Since Brent has a game tomorrow, which is Halloween and his birthday, we went to Moberly tonight so he could watch the girls trick-or-treat at my parent's house. Ella has a bad cold, and sounds really croupy, so I'm not sure how much trick-or-treating we will get to do tomorrow anyway. We stayed and had supper with my parents and they got to give Brent his birthday gift. It was a quick trip down and back, but I'm glad we could do it.
Gracie has a Hello Kitty sleeping mask that she wears periodically. It always cracks me up to find her wearing it. Tonight I told her she could sleep on the couch, so she got really cozy and put her mask on and went right to sleep. Maybe I should try it sometime to see if it gains me any extra sleep!
Gracie and Ella are enjoying their school year so far. Gracie is in a independent reading group with another student in her class. They are reading through the "Magic Tree House" series together, which she had already started reading last summer at home. She loves that they are in an independent reading group and don't need the teacher's help. Gracie continues to love to read! She is also learning how to borrow in Math, and it looks like she is doing well with that also. I had a discussion this week with Gracie's teacher to find out how long it might be until she can get help with speech at Macon. They have to test her and get things set up, so hopefully before long she can continue working on her "r's". At Atlanta she went to speech twice a week, I think.Ella loves going to Tri-County everyday. She has settled into our new routine the easiest of all of us. Getting her out of bed is the hardest part of the day! I love that I get to see Ella periodically throughout the day. Sometimes it's on the playground or in the hall, but I always get to see her at lunch. While my kids are eating lunch, she walks right by for her nap, so I get a big hug and kiss before nap time. She can tell us the sounds that the letters A-G make and can write most of them very well. At school she has to write "Eleanor" on her papers, so that has been a challenge since she's used to writing "Ella." Ella loves to come home and tell us what she learned, but she sometimes doesn't want to tell us if she got in trouble that day. I don't think it happens often, but if a teacher has to say, "Ella..." then she thinks she's in trouble and I might find out about it. :-) I guess since I work there she imagines that I know everything that goes on. Oh, the power I have!
We went to Columbia bright and early this morning to watch the MU Homecoming Parade. The band from Brashear was in the parade. Brent needed to go supervise them, and the girls and I wanted to see the parade anyway, so we all went. We had a good time!
Some of the floats were loud, and they bothered and scared Ella. Lots of fraternities and sororities had floats, and literally 100 kids would walk by yelling and chanting things. They were usually taunting each other. The girls left with full buckets of candy, so they were thrilled with the MU Homecoming parade.
Our neighbor Charlotte's house is always one of our favorite stops. The girls love how Charlotte can transform herself from the lady we see on a normal day to the witch who sits out front on Halloween!
Ella's buddy Reagan came over to trick-or-treat, so we had to get some pics of them in their cheerleader outfits!
They love each other!
I was in charge of these lovely ladies at the pumpkin patch.
Ella loved climbing the hay bales. Last year she was pretty timid, but this year she went clear to the top and enjoyed sliding down, too.
Ella also loved this slippery slide. You can sit on a potato sack to slide, but it's slick enough without any additional help.
Ella got to choose a pumpkin to take home, and she fell in love with this tiny one.
I told you we took a big group with us! Papa Charlie's offers a fun atmosphere for the kids with lots of neat activities. I hope we get to go again next year and that Gracie can go with us. She had a great time with her troop at the corn maze, but we missed having her with us!
Some of the floats were loud, and they bothered and scared Ella. Lots of fraternities and sororities had floats, and literally 100 kids would walk by yelling and chanting things. They were usually taunting each other. The girls left with full buckets of candy, so they were thrilled with the MU Homecoming parade.
Ella adores Mr. Tim!
Cousin Callie was the Tri-County Queen at last year's May Day, so she got to ride in the parade.
Six of my kids showed up to ride in the parade. We had to base our float on a reality show, so we chose "Survivor." Everyone wore tribal inspired gear, so it was really cute. We won first place in community division, so our hard work paid off!
Goofy kids!
Ella was pretty excited to ride on the church float. They threw frisbees to people.
Here's our Tri-County representation. You can't see much of the float, but it kind of gives you the idea.
