Tuesday, November 23, 2010

We need a sailor!

Gretchen has gotten into the spirit of giving this year.  She told me that we have to have all of the sailors over because they have nowhere to go and nothing to eat.  I told her I would consider it but that we already had quite a few people coming for Thanksgiving.  She agreed to give food to the food pantry.  This has been a theme lately that I think comes from church and the Character Counts program at school.  It's nice to know that some of those things are sinking into her brain!  On the flipside of that however, her wish list for Santa is pretty long (I let her circle whatever she wanted in the toy catalog).  I am impressed that she has stuck to the same top two items that she will request from Santa - I keep trying to tempt her with other stuff but she never sways....  I posted some new videos - see this one of her choir singing at church and  her on Halloween.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Halloween and Other Scary Stories

We had a very busy October....  Gretchen's school has a parents group that hosts an annual Halloween party so almost every Tuesday we had a meeting about the party in October.  Then on Wednesday Gretchen has dance class and library story time back to back.  And.... we went to Fright Fest three times I think....  We were busy....  I'm still tired from October!  Anyhow, Gretchen was Hello Kitty for Halloween.  I found a cute winter hat and a sparkly pink jumper on eBay for the costume.  It was a step up from last year's purchased Wonder Woman costume.  Because of the school party, I also dressed up as a witch to appease the girl.  I'm not much into costumes but she really enjoyed the it so that made it fun.  We also hit the Milwaukee Zoo for their Halloween Spectacular - we didn't get much candy but Steve and I pushed the kids over the entire zoo looking for it!  Every year, Steve and I take turns trick-or-treating with Gretchen and every year, we cover a bit more ground.  This year we covered more houses than ever but our poor child was exhausted!  Steve took the boys out as well but they only made it for a few of our neighbors.  All in all, it was a lot of fun.  We are gearing up now for Thanksgiving!  Gobble, Gobble!  (of course, more pictures are here if you're interested plus a fun video of Evan and Gretchen).