Watching Our Children Grown

Here are some things that are kids have been doing the last couple of months...

1. Blake has learned to pump the swing all by himself. He sustains himself and gets himself going quite well.
2. We haven't been able to spell things in our house for a while. Samantha is reading so well that those days are long gone. She's always writing, coloring and drawing pictures for us with titles so we asks us how to spell words. She read a nice size book to me the other day.
3. Blake once said, "Watch mom, this is dangerous." Hmm, not sure I should watch then.
4. Samantha had had separation anxiety about dropping her off at school but just in the last couple of weeks she's come around again. I think we've found a routine that works for her that she feels comfortable with.
5. Blake and I have had the opportunity to go to Samantha's Kindergarten class and teach them a craft.
6. Blake recently got a big-boy bed. We told him when we got the bed that the rocking chair was going to have to leave. When we moved the chair out he cried because he loves rocking in it. Once he told me he was going to rock until he was 20.
7. We had Samantha's first Parent/Teacher Conference. She is doing so well in school. Ms. Wallace, her teacher said that she is kind and helpful is school. She's bored but she doesn't act out because of it. We've found that she is much above the work in Kindergarten and thankfully Ms. Wallace has identified that and will start Samantha on a high level of reading soon. Ms. Wallace said that she is a pleasure to have in school. We are so thankful she loves Ms. Wallace and school. We are blessed to have such a wonderful school nearby.

Over Fall break I took the kids to see the play "If you Give a Mouse a Cookie." We invited Samantha's friend Bailey to go with us. The kids enjoyed the play as it was very funny and then I took them out to eat for lunch. They loved the play so much they asked to go back to another one.

The Saturday night before Halloween our street had a street party. The kids dressed up in their Halloween outfits and we grilled out. We shut down the street so the kids could run around and invited the fire truck to come. Everyone had such a great time that Samantha asked if we could do it every weekend.

Halloween started off a bit rocky in our house but then the kids mellowed out and had a fantastic time. We took them to our sister church where they have "Safe Haven" with each room decorated in a biblical theme and they can trick-or-treat inside to the different rooms.

As usual, Travis helped the kids carve their pumpkins this year (it's more like Dad carves the pumpkins). He got fancy this year and got patterns that they traced and then cut out.

We had some water damage to our drywall due to leaking windows so we replaced our windows and Travis replaced the drywall all around it. It made for an awful mess for a couple of weeks but thankfully it's all back together and looking great. The kids loved helping Dad clean up from everything...