Follow the Yellow Brick Road

On Saturday my sister-in-law had us over to her house for a fun little movie date as a family (minus Stephen's sister in another state).  We watched "Wizard of Oz" and she had some fun activities and food put together for us to enjoy.

She has two boys herself so we have fun doing boy-type things together.  The boys decorated these boxes like a house to sit in while they watched the movie.

 Grandma made all the boys bat wings and tails so they could pretend to be flying monkeys.  Tanner isn't the least bit dramatic, is he?

 Here is a better look at the wings and tails.  They looked so cute.

 Here is our tasty lunch.  The cupcakes were my BIG (sarcasm) contribution to the entire thing.

 Here are all the flying monkeys.  The littlest monkey did not want to wear his stuff, but the rest of them enjoyed it.

 Yesterday was Veteran's Day.  I am thankful for all the Veteran's out there!  I am also thankful that Stephen had the day off.  The boys got him to do some origami with them.  Vance made a crab and butterfly.  Tanner made a crab.  Porter made his very own dolphin.  Then he made me tell him how to write Mom and Dad.  After he wrote that down he told me I had to share if someone asked nicely if they could play with it....

This week we've met with both Tanner and Vance's teacher for parent/teacher conference.  They are both doing well.  Tanner is at the top of his class and his teacher is trying to get it worked out for him to be in a first grade reading group.  She says he tries hard to be patient with the other kids, but sometimes it is hard for him.  I do feel a little bad for him, knowing how irritated I got with other kids when I was in school and I wasn't half as smart as Tanner.  I was also way too shy to let anyone know it bothered me, Tanner isn't so shy.  Vance is doing well too.  His teacher says that he keeps her in line.  She has learned not to tell him things unless she is positive she will follow through.  All of you who know Vance know exactly what she is talking about.  He is a hard worker though even though he does need to learn to slow down and make sure he is doing his best.  We have been very fortunately to have great teachers for our boys!  Porter tagged along with both conferences and made friends with the teachers too.

Halloween Recap

Halloween has come and gone. Hooray!  I do enjoy watching my kids have fun dressing up and having fun, but I can do without the rest.  Although I will say that trunk or treats are so much better than going door to door begging people for candy.

Porter used the bat costume Tanner had last year.  All the costumes were made by my mother-in-law.  Thank goodness for her!

 He had a lot of fun being a bat and he loved playing outside flapping around. and the whole bit.

 Tanner wanted to be Link from the Legend of Zelda.  That was an ambitious costume.  He looked great though.  I guess not everyone is such a Legend of Zelda fan as members of our household because he got people asking him if he was Peter Pan, Robin Hood, and even a pirate.  Although, that was at my in-laws church activity.  Last night he just kept getting called Zelda.  He told them he was Link and most people realized there mistake.  Haha.  Easy to get confused.

 This was his "Link face"  looks like a possessed Link to me.  Maybe he was concentrating on defeating an enemy.  Who knows?

 Vance was Obi-Wan-Kenobi.  He was real excited to be a Jedi and have a light saber.  I actually think his costume is my favorite.  (Don't tell...) Everything fit him well and he looked so great.

 He thought this was a good Jedi stance.  Can't really argue with him there.  We've only watch Episode 4 with the kids so I am not sure where he has picked up on all the Star Wars stuff.  Maybe from Legos.

 Since the kids didn't have school today I let them play in their costumes.  They had a great time and they ditched the items that they didn't really want to wear.

 Go defeat that enemy boys!  Pretty sure that's what they are doing.  Never mind that Link's belt is about to fall off his rear end.  No time to worry about such things.  Haha.

 Porter came out of the bathroom at one point with these vampire teeth on.  It cracked me up.  Really, they were too big for his little mouth.  I took another picture with my phone.  I don't think Vance appreciated his teeth being used by someone else though.

Now that is behind us, we can focus on Thanksgiving and helping the boys realize how important it is to express our gratitude.  Really, I should be teaching that year round.  We started out Gratitude leaves again where they write down on a leaf something they are grateful for each day until Thanksgiving and we hang it in our living room.