Sunday, November 30, 2014

Texting fun

I forgot to post this from October. Jim was out of town and James was using my phone to text him.

 

Happy 8th Birthday, James!

Sneaky surprised us in his cupcake outfit, just for James! Actually, James remembered that Sneaky would come. He reminded me the night before which was good because I needed to scrounge up the materials!

 

 

 

I asked James to please smile nicely because we needed to send Dad a picture. Jim was out of town on the actual birthday day, and so we celebrated earlier that weekend. I knew Dad would want to see James looking EIGHT years old though!

For a birthday treat I picked up James from school. We were headed to ToysRUs for a quick purchase, using Sneaky's $8 and then we were going on a birthday date!

James greeted me with birthday wishes all over his tshirt. I'm glad his classroom recognized his birthday (they don't allow treats anymore..!)

After TRU, on to the Tavern! And calamari! And birthday kisses and selfies!

 

 

All of the Skylanders traps he scored at TRU. I may have gone overboard. He had his $8, I decided to chip in a bit and then if you spent $20 you got another free! Well, $25 later...

 

But he got the Kaos trap and ran into the house to show Sneaky! Luckily Sneaky was still there.

 

Birthday mail arrived! A gift card from Tía Kiki got many smiles! He quickly went on Amazon and spend that!

 

More birthday mail. Silly face!

 

My dear sweet baby is eight. It is hard to believe! He gives us so much joy and we know we are truly lucky to have such a sweet, kind, generous, smart, fun, sensitive, respectful, and loving young man as our son!

 

Early November

Jim was out of town again.

I kept myself busy by assembling my new Eiffel Tower. I even found the bride and groom from our wedding cake.

 

Another work related item-

A small group of my students chose to trick or treat for nonperishables instead of candy. It's called the We Scare Hunger project. The food went to our own food shelf at CRMS, the Falcon Nest. Yay kids!

 

James started texting with his own iPod. Tía ChaCha got some of the first texts on her birthday!

 

Later, a little FaceTime with Dad while playing Skylanders.

 

 

Our washing machine broke down. We got desperate for clean (chonies) clothing so I went to the laundromat. I have a new appreciation for at-home conveniences. The laundromat is not someplace I want to hang out and each load costs $4! Just for the wash. It's no wonder many of my students look disheveled and/or smell :(

 

Appreciate all that you have!

 

Family birthdays

We have three family birthdays close together on my side of the family. We celebrated together this year and it was great!

My sister Ana and BIL Rich are great hosts. I took pictures of things around their house while they cooked us some grub. (get in my belly!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

#gnomebomb

 

James had already received his new iPod from his dear, generous parents so he kept himself busy while the adults got things done :)

 

After a fabulous home cooked dinner (no pictures, sorry) we celebrated with cake and ice cream. The three birthday peeps had the honors of blowing out the candles.

 

Chocolate chip cake (mine) and ice cream from Sebastian Joe's in Minneapolis. Omg good!

 

Tía ChaCha always gives the best books... That we end up reading over and over and over again :)

 

Thanks for a great celebration!

 

No cavities!

Just a little (reversible) gum disease. He needs to brush a bit better!

 

Thankfully, no tears this time. Just discomfort.

 

The Official 2nd Grade Photo

 

 

Cheap labor

I saw James and his friends raking leaves across the street. After they finished up I offered them some coins and all the apple cider they could drink to bag up the leaves in our front yard (I had already raked).

 

They said yes! They each earned $2 in quarters and apple cider. Yum!

This is James trying to negotiate for more money. Ummmm, no.

 

Job well done!

 

Halloween 2014

Our neighbors had a Halloween party for the kids. Those fabulous, maybe crazy people invited 40+ kids and pretty much all of them accepted the invitation! The party was two weeks before Halloween, so how great that all of the kids got to wear their costumes more than once!

 

I found James' costume at TJ Maxx. I wasn't sure if he'd like it but I kept the receipt in case a return was needed. Nope, he liked it! It gave him a reason to carry Nerf and handcuffs :)

 

The friendliest SWAT officer you'll ever see!

 

The party--

They had a lot of food, several creepy stations of games set up, and just room for the kids to run around and be wild.

 

 

 

 

James with his friends Sawyer and Gunnar, both from the neighborhood summer gang.

 

On the actual Halloween day James did NOT want to wear the helmet or carry a Nerf gun. What the??!?

 

 

We started before dark because we heard kids running around already.

 

We soon found Dane and his Dad in our neighborhood travels.

 

I ended up wimping out a bit early, after a few blocks around the neighborhood, because it was so cold. The boys continued on just fine without me. Someone needed to pass out the candy at home, no?

We didn't end up with many trick or treaters. We put a bowl of candy on the steps while we were gone and it was empty when I returned. So we had many trick or treaters or just one very hungry one!

 

James always gets more candy than he know what to do with! And kinds he doesn't even like- like Snickers, Twix, Reese's cups, etc.

 

Piling up the candy- for James and then for the parents :)

 

At my work we always have a group costume. I did participate with my subtle striped shirt. There are a few people missing from this group picture.

 

Where's Waldo?