Today at the orthodontist, L chose hot pink and black for the bands around her braces. In recognition of National Breast Cancer Month, her ortho is donating $1 for every patient who chooses pink through the end of October. L made sure she'd have the same colors on for Halloween, and told the hygenist that the colors will match her Halloween costume. Perfect. She also got a rubber bracelet for participating and was able to hang a pink ribbon with her name on it on the office wall.
I had no idea, but it's National Yearbook Week. Jostens, the yearbook company I've worked with for the last five (?) years sent me this cool coffee mug to celebrate. L was called down to the office ("My heart was beating so fast," she said) and when they handed her the package she was relieved, to say the least.
The box said, "From teacher to journalist, coach to counselor - a successful yearbook adviser wears many hats. To celebrate National Yearbook Week 2011, Jostens tips its hat to yearbook advisers. Thank you for all you do!" Aw ... and they even spelled adviser with an "e" just like AP style says to.
She shot a 124 and the junior varsity team earned fourth place. It was the last regular match of the golf season. Next is regionals, if she's among the girls chosen by the coach to go. E said it's been a great season, a lot of fun and her teammates are awesome. When she got home, she wanted me to rub her ankles ... um, no.
We have a gigantic spider hanging out on our back porch - just in time for Halloween!
Andy's project today was to replace the back porch light with a new, motion-sensored one. We'd been looking at them for a while. When E is out late, I like to leave the porch light on for her. Unfortunately, it never gets turned off. We're hoping the new one will come on when she rounds the corner and go off when she's safely inside.
B had his friend, I, at the house for a sleepover yesterday. They stayed in the basement playing video games. We told them to go to sleep at midnight. B's been sleeping all afternoon so I don't think he got much sleep last night.
I went to the street one block over tonight to bring L in for dinner. She was at her friend, B's, house, hiding something behind her back. Eventually, she showed me a plastic container with a baby mouse in it. She and her friend were ooing and aaahing over how cute it was (it was kind of cute) and they decided they had to keep it overnight. L wanted to bring it home, but I said mice don't need help getting in these old houses. B's dad found an empty lizard cage to House the mouse overnight.
Today E had a golf meet after school against Downers Grove South at the Downers Grove park district course. The junior varsity team lost by two strokes. E said she lost a lot of balls on the course and that it was a really difficult course. It's kind of funny that the girls get one "school" ball per match. E was able to save one so I could get a pic of it. I'm sure I'll be able to find a place for it on a golf page in her scrapbook.
It's homecoming week at OPRF and E wore her Huskie sweatpants and a T-shirt for pajama day. She looked pretty comfy.
B started his confirmation classes today at church. We bought pizza for the class, which met right after church until 2 p.m. At 2 p.m., L and I went to pick B up. We had all planned to go see the Lion King in 3D, but B said he'd prefer to go home. E was at the driving range with Andy, so L and I headed to the movies by ourselves. I'm not a fan of 3D movies, but I really enjoyed the Lion King. L even clapped at the end.
L was supposed to be home tonight by 7 p.m. She was riding her bike around the neighborhood and lost track of time. When she came home, Andy told her he wanted to write "I will come home on time" 25 times or she wouldn't be going out over the weekend. Surprisingly, she sat down and wrote it (not without a little whining though).
E brought home her golf pictures today. They were taken on the football field a day or two after she made the team.
L's flute arrived at school today and she had her first lesson. She was so excited when she got home that she pulled it out of the case and practiced blowing it. It's harder than it looks. You have to blow across the hole, not into it. Her band teacher suggested she stand in front of a mirror to see how she's blowing. Next week she's going to start using the keys.
L and I did a little shopping this afternoon. She was determined to get a Halloween costume, saying that if she waits too long all the good ones are gone. I have to admit we have had problems in the past finding costumes close to Halloween. The first costume she was set on getting was a pink girl jailbird costume. I managed to talk her out of that one. She ended up with an adorable pink and black witch costume. She had to put it on and go over to show her friends, E and B, when we got home. I wonder what people thought with a witch walking through the neighborhood in September. Course, on Halloween, she wants to wear some makeup and spray her hair pink.
She came in for the night at 8 p.m., dragging a pinata head and lots of candy and trinkets. "I crashed a party," she said. She went a block farther than where she was supposed to be to go see what was happening at a block party. A woman invited her into the party, saying everyone was invited. After all, we're all neighbors in this world, aren't we? L took her up on her offer, played some games and won the pinata head for being the one to knock the head off the donkey pinata. She had a great time.
About two weeks ago, L went over to the block sale on the street behind us - the street where a lot of her neighborhood friends live. She brought back our wagon full of treasures. Everything in the wagon got wet over the weekend so today I told her she needed to pull out of the wagon what she wanted. She said all of it could go. So much for a her "treasures." Any way, when I got to the bottom of the wagon, I found this "heads/tails" coin. I have no idea where she got it, but it made me laugh. You just never know with that girl.
L and her friends, E and B, have a talent for finding stray dogs. Today, they were standing on the back porch talking when they see a dog run out of the alley by our house. They make a run for the door and the next thing I know, they have this stinky dog inside the house. I shooed them and the dog outside. They washed it down with a hose and made it a cardboard box house. E and B even ran back to their house to get it some food. The dog didn't have any collar or tags, but it was pretty friendly and well-trained. The girls were able to play fetch with it and were determined that we were going to make "Fluffy" the newest member of our family. 
The dog entertained the girls (or should I say kept them busy?) for over an hour. When Andy got home, he opened the gate and out went the dog. It followed E and B to their house where their mom took it over to the animal shelter. 
Every day this week after school, L is bringing the neighbor girls, E and B, home to play until their mom gets home from work. Today they claim they ran out of things to do (even though I suggested drawing with sidewalk chalk, playing a game, watching a movie, etc.) so they decided to start shredding old construction paper. They said they plan to use it in a craft. Maybe that will be tomorrow's project. Today, I have a shredded full of colorful shreds.
I picked up this sign when I was at the farm this weekend. It reminds me of Dad, who sold DeKalb seed corn for as long as I can remember. He was always wearing a DeKalb hat and DeKalb jacket. The pencils we used for school were white with green flying corn ears all over them. At least no one could take one of our pencils and pretend it was theirs. Ours were unique. I cleaned the sign off a bit and Andy hung it in the garage. It looks good.
Temperatures barely reached 70 today so it seemed like a good time to have a fire. The kids and their friends enjoyed roasting marshmallows and making s'mores until it got too cold for them to be outside.
One of B's favorite things about going to the farm is having Grandma make him pancakes in the morning.
You can see the St. Louis Arch in this picture of Elaine:
When we got back to Mom's house, Cindy was there. They took B and L to Steak 'n Shake for lunch in Edwardsville. Cindy mentioned that she had a storm shelter installed in her yard and since we had never seen anything like that before, we had to take a field trip to Gillespie to see it. Andy was impressed and said it's a good idea. Course, he's like it even better if it had a a hot tub. Hopefully, she'll never have to use it, but it's there just in case.
I think the kids had the most fun playing Uno Stacker with cousin A. I'm sure they're going to ask him to play again at Christmas. I love the look on B's face, waiting for the tower of blocks to tumble.
