The Months Keep Flying By...

and before you know it, you've gone and missed highlights over the past few weeks.  Our church, simply put, is awesome.  I love how service-oriented our group is.  We are always doing some sort of collection or offering to help those in our community.  I guess that's why we call ourselves COMMUNITY. Our most recent guests came from The Buddy House.  The Buddy House is a local group that caters to children with down syndrome.  My sister Shannon orchestrated the entire event.  We started collecting supplies for their new house the past few months, and then we hosted a pizza party for them on Wednesday night.  Their dance group The Rockerz even came and performed for our church group.

Our kids enjoyed the group so much.  They made posters for them and got their autographs.  LOVE!

Isaac has crossed a major milestone and had decided to play organized sports this winter.  He's playing on the Hawks basketball team.  He is gradually getting better and better (and liking it more and more).  I'm excited about this transition for him--he really needs something to keep him active and "challenged". He recently attended a basketball clinic with the South Warren Spartans. Progress in motion.

Matt decided to purchase the kids an early Christmas gift -- a basketball goal.  There has been lots of shooting going on in our 'hood'.

I've been working lots of hours at the Capitol doing lots of organizing in our storage closet.  We have loads of art supplies that needed sorting, organizing, stacking and some trashing.

Thanksgiving came and went, and I ate WAY more that I should have.  I got to eat the traditional Thanksgiving meal at Plano with the kids.  I am not a cook, don't enjoy it, don't really do it much.  My contribution to the T-day meal extravaganza with our families was a Caramel Apple pie from the Pie Kitchen in Louisville.  I thought it was the most wonderful dessert in the world until I ate a piece of coconut cake from Gondolier at Mamaw and Karen's.  Oh my!  I will definitely be purchasing one of those in the future.  

I've also been working on making the Capitol more festive.  With the help of my friend Lisa Garcia, it has been officially trimmed just in time for the lighting of the square on Friday and the annual Christmas parade this Saturday.

My kids assisted in painting ornaments for the front window display in the art gallery.

My director was on vacation last week and asked if I would help her paint some of the sets for our youth theater performance of A Christmas Story.  It was so much fun but my back and legs are paying for it--lots of squatting, bending and stretching. 

The end results were worth it though, and it was a fun way to spend the work week.

We've had the privilege of celebrating three birthdays in the month of November:

We celebrated with mom on the 13th after church with ice cream and cake at Paul and Shannon's.  We celebrated with Debbie on the 26th with an Italian dinner at Fazoli's.  And, we celebrated on the 30th with Matt and family and friends at Chuy's. 

Junior Naturalist

Isaac began a journey back in January of this year at Lost River Cave.  Lost River offers a program to young people called Junior Naturalist. It's a hand-on learning experience where kids get to discover, investigate and do lots of fun things indoors and out.  Isaac isn't interested in a whole lot of "after" school activities, and I thought this would be perfect for him and right up his alley.  The classes are every other month for about three hours--the perfect commitment level for his active lil' mind.

The first meeting took place back in January where the kids learned about the water cycle, habitats and animal relationships within those habitats.  The kids also received a nature journal to write in.  I think Isaac enjoyed that drawing book about as much as anything.  The idea was for the kids to take notes throughout the month and log them into the journal.  For Isaac, it meant something else.  He loves little note pads, drawing and doodling.

Playing a game and learning at the same time.

The second session took place in March where the kids learned bird migration, the different species we see in Kentucky.  The also learned lots of characteristics like feeding habits, beaks and their claws.

Isaac ready to do some bird watching.

The kids got to go to different stations and attempt to feed as the birds would do.

I think their favorite part was dissecting owl pellets.  I have to admit I kind of liked it too.  It was like finding little treasures in a hunt.  We found all kinds of bones, teeth and tiny skulls throughout the pellet.

Matt took Isaac to the session in May where the kids learned about trees and wildflowers.  I don't have any pictures but may raid Matt's phone later and see if he texted any to me.  I do remember Matt saying that he enjoyed the session a lot more than Isaac.

In July, the kids got to learn about insects, reptiles and amphibians and even went on a nature walk to try to find their own specimens.

The instructor Ms. Annie brought out snakes and turtles for the kids to observe.

Matt took him to the September session on seasons, weather conditions and our environment (no pictures that I know of from this session). Again, I'll have to wrangle his phone from him and look =).

His very last session was yesterday where the kids got to get down and dirty on a cave tour.

I just knew Isaac would enjoy this session much more than all the others.  What kid doesn't want to get super dirty and crawl around in caves?!?  We were told that parents were not allowed to go in the cave and that the kids would get very dirty and to bring a change of clothes.  The above pictures are the "before" pictures.

And this is the "after" picture.  I think he had fun, don't you?  He was gone for about 2 hours in the cave exploring and learning about the rocks, geology and the life that exists in the cave (like centipedes and millipedes).  He had a blast!  However, the clean-up wasn't to fun considering the bathrooms didn't have running water.  Thankfully, I purchased his jeans for $1.50 at Goodwill and just pitched them.  The rain jacket and shoes sprayed off easily as well.  After putting on some clean clothes, we ended the Junior Naturalist adventure with a trip to Chick Fil A (and a mini-bath in the bathroom sink at CFA).  I'm not sure we'll do the same program next year, but we sure did enjoy our time at Lost River this year.

Halloween Heroes and Champions!

My Halloween post is late.  It's impossible to keep up with everything this time of the year.  The main reason for my lack of posting is because I recently accepted a full-time job in the Education Department at SKyPAC.  I have been fortunate enough and prayed longingly for the "right" kind of full-time job.  My position couldn't be more perfect for me, and my director Andee Rudloff is simply wonderful.  I love what I do and feel incredibly lucky to work with youth and teachers in the visual and performing arts. YAY!

Halloween came fast and furious.  We took our church group for an annual Halloween parade for our neighbors next door at Grant Village.  The residents always love seeing the kids and are so generous with their goody bags and candy distribution. Isaac decided early on that he wanted to be Chuck Norris.  I wasn't exactly sure how to pull that off, but I love Vistaprint.  It's one of those online marketing/promotional sites which offers products (business cards, note cards, t-shirts) cheap.  I designed him a Chuck Norris shirt:

The shirt coupled with a bandana and some USA flag leggings (thanks Karson) and you have Chuck, or Bruce Springsteen, whatever, it worked and he liked it.  Karson was determined to be a skin suit.  I can't imagine dressing up in anything more awful than a skin suit--it's constricting, fits tight--a nightmare in my opinion. With those kind of strikes against it, I wanted to make sure that Karson would like it before purchasing it. She went to the big orange tent, tried it on, loved it and wanted it.  Fortunately, she found a a fellow skin suit lover at church.  Her friend Tanner was a black shadow skin suit--I especially love the fro.

 I thought Miles was going to be Luigi for the 3rd year in a row.  We have a slew of costumes, not sure why?  I'm thinking I must have picked up a couple post-Halloween when all the costumes go for 70% off.  I started asking him the rolodex of costume choices: wolf ninja, power ranger, zombie doctor, Luigi?  He got super excited when I said Luigi, like it was all he ever wanted to be.  However, he is a costume switcher and at the last minute chose a Swamp Monster.  The third child is usually the most flexible =).

I decided not to run around the school this year like a crazy maniac going from class to class and missing every "fall" party in the process.  I planted in Miles's class and enjoyed watching him and all his friends!

Singing and dancing to "Dem Bones".

Miles and the ladies...he loves 'em.

Halloween was a bust this year in Kentucky.  The weather was crummy.  Every county within a 20 mile radius of us switched trick-or-treating to Friday night.  Not Warren County, NOPE, they didn't want to switch it, thought it would conflict with to many other events going on that night.  SO, many neighborhoods throughout Warren County switched to Friday.  It worked out perfectly for us because Karson actually had a volleyball game the night of Halloween.

It wasn't just any game either, it was a tournament game.  The Spikers had already played two other tournament games. and this particular one would put them in the Championship game.  It was a biggie, and we WON! I decided to purchase vampire fangs for all the girls--thought it would make for a cute picture.  This picture wouldn't have been quite as good if we had lost.  Lots of parents brought treats in for the girls.  It was an exciting and different way to spend Halloween night.

HERO ALERT:  Karson got a bracelet loom for her birthday and has been one determined girl when it comes to churning out those suckers.  She has gotten the basics down but decided to go for the gold and make one of those floral-starburst bracelets.  She watched videos and worked hard on it for three solid days.  When she went to remove it from the loom, it was a bust.  She erupted like a volcano and at one point launched the loom through her room.  I felt so sorry for her--all that time and mini-eruptions here and there didn't yield the beautiful bracelet she had dreamed of.  NOW, this is the kind of man I married so be jealous...I told Matt about what happened via text that morning.  Later that night, he sat down with the loom, watched the video and was able to construct the starburst bracelet--it took him about an hour, but it was priceless.  What a man!

The Spikers made it to the final game on Saturday at Warren East High School.  We were playing against Set For Life, a team that had already beat us in season play.  We won the first game, they won the second which took us into the final match.  I wish I had better news, but we didn't win!  Booo!  It was a tight game, and they ended up beating us by two points--a tear jerker.  Karson was so disappointed and crying.  Those kind of losses are so hard.  However, the team showed a lot of class, were good sports and never tore each other down--that's always a WIN in my book.  We enjoyed watching these girls play for the last couple months.

There is NO transition between volleyball and basketball which started this week.  Karson moved straight into three nights a week of practice from now until Thanksgiving.  Isaac is also playing this time, and his practices fall at the same time and same place.  Great odds!  Go Hawks!  Go Spartans!  Pictures coming soon!