TG 2011

Spent another Thanksgiving at the Gun Club in Findlay with the Weasel clan. There was plenty of food and family and fun and, uh, shooting. Gramma Gayla held her usual "Camp Gayla" with all of the kiddos. Somehow I got off scott-free from doing any cooking, cleaning or chasing children. It was a good day!

Tori and Kelly helping at Camp Gayla. I cannot believe I don't have a picture of the ringmaster herself?!

Tessa looking rather academic at Camp Gayla.

Tessa, Cole and Nate making Santa beards with cotton balls.

Nate and Cole

Mother Earth cringed at this ingenious game of Gayla's: Who can pull out the tissues the fastest?

Mound 'o tissues

Cole during the candy hunt. Not sure who leaves the candy all scattered? Is it a Christmas elf?

We can't seem to have a family function without a pinata. Who doesn't love pinatas? Christian above swinging at the festive snowman pinata!

The kids always get "awesome" treats like Play-doh at Camp Gayla. Here's Corrine and Tessa with Play-Doh mustaches.

The "big kids" (8 and up) got invited to the poker table this year! Keaton and Colette raking in the cash above!

Miss Taylor hanging out with a gourd. Who doesn't let their baby sleep on the table? And, this is a good representation of what we all really wanted to do after stuffing ourselves!

First Grade Update

This is little man's 2011-2012 school picture. He dressed himself and styled his own hair. Yes, this t-shirt and jeans kid wore a shirt and tie and a faux-hawk!

We had parent teacher conferences this week. This is when you want to walk in and ask the teacher, "is my kid worst the kid in the class?" Of course you can't compare children and any good teacher would only give the appropriate indirect and politically correct answer so that you really don't know if he or she is smarter than Brandon or worse behaved than Sarah. In the end though really we just want to know if there is anything we could or should be doing to help our own kid succeed. Nate is having a good year. He likes his teacher who is extremely organized and runs a tight ship. No worries, she's nice and manages to smile a bit too! We sat down with her for our 15 minutes of glory complete with a timer and the following family given instructions to knock at the door at their start time. Nate got what we call a "good" report. He's pretty much your average Joe and we embrace that and are proud! He's catching on to the reading thing at lightning speed. He got his father's math gene. He occasionally reverses his numbers and chronically reverses b and d. He's not a spelling bee champion as evidenced by his writing sample below. He's "friendly and witty," a quote from his teacher. However. Yep. The "however." He struggles with sitting still, socializing and blurting. Hhmmm. Imagine. My child has energy, talks and knows all the answers! So, we're focusing on some tactics to help him keep his bottom in his chair, his ears tuned in to the teacher and his lips glued together! This is an example of a recent writing sample. To get the full effect of his phonetic and sometimes not-so-phonetic spelling that kills me you might want to zoom in a little. He was asked to write about Thanksgiving. I will translate the above: "I go to my grandma's house in Napoleon. My dad has four turkeys. It takes five hours to get to grandma's house. My cousins come their names are Zack and Molly and Kendall. I like the mashed potatoes." This narrative is followed by a picture of our green mini van. The little orange-y things in it are "our family." The brown thing is the turkey. I can't say we've ever taken 5 hours to get to Napoleon with a turkey strapped to our roof, but great work on the details, Nate! And, for the record, the mashed the potatoes are great!

Petit Casa Baughman

Nate and Tessa have spent quite a bit of time in this indoor cardboard fort. Snacking, playing games, watching movies, doing homework, tucking in babies, etc. Of course there is a secret password involved, but I was not privy to such information. I mean, it's a secret!

Dinner and a movie.

Will someone feed this child? Good Lord. Oh, it looks like Gramma Char is trying to fatten him up...the Smurf cereal has made it's way in to the fort. Only Gramma Char would buy SMURF cereal!

Here's the outside. What curb appeal. I particularly like the cord being strung to the computer. I mean, how could these kids function without such modern day conveniences like having a computer.

It's Alive!

OK. Our deepest, most heartfelt apologies for the recent coma of the blog. What happened? Life. It just got away with us. So, this is a warning that what is to follow is what we call some illegal back blogging. It's only confusing in the present. When I'm sitting on the couch looking back at albums and pictures with the kids it will all make sense and look as if I never missed a beat! So, let's return to November 2011 and take it from there...

TOT

We went in to Ann Arbor to crash John and Naomi's neighborhood for Trick or Treat. We ordered some pizza, the parents enjoyed some adult beverages, the kids handed out some candy and then we gathered up and hit the streets for a hour or so of candy collecting. Still don't understand why anyone would ever hand out York peppermint patties and Almond Joys to little kids! I mean, come on. You bought that bag because YOU wanted it. Not because you thought some 6 year old was like "look Mom, a delicious Almond Joy bar." People, bring on the Sour Patch kids, Twix and Skittles. Let's get real.

Smurfette, LadyBug (Kelsey) and Strawberry Shortcake (Allie)

Candy collecting

Some of you may recall years back when I somehow convinced Troy to be a Smurf and painted his body blue...he proceeded to flake off blue paint at the party we were at and ended up having to take a shower in the middle of the party! Putting the blue paint on T's face gave me the giggles as I was having flashbacks!

Smurfette and Officer Nate

Halloween Parties

Our Halloween parties were limited to school this year. Unfortunately both kids' parties were at the same time. Since I have a very important super-mom image to uphold at Nate's school (I'm a total deadbeat that never gets to go to or volunteer for anything...at least that is how I feel!), Gramma Char kindly came up and surprised Tessa for her party! Tessa got to play hooky after her party. Gramma took her out to lunch and then met us at Nate's school parade. I was a terrible mother that must have been all caught up in my super-mom, school volunteer status that I forgot to snap a single picture in Nate's class! :(

Nate was a police officer and definitely got his money's worth out of his costume as I think he wore it for 20 days straight before Halloween day. He would hang it up neatly when he wasn't wearing it and we had to take it along with us in the car several times just in case he would need it. I caved and bought him a toy pistol for his gun holster. He wanted the snap pellets for it too and when I refused to buy them he retorted, "Gramma Gayla will get them for me." Can always count on Gramma G! Tessa wanted to be "Smurvette," as she calls her. Gramma Char made a very cute costume for her...complete with clicking high heels and a blonde, kind-of-slutty wig!

Some super-mom at Tessa's school made these orange jack-o-lanterns and filled them with fruit! How cute. We brought juice boxes. They weren't that cute.

Smurfette getting ready for school trick or treat. They parade around their daycare campus and then TOT at some local nearby businesses.

The ladies of DK - surprisingly they weren't all princesses as last year Disney made a killing off these girls! L to R (Lily, Ella, Tessa, Alex, Emma, Daphne, Avery, & Ruby).

Smurfette did not want her wig pinned in for TOT. Please notice her fancy, dangle, clip-on skeleton earrings.

Smurfette and her buddy, Blueberry Muffin (Ella)

Nate's school parade is call Book-o-ween. The kids have to carry a book that includes the character they are dressed as for Halloween. The tin-man in this pic is the principal and Dorothy and the others are the secretaries and office folks.

That is officer Nate.Officer Nate was not allowed to carry his gun for school.

He carried a Richard Scarry BusyTown book and said that he was Officer Flossy.Tessa at playland with Gramma Char

The Great Pumpkin Carver.

As usual Troy ended up being the Great Pumpkin Carver this year. Although they begged for days to carve the pumpkins, the kids were excited for about two minutes...enough to get a heap of the stringy pumpkin guts and seeds everywhere and leave the art and sawing to Daddy. Troy had a particular passion for the Asian-looking pumpkin this year. We have to wait until the last minute to do any carving as I cannot stand them in the house because of those nasty little flies they attract and they only last for about an hour outside before our friendly wildlife eats their faces out!