Scary Sweet

 

 

We had a fantastic Halloween despite the cold, wet weather.  Carter chose to dress up as the Transformer, Bumblebee, this year.  He did not waiver on that choice.  Mia on the other hand went through about every Princess (twice) before finally settling on Ariel.  She's really into swimming lately so I think Ariel appealed to her on that level (that and the awesome red wig).

 

We carved pumpkins the weekend before Halloween.  The kids were excited to pick out the look for their faces.  Carter wanted "super scary" and Mia wanted "gloomy."  (She got that from a Halloween book we have). 

 

Here they are carving (Mia mainly watched Dave do it).

 

 

 Carter loved using the little saw tools.

 

 

The finished pumpkins.

 

 

 

On Halloween, Dave's work did an indoor trick-or-treating event for all the kids of Fishbeck employees.  Dave picked them up from daycare/school early and they went around to various desks throughout his work and came home with buckets full of candy. 

 

We then headed over to our favorite trick-or-treat starting point, the Slobodnik house.  Since we don't have many houses around us, it's nice to have a really close neighborhood with a familiar house. 

 

We were greeted by a silly cow (Juliet) and a spooky skeleton (Ruth).  We only did around 20 houses in the neighborhood due to weather and time, but the kids still got a ton of candy and were definitely ready for bed by the time we were done. 

 

 

 

Happy Halloween everyone!

Kindergarten

Carter started Kindergarten this fall and he is loving every minute! 

We had a bit of a head start since he did Young 5's at this same school last year.  He was already comfortable with the before/after school teachers, knew the layout of the school, what to expect when riding the bus, and was used to a longer day.  It was nice for Dave and me too, we definitely had less anxiety about what to expect.  What a breeze!

Here is Carter waiting for the bus on his first day.

We think it's important for him to ride the bus the very first day.  Gets him used to being independent right away (and apparently the drop off area that first week is mass chaos).  Carter typically only rides the bus on Fridays, however.

Here are Carter and Mia waiting for the bus on the first Friday (when Mia and I are home to "walk" him to the bus stop - or - end of our driveway).

Mia gets sad every time we put him on the bus (and a bit jealous).  It's crazy to think that next year she will be in preschool!  Oh how time flies.

We had our first parent-teacher conference for the year (November).  Carter is doing extremely well and we are so proud.  He can read well beyond the level expected and she told us she just ordered some new books, specifically for Carter, to keep him "challenged."  (He is currently reading chapter books at home).  She said he is really good at math too (thank you Dave!) and counts well beyond expectations.  She showed us an exercise where the kids were supposed to fill in numbers on a grid, Carter did his grid so quickly that he created his own grid on the back of the paper because he was bored.  Carter's only area to work on is staying focused and be less chatty.  He tends to "gab" with friends and gets off track.  She said this includes eating lunch in a more timely fashion as well.  Hmmmmm, didn't see that one coming at all.  :)

We're VERY proud of Carter.  He is so smart and grown up!