This One..

is behind on several blog updates and she is going to try to cover some of them in this post. She may also throw in a few more tidbits from our recent trip. She also wants everyone to know that this is not the best photo of her, but it is the only recent one she has of herself alone. She had just purchased that sweater and her ten year old daughter was taking a picture so she could post it on Facebook to get opinions as to whether or not she should keep it. For all inquiring minds, she decided to keep the sweater. The style is a bit outside of her comfort zone, but it fits nicely.

She was very busy the two weeks before Thanksgiving break helping prepare for the school book fair. The Scholastic Theme this fall was "Destination Book Fair." This was her decorating contribution. It is a hot air balloon surrounded by items that represent different destinations. Another parent wrote "Let Books Take You To a New Destination" across the sky behind the balloon. It was lots of fun to make!

She had a great visit with this one (Cynthia) and this one (Shannon) and really missed them while shopping on Black Friday. This is a picture of them enjoying the fire and watching the kids roast marshmallows in Shannon's backyard.

This one...

was selected by her teacher to receive the Terrific Kid Award from the Kiwanis Club. Her parents know she and her brother and sister are terrific, but they are glad that the Kiwanis Club wanted to recognize it!

This one...

on the left received her Black Belt in Recorder Karate. She loves playing and practices without being reminded. She is trying to decide which instrument she would like to play in middle school next year. She is leaning toward the flute or clarinet. She also loves being in chorus. At the Veteran's Day concert she had a solo. She is very self confident!!

This one...

loves reptiles and dreams of opening The Ray Reptile Rescue Center when he is older. That dream came in very helpful when his mom found a lizard in the curtains in the living room. He found a container and bravely rescued and released the lizard. The snake in the bottom right of the picture is not real. His little sister was holding it in an attempt to frighten the poor lizard into submission.

This one...


is not afraid to have a little fun when hanging with his peeps. This is a shot with Perry while the guys were touring the distilleries.


He learned to play corn hole while we were on our trip. He was pretty good and thought it was fun. He was also relieved to learn that it did not involve throwing corncobs.

He is now back to work. His wife and kids are going to wait for him to get home to decorate for Christmas tonight.

If April Showers Bring May Flowers

what do Mayflowers bring?

Pilgrims!!!! I must have learned that joke when I was in kindergarten or first grade. This is a picture of Hannah and me after her kindergarten class put on their Thanksgiving performance last week.

Happy Thanksgiving! Remember we all have things to be thankful for. Spend some time today thanking God for his many provisions, big and small.

Hey! Where's Perry?

That is a regular line in one of my kids' favorite programs. Truth be told, P.K. and I like to watch that show as well. It is a cartoon about two brothers who come up with grand ideas of how to spend their days. Their adventures drive their older sister crazy and she spends her days trying to bust them. They have a pet platypus named Perry who unknown to them is a secret agent. In every episode one of the boys will realize Perry is nowhere to be found and will ask, "Hey! Where's Perry?" Aaron and Hannah have the stuffed version of these characters and brought them along for our trip.

We are visiting friends for Thanksgiving. P.K. has to work on Friday so we are having our Thanksgiving celebration today which will allow us to drive home on Thursday. The kitchen has been buzzing this morning with the six adults making preparations. Where was Perry this morning?

He was in the kitchen helping to prepare the much anticipated sausage stuffing.

Yesterday P.K., Brian and Doug took a guys day to tour some distilleries in the area. Perry was MIA the entire day. Apparently he decided he wanted to hang with the guys and they were nice enough to document the secret operation in pictures.

When sneaking into a distillery, one must watch for hidden mirrors.

Where did Perry go?

Perry was very happy to meet a chemist at one of the distilleries.

Perry blended right into the crowd.

I think Perry had a great time touring with the boys. When it comes to P.K., Doug and Brian the old addage "Boys will be boys" rings true.

This Is What Happens When Jody Abandons Her Blog

Hello Changing Seasons Blog Followers! I (Shannon) decided that it had been FAR too long since Jody got on here and posted an update, so I decided to hijack her and post an update. ;) She's singing loudly in the background (I'm disappointed that I don't have a video camera handy so I could share this "event" with you) but if she doesn't HUSH in the background, this post will be mind-numbingly disjointed...

Jody & fam have been joining us in Kentucky since last Friday and we're having an absolute blast! We'll be having an early Thanksgiving celebration tomorrow, since P.K. has to return to work, but we are beginning to rev up...The turkey is thawing, bread is cut for stuffing, we have LARD to use in the pie crusts, and our stomachs are beginning to rumble already.

A few highlights of the week so far...
*Absolute joy when their headlights rounded the corner and headed down the final stretch of
road to our house--flashing of the porch light to "guide them in"
*Nertz, nertz, and more nertz
*Jody being chased by feral dogs as she jogged through the neighborhood
*Hannah reiterating that the boys have been gone "all day" every time we turn around today
*Bonfire in the backyard, followed by the adult boys encouraging children to play with fire...
*Aunt Cynthia's crazed look when she got her time to play with fire...
*Crazy, rapid-fire texting with Aunt Cynthia resulting in interesting questions...
*Amazingly sweet conversations among the kids when they are supposed to be sleeping...
*Did I mention Nertz, Nertz and more Nertz?
*A list of things that the "Bible is silent on"...including gravity, pistachios, wireless internet
technology, nertz, pumpkin pie
*The incredulous look on Jody's face when I asked her to order my Grande, half-caf, soy
white chocolate mocha, no whip. What's so hard about that????
*Many discussions about Lori's newly discovered soy allergy and the difficulty in executing her new eating plan the week of Thanksgiving (which is why LARD is included in our Thanksgiving prep. Don't ask)
*Attempts to nickname the group of guys. They didn't really embrace any of our ideas.

Jody is promising to update tomorrow, so stay tuned.

A Herpetologist, A Zookeeper and Candy Corn

Rachel was invited to trick or treat with a friend this year and sleepover at the friend's house, so this is the first year that we trick or treated without her. We made it to about six houses with Aaron and Hannah before it began pouring rain. There was trick or treating at the mall, but by the time we got there all the stores were already out of candy. The kids were so disappointed. We felt so bad for them that we took them to WalMart and let them pick out their own bag of candy. Aaron said, "I can't say this is the best Halloween I've ever had, but I can say it is one I will never forget."

As usual PK and I dressed up this year, but we neglected to get a picture.

Aaron was a herpetologist.

Hannah was a zookeeper. She pulled several of her stuffed jungle animals in the the wagon until it started to rain.

Rachel was candy corn. The costume was actually a candy corn witch, but we just said candy corn. She tried on a costume that actually was candy corn, but it was too small.

A Fall Celebration

Friday was Hannah's Fall Celebration (we all know it was really a Halloween Party, but some people don't celebrate Halloween which I can respect and each class is only allowed one party a year so if we call it a celebration it really isn't a party) at school. I am privileged to be the room parent her class, as well as Aaron's class this year. Luckily, the third graders don't celebrate as much as the kindergartners or I couldn't keep up.

Aaron's class was easy. They were neither partying nor celebrating for Halloween or Fall, so I sent in some cookies (store bought even) that they could have as a snack and some treat bags to go home at the end of the day.

For Hannah's class celebration I set up three stations: snack, craft and games. We all know I love to do kids' parties! Hannah's teacher had suggested the little spiders made out of crackers and chow mein noodles for the snack. I like those, but I wanted it to be a bit more fun, so I adjusted a recipe for homemade Oreos that Aaron's teacher had given me. It starts with a devil's food cake mix and uses cream cheese frosting as the center. I used chocolate frosting because I wanted the spiders to be all brown. I used pretzels for the legs and a dot of gel to hold red hots in place for the eyes. I made a batch early in the week and let my kids try it out as a trial run.

I love these silly faces I managed to capture! Hannah decided to give her spider fangs.

These went over really well at the party.

This is Hannah and her half eaten spider at the class party.

This is Hannah's teacher, Mrs. Honeycutt, eating her spider. She is being so expressive because the kids at the snack station were instructing her on how to make and eat her spider. It was hilarious.

We had two games at the game station. One was pumpkin bowling and the other was a take on the Grand Prize Game from the old Bozo Show. (Does anyone remember that? I must have dated myself when I tried to explain it to some people because I got several blank stares.) In my version, there were four Halloween buckets set up in a row. Each child took a turn trying to toss a ball into each bucket. Instead of doing goody bags, the kids got a prize for each bucket and bowling.

This is one of Hannah's classmates playing the bucket toss. It is the only picture I took of that game.

These are the pumpkins that Hannah and I made for the bowling. They are the larger plastic bottles from flavored water. We poured orange paint inside with just a couple drops of water and shook the bottles to cover the insides with paint. Then I glued on the lids and added a brown piece of felt for the stems. The vines are some green twisty things my kids had used to make their Leprechaun traps. They had shamrocks on them, but they worked perfectly.

Here is Hannah taking her turn at Pumpkin Bowling.

P.K. was able to come in and run the game station. After each child played the bucket toss game, P.K. would ask them a Halloween riddle for a bonus prize. That was his own special touch.

The craft was a pumpkin sun catcher. Each child was given a pumpkin shape cut out of contact paper. We taped it to the table sticky side up. The kids then covered it with a variety of orange things (feathers, ribbon, sequence, etc.).

This is a shot of orange things spread across the table.

Here is Hannah hard at work on her pumpkin. The brown spot at the top of her pumpkin is the stem made out of felt.

There were enough parent volunteers to have two parents at each station and allow me to walk around and supervise or help as needed and allow the teachers to enjoy the party. I was very happy with the way the party turned out.