Trunk or Treat

Our ward's Trunk or Treat was last night. It was a fun night, though a little chaotic, since I was in the presidency in charge of the event and showed up early to help set up and then stayed to help tear down (though we left earlier than most since I had the youngest brood of the group). The girls showed little interest in most of the carnival activities, in fact they protested quite a bit when we attempted to get them to do the hanging donut eating contest. They didn't quite understand the cupcake walk either. Cadence obediently walked in the circle, but Megan walked in a circle to the cupcake table, helped herself to a cupcake and left the game.

Connor refused to wear his entire costume. He grudgingly left the bandanna in place, but attempt to reattach his beard and he knew how to grab and pull. The entire night was off for him. I hadn't fed him in a few hours and rather than fuss about that, he went to sleep in the middle of the crowd of screaming kids at the carnival. He wasn't too happy to wake up when I put him in the stroller for the actual trunk-or-treating portion of the night, but as long as we kept moving he was fine. It was until we attempted to strap him in his carseat that he decided to inform us of how hungry he was.

Unfortunately for us, in the midst of his screaming, we realized I had misplaced my keys somewhere. Though James has his, losing mine was extremely upsetting. Thankfully, I got a phone call tonight from someone who found them. Apparently, when I stopped to help someone pick up some items of theirs that had fallen, I dumped my keys, along with their buttons and thread, into their bag and walked away. After a frantic 24 hours of not knowing where they are, they are secure. Thank goodness, since replacing car keys is a little pricey nowadays and requires a little more work than just driving down to Walmart and having a key cut at the sporting goods desk.

Anyway, we do have a family picture! We're working on getting updated professional pictures in the next month or so, but for now, this is it.

As for little family updates: Cadence is showing an interest in reading. Once I changed gears and worked on sounding out words to write instead of read, she has done well. She still needs a lot of prompting, but she's picking it up. Megan also recognizes words we've worked on and I expect once Cadence is reading, she'll be more interested in learning it herself.

Connor is 7 months and some change. He's learned how to get himself to a sitting position and how to climb (his favorite climbing apparatus is, of course, me). He's talking up a storm (combining consonants, ba-la-ma-ma, into mock-words instead of repetitive consonants, ba-ba-ba-ba) and recently realized the food everyone else eats is far tastier and more interesting than what I've been giving him. He continues to charm everyone he meets. Just the other day he got his 2nd flu shot (infants need to get 2 in one month to be fully vaccinated) and seconds after he had been crying about it, he was flirting with the nurses.

Zoo Boo

Despite some potentially bad weather, the kids and I braved the Zoo for their annual "Zoo Boo", where they have a few extra Halloween-themed activities. It wasn't anything fancy, which is to be expected when there's no additional cost beyond the entrance fee (or your membership fee, in our case), but the girls got to wear their costumes, paint pumpkins, collect a bit of candy, and still see their favorite animals. I had hoped the potential rain would keep most people away, but the place was more crowded than usual for a weekday morning. Still, we had fun.

Connor's costume didn't last long. He kept trying to eat the beard. The pieces ended up in my purse before we even reached the zoo.

Missing Megan's arm and leg warmers, but here's Pinkie Pie and Supergirl!

Hanging out while the girls painted their pumpkins with paint pens.

He was more excited by his reflection than the chimp only a foot away from him.

Brushing the goats.

Megan protested riding the carousel initially, but once we were on it she loved it. (Cadence refused to smile for the picture)

Lunch time. He's mastering his pincer grasp.

  

They had a few photo op places, so I took advantage of one while we were all still in a good mood. :-)

Dewberry Farm 2013

The original plan for Dewberry Farm was to go later in the month, but when James was given today off, we decided to go ahead and move our plans up by 2 weeks. In the end, I think we all wish we had just waited the extra two weeks. It was hot out. Not just hot, but muggy. A storm rolled in this afternoon and the air got nasty real fast and zapped our energy and enjoyment of what should have been a great trip.

It was so warm the girls had no desire to go on the big slid, swing off of the big haystack, run through the Fort DewHickey or any of the other exciting things to do at the farm that our entrance fee gave us access to. Cadence did swing a little and the girls held my hand as I dragged them through the barn to look at the pigs, rabbits and baby chicks. I was looking forward to doing the corn maze this year, but there was no way I wanted to go in there and have even the occasional breeze blocked off. Poor Connor was extremely uncomfortable in the stroller, even though we poured water down the back of his shirt to help him cool off.

In the end, we used a coupon to get the girls rights to 2 souvenir cups they could fill with wildflowers. James walked them through the field to pick out their flowers. Then we opted to walk to the pumpkin field rather than wait for a seat on the overcrowded hay wagon and its mini-tour of the Christmas tree lots. Patience faded quickly as we all got overheated on the short trek and we were back in the car and on the road not much later. We ran into the storm (the source of the mugginess) halfway home, and it lasted long enough for all of us to cool off a bit.

Unfortunately, I left the sunscreen at home, sitting on the counter and it seems Connor has inherited his dad's skin (my fingers are still crossed I got my little freckle-faced redhead after all!) and both boys came home with a mild sunburn. I'll be more vigilant next time (like our zoo boo trip next week)

She's a Writer, not a Reader

Cadence has known her letters since she was 2, so admittedly I'm a little surprised she's nearly 5 and has shown no interest in the reading I've tried to encourage her to do. Try to get her to sound out words and her eyes glaze over.

I recently realized I've been approaching it all wrong with her. This realization came when she brought a piece of paper over to me. It had been covered with drawings and letters. She settled next to me with her pencil and paper and asked me how to spell "lips". I took a closer look at her paper and realized she had written the 4 words we've used in preschool (Each week, we have a simple sight word, "cat", "bed", "ant" and "dog"). She had written each of the words and drawn an appropriate picture. She had also written her own name and a picture. Then written "BRAVE" and "GISNEY" (with lots of loops, just like the Disney logo).

Something suddenly clicked in my head. Cadence doesn't have the patience or motivation to sit and learn how to read words on the page, but she does have the patience to sit down and sound them out with me to write them.

So, I coached her through the word "lips" by sounding it out with her. Then through the word "doll" and a handful of other words before Connor demanded my attention.

I'll make a reader of her yet. But first, I'm going to make a writer out of her.