Showing posts with label halloween. Show all posts
Showing posts with label halloween. Show all posts

Halloween

My kids are at an age, where they pick and plan their own Halloween costumes! 

So, aside from not having much candy, since Billy was still unemployed during this time, and we only had the bags that I'd purchased in early September, it was a pretty low stress holiday.

Toothbrushes, as always, and ROBLOX cards from the stash I keep.

The day was chilly, but not snowy and bitterly cold, so they stayed out a while.  Billy took William and the twins and Kennedy, while Alice went with her friends.  Emily wasn't feeling up to walking around, so she stayed home with me and passed out candy.

Kennedy's and Willow's mom hung out with me on the porch (because it wasn't miserable) and we got to see all of the fun and creative costumes!  My favorite was probably the Mario family. = )


 I think they had a good time.  Happy Halloween from me and my dear ones!

later days

12-22-24 backdated for continuity.

6th Grade Zoo Trip!

This year, William's 6th grade class got to go to the Zoo for a week-long field trip*!  I was able to chaperone on Monday and Wednesday.

Day 1:

We walked around the zoo while his teacher read some interesting facts about the animals.


The binturong was too far away for a good picture, so I took a picture of the sign instead!

The kangaroos were really active.

The zoo was all decked out for Halloween!

Emu exhibit.

More Halloween decor.

Penguin enclosure.  It's probably still a little warm for them.

A wild bird visiting the penguins.

The bongo was very interested in what we were up to.


This bird (I think it's a turkey vulture) is the oldest animal in the zoo, at almost 20 years old!

They've taken out a staircase since the last time we were at the zoo!

Doppsey is the female rhino, looked like she was sunning, but each subsequent trip through the zoo she was in that spot.  I hope she's doing okay.  In one of the lectures, the speaker told us that rhinos are solitary animals, but she had a son that they've since sent to another zoo to breed, and I'm wondering if she's not a bit lonely.

The lion gave a 5 mile roar, then did a little bit of 'barking.'  He seemed to really like the rock he's on in the picture.  We learned that the two females who were with him in the enclosure died of cancer.  I'm sure he's feeling pretty lonely.

The tiger just stared at us.

At the anteater enclosure, there were some bubble windows on the side, so I went around to wave at William. = )

Surreal colors on the berry tree!

Meercat exhibit.

Farmyard Halloween Decorations.

At the red panda exhibit, we learned that they hadn't had a baby panda in several years because the exhibit was too close to the snow leopard exhibit. Turns out, snow leopard is a natural predator of the red panda!  But they moved them away and now there are babies! = )

They've added some cool art since our last visit!

The otter exhibit is always a favorite.



Painted rocks! Made me think of Grace. = )

My group, including William, headed over to the Cotton-top Tamarin exhibit.  The screen flipped too quickly, so I ended up taking pictures.  There were some gaps in information between what was on the screen and what questions they had to answer, so google gave us lots of Tamarin facts!

My favorite fact is that they have at least 30 unique calls in their language, and they've shown evidence of grammar!!!  Super cool.



After our observation, it was time for a scavenger hunt.  There were signs up all around the zoo, mostly historical, but some informational.  We didn't finish, but got through several of them.


I took one quick picture of William in front of the wings as we headed back to the classroom to head out.

After I left the zoo, I ran to Aldi for groceries, stopped at Kroger for an online order, came home and put everything away, then rushed off to robotics with the twins.

Day 2 (for me, Day 3 for William):

On this day, they started with a full group meeting about the zoo.  When the kids went back to their classrooms, the adults were given extra information about the rhinos.  It was an interesting enough presentation that I wasn't desperate to get away.



Autumn is in full swing!  After just a few short days the trees are bare, and the ground is covered in leaves!

William eating the extra lunch food he had me pack in my lunch.

These twin acorn caps fell, and bounced.  At first I thought it was a frog or cricket!  There were several twin caps, but not all of them were.  I still haven't looked into how common they are.


After lunch, I was paired with a group that didn't have William, and it was back to the Tamarins for me.  But, after Monday, and helping William's group with their poster, I felt pretty knowledgeable about them!

They live in Colombia, in the rainforest or forests in the foothills of the Andes Mountains. They live in groups of 2-20, with a life-long mated pair as the leaders of the group.  The female releases such strong pheromones that the mated pair is the only pair reproducing.  Each member of the group has a role, some of which are dedicated to raising the young!  

Their tails are non-prehensile, but are longer than their bodies!  They eat mostly bugs and fruit, but also sap and gum and occasionally small birds and spiders.  Their main predators are raptors, large cats, and snakes.  They only weigh about a pound.

I already mentioned their communication, but they've also been observed to make a clicking noise when presented with their favorite foods.   In order to mark their territory, they pee on their hands and rub it around on branches.  They spend their lives in the trees, rarely going to the ground, if ever.  In the rainforest, they don't typically go to the tops of the trees, but rather live in the lower branches.  

There are only 6000 left in the world (2000 in the wild, I guess the others are in zoos?)  They are critically endangered, one of their main concerns is deforestation.  There are currently efforts in place to fundraise funds to provide local governments with funds to restore their forests!

I'm sure there are other facts that I learned but didn't include, but they are cool little guys!  It was a nice week, and the weather seemed to cooperate!  There was some rain on Friday, but it had mostly tapered off by the time they were due to arrive at the zoo.

I don't have plans for the twins to change districts next year, so they won't be going on this particular zoo trip, though I'm sure they'll do something fun!

later days

*Once again, Avia generously stepped in to sponsor William's field trip (and a friend in need, at the discretion of the teacher.)

Other Fun Things!

Juliet wanted one of the 'fancy' braids that I'd given Grace after watching a video.  Hers came out much cuter, since I had experience the second time!

I think this might have been a particularly flat pretzel that Juliet found in her snack?

My mom drove up from Florida, with a car full of things for us to sort.  When going through the pile, I ended up 'upgrading' my zipties, because Grandpa's were better. = )


I also took the opportunity to prune, so now the drawer is a little cleaner and easier to navigate.

One afternoon, Billy and I decided to finally try the Korean BBQ place that opened up right next to the thrift store that I frequent.

We went in with no expectations, and no understanding of how it worked, and were suitably impressed!  You use a tablet to order cut meats and veggies, then use the hot grill to cook them at your table!  There is a traditional buffet area with extra veggies, and dozens of sauces, and desert!


The half-moon orange slices there are pumpkin, and they were so good on the grill!

The deserts all looked so good, I wanted to try one of each!  I tried to eat at least half of each one.  Billy didn't care for any.

Hopefully, once Billy lands another position, we can take the kids there sometime!  If not, I'm sure glad that we got to try it out!

When I took Emily to get fitted for her braces, she really wanted to choose the metal ones, despite their drawbacks, because people at her school who get braces, get a few minutes of attention.  She didn't want to miss out on that, so I bargained with her, offering her <permanent> purple hair dye, if she would get the Invisalign braces.  

She agreed, and so after my next shopping trip, we put two large stripes of purple on either side of her face.  There was not enough dye in the container to color the entirety of her long, thick hair, so it was probably good that we hadn't planned on that.

Alice requested brown pants to wear with her pusheen shirt.  I bought 5 pairs at an estate sale (she likes the elastic waists) and she picked two.  These were the lighter, and softer, of the two she chose. = )

One day, my scheduled allowed for me to sub in the early childhood center in Potterville.  There were only four students, but the teacher definitely needs a second adult in there!  It wasn't a long or hard day, but I was sad that I didn't spy either of my children during their lunch (while we were out on the playground and I could, possibly, have seen them.)

Alice had a playdate scheduled, but totally forgot about it.  When she arrived, her friends were already in costume, and greeted her at the car. lol.  We had a party to go to that evening, so unfortunately she was not able to make up the lost time by staying later.  But, I think she had a good time!

They had these crackers during lunch on a different sub day.  The two cookies they chose to put on the outside were relevant to me, and from my vantage point, I could only see Texas cookies on the students' plates, so I thought maybe they were exclusively Michigan and Texas?  But it turns out those were just they ones they chose to picture, and many (probably all) of the states are represented according to the twins, who also had them for lunch.

Cali was cleaning out some American Girl Dolls and Toys, so Haley sent a doll and selection of accessories up here to me.  I was just trying to clean up, so placed the doll in the closest and promptly forgot about her.  A few weeks later, Grace and Juliet found her.  They've named her June, and she is the doll for guests. = )


Last week was conference week at all three schools.  So, I spent 3 separate evenings chatting with my children's teachers.  I knew what to expect at everyone's except for Alice's.  I chose to go on band rehearsal night, since I was already over there.  

First off, let me say that they have it super well organized.  All the teachers are at tables in the commons, in Alphabetical order, and they have a bell to signal time.  

I was under the impression that I would be going between classrooms, so I gave myself 5 minutes between each meeting, so as not to miss out on any of my 5 minutes of discussion time with the teachers.

Well, I will intentionally schedule them 5 minutes apart next year, especially with two sets of teachers, because it took away the stress of finding the next teacher, or if the parent in front of me went over, I knew taking a couple of minutes after wouldn't eat into my next appointment.

As I went from teacher to teacher, I heard only wonderful things about Alice. Apparently, she participates in class, gets her work in on time, raises her hand, and shows off her creativity.  I was so stinkin proud!!!  Last year, I was told "Alice is smart, but..." this year there were not buts!!!!

She came home confused in Geometry, not understanding sine, cosine, and tangent.  While I was surprised that the teacher would cover them all in a single day, we spent around half an hour going over them, until she could calculate them independently.  Her teacher praised her for knowing how to do it ahead of the group, as all that he had given them was a chart, and they were just matching up ratios to triangles. lol.

Her ELA teacher told me about an assignment that she wrote about bats, and the words formed a picture of a bat inside a cave.

In Science apparently, she was too quick to guess what was in the 'mystery' box. 

It would seem that the transition to high school has been good for her. <3

Emily found a new outfit at the rummage sale on Friday.  The pants were way too long, but it was an easy enough alteration.  Though I didn't cut them, in case she grows and wants to keep wearing them, so they are just tacked up.

The kids, mostly Grace, have been asking to get out the Halloween village.  I told them that they were welcome to get it out whenever they wanted but I wasn't willing to do it until October 1st.  After seeing that October first falls on this coming Tuesday, we backed up the set up to Sunday.

Last year, there was barely enough room on the table for the houses that we bought for Billy, so this year the only new addition was the water tower, since it had a small footprint.  And I really wanted to get him something unique in Frankenmuth.

But then, a few weeks ago, the palliative care thrift store had a sturdy shelf, with no back, for sale for just one dollar!  I bought it for his village, and now we have room for even more!





Considering this one was the priciest of the set, it has been the worst quality!  The cement spinner started clicking just a few weeks into the season last year (and I bought it brand new!), so we had to pad it with foam.  Then the little guy in red popped off before we put it away, so I tried to let it repair in the basement over the year, but it just fell off. And this year, despite having the original packaging, the crane is no longer turning. = (

Avia bought Grace and Juliet some Christmas dresses at the rummage sale, so after their shower Sunday, they, of course, wanted to wear the new outfits.  So, they were wearing Christmas dresses while decorating for Halloween, in September.  At least we have holiday spirit!


 later days