  They were doozies.  One had a trunk about 3 inches in diameter.  Can you say sore arms tomorrow???

This was a small one.  I had already toppled the big fella.

I am Woman With Saw, hear me CHOP!

This pruning seal sure had better work.  I don't want to do that again. 

I know I could've gotten closer to the ground with the saw, but I just didn't have it in me to trim more after I had the major stuff gone. And I'm sure Kendra and I were quite a funny site after I chopped all the trees.  They were so much bigger than I realized, and the only thing I could think of was to drag them out of our neighborhood and across to a big open field to let them decompose.  So there we were---both of us had two huge trees in each hand dragging behind us, walking down the street.  Boy am I glad to have it all done, and even more so, I am dang near giddy with this weather!

Now, off to clean the house.  Sigh....

Concert!!!!

A couple weeks ago, on our school's Meet the Teacher Night, Kendra got quite the surprise.  We had dashed out to get a quick bite to eat before the night began.  We came back to my classroom and found our friends standing there waiting for us.  Crys teaches next door, and Holly is her daughter who has become a close pal of Kendra's.  They looked like they could hardly contain themselves, and Holly shouted out, "Kendra, guess who is going to the Selena Gomez concert?"  We both smiled and were so excited to hear that Holly was going to see her idol.  But before we could say, "Cool!  Have fun!" , Holly shouted, "YOU ARE!!!"  Kendra and I probably had the most puzzled looks on our faces.  Crys explained that she was taking Holly AND Kendra to the concert!  She bought the tickets and wanted to take Kendra as their guest.  WOW!!!! 

Fast forward to the day before the concert when Crys and I were eating lunch in the teacher's lounge.  I explained to her that I would give Kendra some money for refreshments, but she was still deciding about bringing her own money to buy a t-shirt.  Crys then told me that she was going to buy the kids both a shirt.  Are you kidding? 

The girls had the BEST time at the concert.  Kendra got a really cute shirt, and they had so, so much fun.  Crys said that Selena was an amazing artist.  Lots of times people sound different at their live shows, but Selena didn't miss one single note--pitch perfect the whole time, tons of energy, etc.  I'm so grateful for wonderful friends who give my girlie such great experiences and share their generosity so fully.  We are BLESSED.

Ready for the show with their matching concert t's!

I think this one says it all.  Look at that face!!!!