Halloween

I spent the afternoon at Irving today, shooting pictures for the yearbook. I started out in L's class, helping her get her costume on. Then the school had its parade. Fortunately, the sun was out, there was no rain and the temps were warm. Not sure if you can see it, but L's hair is sprayed pink - really hot pink. Hope that washes out!

After school, L went to her friends' E and B's house and they trick-or-treated together. B came home from school, changed into his costume (the same skeleton he wore last year) and went trick-or-treating with his friend, IR. E didn't talk to her friends about trick-or-treating soon enough, and her BFF A said she's too old to go, so E sat at home and handed out our candy. She did have a scary mask to wear. Here's B on the left, E on the right:

L found a little bit of time over the weekend to carve her pumpkins. Here are her creations. Pretty good for a 9-year-old.

Nice putt?

The senior captain of the girls golf team organized her own sportswear purchase this fall. I think they do that every year. Some of the girls tried out just so they could get these sweatpants and E, of course, couldn't resist them. They even have pockets. On the front they say OPRF Girls Golf. On the back, well, you can see that.

Hanging

While the P family is in town, the party continues. Today, E arranged to entertain her friend, M, (L's brother who also moved to Ohio obviously). The boys started coming to our house at 10 a.m. and around 11, M (with L in tow, carrying lots of video games) got here.

They let us snap this picture before they left to walk all over town. (From left, JR, M, L, JD and E). The five of them first headed to Buzz Cafe, then to DiNico's for pizza slices, checked out Rehm Park (where E's BBF A joined them), stopped in at Oberweis near downtown, got sandwiches (for the non-pizza eaters) at Potbelly, checked out some stores and the Visitors Center (since M is now a visitor) before heading back here around 4 p.m. That was a lot of exercise. The boys and E hung out downstairs and played video games for two hours before they decided it was time to leave. That left E an hour to put a card together and get ready for her friend, F's, birthday party that started at 7 p.m.

Meanwhile, L treated B to lunch at Pete's, the hotdog stand down the road. We paid for B, E and L to go there yesterday for dinner. They called over their friend, IB, and met another friend (L's former neighbor, N) on the way home, so they brought him over too. They played video games and Twister, which was pretty fun to watch.

Fortunately, when the older kids came home, the younger ones left. B, though, stayed to show the teens how to play the video games.

I also got to talk to L and M's mom when she dropped them off. She said Ohio is good, just different. It's a lot more suburban where they are than here. She said the high school is new (only six years old) and small (about 400 students, I think). She said the boys had a good time visiting. Hope they come back soon.

He's baaaack!

B was thrilled to have his friend, L, over today. L moved to Ohio at the end of June and though they've Skyped each other and talk on the phone, this was the first time they've seen each other in four months. L was waiting at Julian and walked home with B and his friend, IR. Those three were at our house hanging out when E decided we should head to Old Navy with our 25 percent off coupon and buy her a couple new pairs of jeans. When I returned less than one hour later, there were two more boys here. That's a total of five and too many. I sent all of them but L home at 5:30 p.m. Maybe they can all hang out tomorrow - not on a Friday night.

Story mobile

I remember when E and B had the assignment of reading a book and creating a story mobile. L completed hers this week and took it to school today. Simply mounting her words on card stock made it look pretty good. I had to do all the yarn tying. The mobile includes the book name and author, then all the characters, the plot and the setting. She presents it to her class tomorrow when the teacher brings in breakfast for her monthly Breakfast With a Book. Only the students who complete the monthly project get to enjoy breakfast at school.

Bye, kitty!

Allison returned from her convention in Peoria today and came to pick up the kitty tonight. She called me when she was getting off the highway, asking what would be a good time to pick up kitty. I had dentist appointments scheduled for B and L followed by eye doctor appointments for L and Andy (and I had to drive since they dilated his eyes), then we had to have dinner. She finally was able to come over around 8 p.m. She missed her kitty.

The kids have been asking for a cat and I wouldn't mind having one, but I don't really need a cat to care for in addition to everything else. We'll see. It was hard to get used to having the cat wander the house at night while we were asleep. It would jump up during the night and sleep on the foot of the bed. One day it was hidden in L's stuffed toys on her bed, jumped out and scared me. It also likes to dart from room to room - kind of odd. B put a cozy fleece blanket on the living room floor and that was where kitty preferred to sleep during the day. The cat will come back to our house with Allison when we're in Jamaica in December.

Party!

Tonight we headed to River Forest for an end-of-the-year girls golf party. We ate pizza and salad, chatted with the coaches and parents, and were finally able to put faces to the girls E has been talking about since the beginning of the school year. All the kids, including B and L, had a blast jumping on the family's trampoline.

As a junior varsity player, E received her chenille graduation numbers - 15. Varsity girls got their OPRF letters or bars.

Before the night was over, the girls posed for a group picture. It was great that all 18 girls were there.

Furry houseguest

Allison brought over her cat today. We're going to watch the cat for her until Wednesday while she's in Peoria for a union convention. The kids are thrilled to have a pet in the house. I wouldn't mind having a cat so we're seeing how they do with the cat for a few days. Allison will also bring the cat over for a week in December while Andy and I are in Jamaica. So far they're having a lot of fun with it.

Conferences

Tonight we had both L and B's parent-teacher conferences. E was babysitting for a church family, so we had to take both kids with us. L doesn't get to sit in on her conference, but at the middle school the conference is student-led, so B had to be there. They're both doing well academically. Behaviorally, L could use a little work. It was nothing surprising to us.

Afterward, we went to Lalo's for dinner. They both ordered the big bowl of chicken soup.

Love me some me

E brought this shirt home from school today. On the front is the Superman logo and on the back it says, "I love me some me." Her gym unit so far has been on self-defense and self-respect, etc. She's loving the class - especially when the girls got to try their defense techniques on a local police officer (dressed heavily in safety gear).

Mail call

L was thrilled to find a letter waiting for her when she arrived home from school today. After she had a sleepover with her cousin N in July, she's been writing to him. She was surprised that he had so much to say, he filled a notecard and a sheet of paper. She's already started on her reply.

Surprise package

I was surprised today to open a package from my friend, C, and find glass margarita mixers. I'm not sure they'll work in the glasses we use, but they sure are cute. C and I used to have lunch during the last school year, and this summer she moved to Minnesota.

My artist

L loves to draw pictures. Her usual pictures are of rainbows or faces. Today she drew me a colorful rainbow. She made the heart dish out of clay in children's church. She's my little artist.

There's Fun to Be Done!

Last night we headed to the Museum of Science & Industry for a members'-only viewing of the new Dr. Seuss exhibit. In addition to his popular children's books, the exhibit highlighted Theodor Seuss Geisel's early editorial cartoons, advertisements, paintings and drawings.

I had to convince E to get her picture with the characters that were running around. Here she is with her friend, A, and the Cat in the Hat:

Since she enjoyed that so much, I had them pose with Thing 1:

Afterward, we tried to get deep-dish pizza in Chicago. We stopped in at Pizzeria Due and they said the wait would be 1.5 to 2 hours. It was already past 8 p.m. We packed the kids back up and headed to the 'burbs. We went to Salerno's for pizza and were able to walk right in and sit down at a table for six. Sweet!

While waiting to get into the Dr. Seuss exhibit, we walked through the weather exhibit. L wanted to stand inside a "tornado" and then E and A followed.

Huskie Musicfest '11

Last night (after our Wienermobile excursion), I went with Andy and E and L to the high school for Huskie Musicfest 2011. It's a fund-raiser for the various musical programs. We started out watching E's friend, A, sing in the choir and madrigals, and got to the gym where E was already playing the first song of the concert and symphonic bands' performance. The combined band played four songs. Here you can see E in the orange shirt next to her friend, K, in the blue:

Here's L, leaning against a wall wondering when we'll go home:

She's lucky we left after E's concert. We could have stayed to listen to the wind symphony and wind ensemble, the string orchestra, the concert orchestra and, finally, the symphony orchestra. We had enough culture for the night after one concert so we hit the road. And E had homework - she had to Skype a classmate for a team English project.

B stayed home, but called during the choir performance to tell me he was going over to his friend I's house. I's mom was at the concert to watch her daughter in the choir, but his dad was home so off B went. We had to call around 8:30 p.m. for him to come home. He said he had a great time. Guess he's glad he wasn't at the Musicfest.

It's the Wienermobile!

Scrolling through Facebook this afternoon, I saw that several of my friends were chatting about the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. I clicked on a link and found that the Wienermobile was at a local 7-Eleven until 6 p.m. today. The girls and I hopped in the car and went to go see it. It was raining, but the girls agreed to pose for a quick photo (hoping none of their friends would pass by!) We did see another high school get out and have a picture taken with her younger sibling, so I'm not the only crazy mom in Oak Park.

The "Hotdoggers," people who drive the Wienermobile around the country, gave us each a Wienermobile whistle and I got a coupon for hotdogs, of course. B decided not to accompany us on our little adventure, but we brought him home a wiener whistle.

Monopoly

Usually B and his friends are plugged into the computer or a video game. Tonight he and his friend, I, sat down and played Monopoly with E. It was a nice change of pace.

'Great poem!'

L's teacher sent this home last week with "Great poem!" written on it. I'm not a fourth-grade teacher so I'll take her word for it that it's decent work for a fourth-grader.

Halloween is a nice time,
I walk around and I see scary circus clowns.
I see costumes fluffy as clouds.
It's fun to eat so much candy!
All day I see freaky witches with skin as green as grass.
Vampires hissing, werewolves howling.
It's fun all day with everyone yelling
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Beach!

The weather was just too nice to not return to the Tower Hill beach again today. The kids were pleased to see that their sand castle survived the night. Above is E and A with what turned out to the be finished product after a day of laboring. This morning, B said his back hurt. I said it should - you were bent over all day building a sand castle.

The beach is so nice when it's not crowded. Here's L dipping her feet into the water. I was in the water taking the pic of her and almost fell in myself. That sand is soft!

The girls then decided to head to the top of Mount Baldy one last time. Those four little specks are the girls. Andy and I sat in the sand, guarded their shoes and waited for them to come down. While we were sitting there, B walked up (he had stayed at camp, but decided to head to the beach - glad he found his way!) and decided to climb the sand dune, too. He ran all the way up without stopping. It may not look so tall in this photo, but it's a hike to the top.

This is a funny picture just because they all have their eyes shut. They were looking into the sun and we counted to three to tell them to open their eyes for the picture. They didn't do too well.

We left Tower Hill about noon, stopped at Redamak's in New Buffalo, Mich., for lunch. Once we got on the highway, A realized she left her math notebook on the bed of her room, so we headed back to camp. Once we got on the road, we stayed on the highway to avoid the Chicago marathon traffic and made it home with no problems.

Autumn in Michigan

When Andy got home from work last night, we packed up the kids, and E's friend A, and headed to Michigan for our annual church retreat. This morning it was warm enough to wear shorts to breakfast. Temperatures reached the high 70s if not 80 and the sky was clear as could be. There was hardly any wind, it was sunny and the trees had beautiful fall colors.

E, A, B and their friend, AC, spent the day on the beach creating a sand castle. They made a moat and an entire first-floor wall. They'd hope to build a 10-foot or taller castle, but realized it was a lot of work. The beach was crowded because of the gorgeous weather and a lot of people stopped by to ask them about the castle. It was quite the team effort.

While they were at the beach, Andy and I took L and went with other church members to Dinge's pumpkin farm. We bought some pumpkins and gourds, and L and her friend took a horse ride around the farm.

Tonight we had a campfire for the adults and the kids were inside singing karaoke. E did a great rendition of Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance." L must have sang four different songs. B snuck off with his friend AC and ended up in her cabin playing Scrabble. They had a great time.

A little help

E gives B a little help with his algebra homework. Miraculously, B seems to come up with the correct answers, but doesn't like to show his work. That makes E's tutoring job a bit more difficult.

Lunch at Irving

With the temperatures in the 70s, I thought it was a perfect day to hang out at Irving and get some photos for the yearbook. I'm putting them on a candid page called "Lunch and Recess." Afterall, it is probably the favorite time of day for some kids. Of course, it also gave me a chance to goof around with L and her friends.

My find

You never know what you might find at the Economy Shop and today I found a popcorn Halloween jack-o-lantern. And it was only $1! Last year, I found a witch and a ghost, but I have three windows in the dining room and had been searching for one more. When I got home from volunteering today, I hung all three up, took down the valance and strung some orange lights.

More braces

Before:

After:

B got braces put on his top teeth this morning. We were hoping they were going to take out his expander, but it's still in there. Not sure how long he'll have to have that. He chose red and green for his colors. Looks pretty good.

So sweet

Look what L left for me to find on my dresser this morning:

She can be so sweet!

Freak tooth

L spent the night at grandma's apartment last night and called us about 9 p.m. so excited! Her fused tooth, which we lovingly refer to as her freak tooth, finally fell out! She said it bled a lot, putting grandma into a bit of a panic. L cleaned herself and her tooth up, put the tooth in a jar and brought it home today for the tooth fairy to consider its monetary value. We always said the freak tooth was special (actually the dentist says it's not all that uncommon) so we'll see what the tooth fairy thinks tonight.

Edited to add a pic of the letter L left the tooth fairy: she wants the money, but she also wants to keep the tooth.