Halloween Parties!

Alden and Katlynn's 5th Annual Halloween Party! The kids were all so cute in their costumes! It's amazing to me that they are all getting so big so fast! They're going to be teenagers before we know it and that will really be scary :)














Alden was the Red Power Ranger



















Katlynn was Belle from Beauty and the Beast!




















And we also had a Cheerleader, Abby Kadabe?, Dorothy, Sharpay 1 and 2, an Angel, a Zombie/Skeleton, a Wolf-Ninja and the Devil! What a mixture :)






















The Adult party that night before was better of course :)














We had a french maid and her boss :)

Kidd Rock and a Greek Godess

The Cast of Juno

Senore? and Senorita Sugden :)

My Little Soccer/Track Star!

Alden is getting so much better at soccer this season! It's great to see his little face light up when he makes a goal :) He started off the season just running around the field not really paying attention to the ball at all. (He loves to run!) But after Jason worked with him a couple of times he has actually gotten at least one goal at each game! It's amazing what a little father/son time can do!

Katlynn is not as excited about Alden's soccer games :)

Alden had his "Boosterthon Fun Run" on October 16th and he did have so much fun. But it wasn't cheap! He has gotten pledges for this fundraiser for mostly $1 per lap that he could run in 30 minutes. The laps were 1/16th of a mile so I really didn't see him doing more than 20 but I was SO wrong! During the Fun Run I realized how many he was running and tried to encourage him to slow down and get some water, maybe walk a lap or as least jog but no such luck. He ran 35+ laps! The lap cap was 35 so we're not exactly sure how many over 35 he ran but I'm estimating the total was closer to 45! I could not believe it! That's over two miles! I don't think I could have done that! So maybe we've found the sport that Alden will be the best at...Track :)

We went to Six Flags again on Saturday but this time our friends, the Reuter Family, went with us! It was so much fun! Here are a few of the best pictures from the day. I didn't want to bring my good camera so I borrowed my mom's little one and now I know why I carry my big around everywhere!






















Alden and Matthew breaking it down in the middle of the park :)

Katlynn is such a girly girl (thank goodness!) She LOVES make-up so when I got her this "Rockstar" make-up as she calls it, she was so excited! She carries it around everywhere and has to show it to everyone (even our chiropractor, the lady of the post office and our super sweet bank ladies) It's really just some glittery powder and glitter lip gloss but she puts it on all the time and thinks she is so grown up. Hence the last picture where she is imitating my sisters Briana and Taylor!

Friends Forever- literally

I am fortunate to have a few friends that I have known a LONG time. And as I watched my kids play tonight with one of my friend's little girl, I realized that I have know her for over 20 years! Beth and I met when she moved into the house behind us when we were in Kindergarten and we have been friends ever since! This is us in Mrs. Seawright's(I may have spelled that wrong) first grade class at Atkinson Elementary! Can you tell which one is me?
We've been through just about everything together from Girl Scouts

To Graduation! (that's another friend that I grew up with, Brooke)And now our girls get to grow up together! This is the first picture I have of them together And this is Aidan and Katlynn tonight

Parenting doesn't get any easier, that's for sure :)

As some of you may know, we are having a challenging time adjusting to Kindergarten! Alden is so smart and he is doing well in the academic parts of school (His frog is already on the number 4 lilly pad) but it's his "conduct" grade that will not be so good this first 9 weeks! I have really struggled about what to do about the number of white reminders that are being sent home. We are trying the "No playstation" rule if he gets moved to white (which is the same as red when we were young, but I guess white sounds better so they have green/light green/white) and we are trying the "Get x amount of days on Green and you get a prize" rule. And we try to address the exact problem the white reminder was sent home for like for playing at rest time, we practice by having a rest time at home. But really nothing seem to be working well. Which brings me to my dilema-Are the white reminders (that take 2 points off your conduct grade for each one) being given out too freely or am I being "that mom" that thinks her child can do no wrong? Now I know that Alden is not a perfect child. He is what we call "All boy" which means he is likes to make noises and run around and he loves to make people laugh. The last being the main reason he is getting white reminders. Let me give you the latest white reminder scenario and you can decide. Okay, yesterday at Alden's school they had a pep rally to kick off this Boosterthon Fun Run that they are doing (by the way if we haven't called you to see if you want to donate, you'll hear from us soon :) and I was there for most of it but I had to leave to go to Katlynn's school. While I was there, they guys were trying to pump the kids up with loud music and having them yell and sing and all the fun things to do at a pep rally. Well, sometime after I left, they had all the kids standing up and somehow Alden and four other boys were playing with a string of flags that were attached to a speaker. Now my first thought is "why is there a string of anything attached to a speaker within reach of Pre-K through first graders" but anyway with the playing the five boys were doing, somehow the speaker gets pulled over and hits a teacher on the head who then falls on two other students before she has to leave to go to the doctor to get her head checked out. Needless to say, not what you want to be told as you are picking your son up. Well, when we talked to Alden he said he didn't pull it but he was touching it (how convenient right) and he said the teacher wasn't watching or it won't have hit her. So we explained that watching for falling speaker is not what a teacher should have to do and we followed through with the no playstation for the rest of the day and made him take a rest when he got home. He, of course, was upset and his next response is what made me stop and think. He said, "I was trying to be so good today and my card was still on green and they moved it straight to white and I didn't even get to move it to light green" This is where I have to question whether the system is working. I know that the outcome of Alden and the other boys actions could have been extremely harmful but were the actions themselves that bad? Let's consider, the boys (in their minds) were simply playing with a string of flags. They probably didn't even know what it was attached to much less that if they pulled it a speaker would fall. Should the boys have gone straight to white or should they have gone to light green first? I don't know what to think but I do know that I am tired of having to worry about Alden getting white reminders because I think each one is a blow to the kid's self-esteem since once again "I wasn't good enough today". So if anyone else has any suggestions PLEASE let me know!