Halloween 2008

Our Halloween started early this morning with a sing-along and parade at school... what a great way to start!! This is our fifth year of this program, and it gets better every year. This year is bittersweet, though, as it is Jackson's last Halloween program at Little School... I know he will miss it.

The kids sing and dance their little hearts out, smiling and laughing the whole way through. The excitement is incredible!

Here they are "hiding" as we listen to the scary music of the "Twilight Zone",

Harris with his friends Dylan and Mattie.

After the sing-along is a parade around the College of Charleston to show off our cute little ones and their costumes. Harris' friend Walker was a cowboy, too, and they were super proud to walk together.

The parade was followed by a classroom party. Jason stayed with Jackson while I stayed with Harris... this is a picture of Harris' party. The party mom went all out, and it was incredibly cute... I think the kids were overwhelmed by all of the cute decorations. They were all smiles.

After school, we came home for a rest and some playtime with Spencer and Eliza before the gang arrived. We have started a tradition of having our friends meet here for dinner and trick-or-treating, and the boys look forward to the time with friends (not to mention, the adults love the time, too!) This year, we had 14 costumed cuties, ranging from 5 years old to 2 1/2 weeks old! Next year we will be at least one larger! Every year we do this couch photo, and every year the group grows. One of these days I am going to post all of our couch photos to compare the groups!

It was crazy trying to get each of the little ones to cooperate and stay on the couch... this was really the best I could do.
After a pizza dinner, the moms sent the dads out with all of the kids to trick-or-treat... man, they could hardly contain themselves. Above are the preparations... getting everyone together and settled. Below is the beginning of the adventure!
Usually the group is gone no longer than 30 minutes or so. I don't think the kids were having an early night this year... they were gone fore more than an hour and a half! They came back with rosy ckeeks and buckets filled with candy... all of them so happy and so excited. To make it even better, once everyone left, Jackson and Harris stayed up late to give out candy to all of the trick-or-treaters that were still coming to our door... that was the best thing in the world! They raced to the door everytime the bell rang, ready to see what haunts were there and what they could give out.
I loved the magic and mystery in Halloween this year... the boys had such a great time, which makes it all the better. I hope you and yours had as great a night as we did.

Happy Halloween!!!

Fish Or Treat

Tonight was the South Carolina Aquarium's annual Fish-Or-Treat for its members. It was the first chance that Jackson and Harris got to show off their Halloween costumes in public (besides about a month ago when they wore them to the grocery store!), and they were super-excited!

All over the aquarium there were people dressed up handing out treats and candy to little trick-or-treaters... my little ones loved it and saw it as "practice" for the big night tomorrow.

It is such a great way to tour the aquarium, too... it really wasn't that busy, and it was completely decked out for Halloween. Lots of bats, skeletons, pumpkins and the likes were everywhere, including in some of the displays.

There was even a "Fishing Booth" where the kids would fish for treats.

I think they fed the otters right before we got there, as they were busy munching and swimming around happily... Harris was enthralled with them and might have been able to stay there all night!

My little cowboy and Bumble Bee Transformer (don't ask where he got that costume idea... we are still trying to figure it out!) had a great time tonight and are fully practiced and ready for Halloween tonorrow night!!!

Jack-O-Lanterns

After lunch today, the boys and I headed to the John Wesley Methodist pumpkin patch. Because of all of the rain, many of the pumpkins there were in rough shape, mushy from sitting in the water. However, after much searching, we found one that was perfect for our big jack-o-lantern.
When we sat down to carve it, I found out that we were carving all of our pumpkins, including the small pumpkins we got from the school trip (which I figured were too small... moms can be wrong once in a while!).
Jackson and Harris loved the carving process. Jackson drew pictures of the faces that he and Harris wanted on the pumpkins, Jason gutted the pumpkins, I carved, and Harris cheered us on ("Daddy, how is my pumpkin coming along?"). The excitement of Halloween has definitely hit our house!
Of course we had to light them to see how our carving held up to their expectations, and I think we passed... both of them were thrilled to see the results. Because of our poor luck with keeping jack-o-lanterns alive at our house, we brought the little pumpkins inside in hopes of extending their lifespan. We are all looking forward to lighting the night on Friday with all three of our jack-o-lanterns in full glow...

Playtime

Some of my favorite pictures from late summer and early fall.

Happiness is...

checking four voicemail messages and hearing four of your best friends singing "Happy Birthday"!!!

Camping Out

A week or two ago, Jason pulled the tent out of the garage and set it up for the boys to play in. They continued to talk about sleeping in it, so we figured, why not? The catch was that it is a 2-person tent, or a two-little boy and 1-adult tent. Who was going to be the lucky camper? Me, of course!!

We built a fire in the firepit, sat around, and told stories about our chhildhoods. It was a beautiful night, clear and tons of stars.

Jackson & Harris loved hearing all of the stories, running around the backyard at night, adding pine cones to the fire, and playing with their flashlights.

At about 9:00, the three of us piled into the tent, climbed into our sleeping bags, said our prayers, and said goodnight (while Jason headed inside for a quiet night and a great sleep!!). I can't say it was a fantastic night's sleep for Harris or me, but Jackson slept like a champ. Now that we have tried it out someplace easy, it is time to head on out to the wild for some real camping out!!

Project

Afternoons here at our house are consumed with "projects". Big ones, little ones, it doesn't matter. Anything to keep their minds and hands busy to keep them out of trouble. On this special afternoon, we strung penne pasta onto yarn and painted it for a necklace. As you can see above, Jackson painted his pasta perfectly, while...

Harris painted the newspaper I put on the table to protect it from the paint.

The end result is one of the funniest pictures of my boys ever...
All they need are white patent leather pocketbooks, and they would look like the ultimate old lady tourists in Florida!!!

Decisions

Jason and I are in the process of searching out an elementary school for Jackson. He is in kindergarten at Little School, the preschool he has been at since he was 20 months old. We love love love Little School, as does Jackson, and I can't believe his time there is short.

This whole elementary school business is horrible. Absolutely horrible. With South Carolina ranking consistently at the bottom of the list in public school education, private school is a real possibility in our future. I want to believe in the public school system, I really do, but the state rankings cannot be ignored.

So, we have been attending first grade fairs, touring schools, and asking lots and lots of questions. Our choice is not at all clear. The main issue? Unfortunately, price. Annual private school tuition in Charleston is more than the annual tuition that my parents paid for a year at Clemson... some of them twice that.

Did you get that? Elementary school costs more than college!! What enrages me about that fact is that there are public charter and magnet schools that get it right, that are able to produce students that get into top high schools and are fully prepared to excell in AP and college classes. Why aren't the rest of the public schools held to the same standard? Why are parents so accepting of that fact? Why do I have to pay taxes to support these failing schools AND pay college tuition prices for elementary school?

What to do? We have visited two private schools already and have two more scheduled. We are also scheduled to visit the public elementary school for which we are zoned. Fortunately that school is one of the better schools in the area, but it doesn't offer many of the "standards" or "challenges" that the private schools offer (ie a language, small classes, accelerated reading programs). Jackson needs challenge in school or he gets bored... I have seen it in his work. He also needs a nurturing environment, one that will encourage him to come out of his little shell sometimes. Private schools have the smaller classes and are more apt to say that they are nurturing than the public schools... definitely an issue for us.

All of the schools we are thinking about and have seen have different pros and cons (of course), and what we have to discern from all of this is where Jackson will be the happiest and do the best with what we can afford. We have to listen to others' opinions and experiences, but we also have to form our own judgements from our experiences. It is so hard... just like applying for and deciding on college, all over again.

The next few months for us will be stressful when it comes to school, but I have to have faith that God will help us to discern what is right for Jackson and for us. It is so hard to believe that in a year Jackson will be at one of these places, doing all of the big things that first-graders do. I look forward to that time and resting easy in the fact that he is somewhere that is perfect for him.

Ta-Da!

After nearly four years of living in this house, Jason and I finally made our window treatments for the kitchen and family room. I say we both did it, but really Jason was awesome and did most of it. He built the structures, I sewed the fabric (which is this great dragonfly print), and we both added the fabric, although he really did the majority of it. We had some help from friends on how to do it (thanks, Nancy & Aileen!), but other than that, we pulled it off on our own!
We are both really pleased with how they turned out, and I have to say (Jason might disagree) that they were worth the wait.

Disney

Sometime this past spring, Jason and I decided it was time to take the boys to Disney World. We planned and planned, the we got the boys as excited as possible for it. We watched the Disney Planning Video, we watched lots of Disney videos, we made character autograph books, we scoured the website,we made Disney countdown chains for each of their bedrooms (they removed one link of the chain every night until we left),

and we even let the kids sort through our change bucket to earn some spending money. These boys were so excited that I thought they were going to burst.Our first stop once the big day was here and we finally got to Orlando was Downtown Disney for dinner at the Rainforest Cafe and some shopping. Shopping was not the most fun that night, but I think seeing all of the Disney "stuff" was really exciting and made the boys realize that they were really in for something big over the next few days. The dragon behind us is made completely out of Legos!
We headed back to the hotel right after dinner to try to make it an early night... not so easy with two little boys in Orlando! I think all of us were a little restless with dreams of Disney dancing in our heads...

Animal Kingdom

On the first morning of our Disney trip, we first checked into our hotel, the Animal Kingdom Lodge. We were floored at how beautiful and how unique the hotel was. As we walked to our room, we passed windows that had savannah views... that morning as we walked to our room for the first time, we were able to see zebras grazing. On other days we saw water buffalo or giraffes out there. We were also pleasntly suprised to find bunk beds for the kids in our room... man, those could have been a vacation in themselves for the boys! They were so excited about those beds and about making their places in them!After taking a few minutes to get settled in, we headed straight to the Animal Kingdom park. The boys faces as we began our trek through the park were full of amazement... they had never seen anything like it!
This dino ride (which resembles the Dumbo ride, except with dinosaurs!) was the first ride of the trip... thank goodness they loved it!After a little time in Dinoland and watching the Finding Nemo musical, we headed to Africa for a safari. The park was dead first thing in the morning, and we immediately got on a jeep, no wait, and had it all to ourselves! Harris, who was up around5:30am promptly fell asleep and slept through the entire safari. Jackson, on the other hand, was wide awake and loved matching the animals on the safari to the animals on the chart in the jeep. Afterward, we had a little time for some bongo practice.
Jackson and I headed to the Kali River Rapids while Jason and Harris explored the park. Jackson and I loved the rapids, and it was a great ride choice to cool off on such a hot day. We met the other boys afterward at Camp Mickey for a little time with some of our favorite characters.
It was a hot, hot afternoon, and Harris was beginning to wilt, so we headed back to the room. While he napped, Jackson and I headed out to explore the hotel, with our specific mission being the pool. It was the perfect way to cool off and relax.


After waking up and cleaning up, we headed to the Magic Kingdom for our glimpse of the park. It was a crazy one, as it was so crowded. We decided just to get dinner and head back for an early bedtime... no complaints from either boy! It was really a great first day, and Jackson and Harris were super-excited to see what was in store for them the next day.