The week started out with Katelyn's last Tippie Toes class. We had a little time to kill after dropping off Tyler so we hit the Woodbury Park for a bit before heading over. Love that her class is at the Woodbury Commons, right adjacent to Woodbury Elementary and the park.
Katelyn really enjoyed her last class and followed the teacher and her directions around. The cuteness factor has worn off now, totally overshadowed by my excitement after watching her prance around in ballet and tap shoes in the Bay Area last weekend with Leah. That'll be next on my list, once I can find the time that is. I'm still figuring out her naps and (knock on wood) I've woken her up a couple times now to pick up Tyler from school at 1:20pm. She hasn't thrown a huge hissy fit like I usually expect (and has been known to throw before). There is a 3-5year old dance class in the mornings that I am interested in, but I still need to figure out some timing issues with that too. It'd be SO cute though!
Wednesday was Halloween! I was nervous just thinking about the full day in store for me. Started out with all kindergarteners having an early day, which meant Tyler started school at 8am instead of 10am. Huge difference in our morning schedule. I headed over bright and early to Woodbury Elementary with both kids in tow. Tyler and his friends were all so excited to see each other in costume. Here they are right when we got there, they gathered together for a quick photo.
Then it was time to line up for school. Apparently their elementary school has a Halloween parade. It's really cute, all the kids line up and walk around the playground. The teachers took the kids inside while the rest of the families headed over to the back of the school to the blacktop playground.
All the little sisters were comfy and cozy in their strollers. It was quite a chilly morning!
The parade is starting! See Tyler with his red cape? He is quite a handsome Thor, isn't he? Will insisted on the muscles in the costume, cost almost double to get that version of the costume!
Leading the parade was Mr. Battenfield, our principal. He's new to the school this year, came from another elementary school in Irvine. He's great and really friendly.
And here comes the kids. They had a great time walking and waving. Probably Tyler's first parade. When they first came out, the Kindergarteners walked past the 6th graders. As they walked by, all the older kids started clapping and cheering on the little ones. Super cute!
Parade just about over and the kids are just hanging around. They have a Fall Fun Day Party planned for the rest of that day. Here a handful of photos of Tyler and his buddy Jordan (Jango Fett), and Kobi (in the red Power Rangers suit) showing off their muscles.
Video of Tyler in the Halloween parade:
Whew, as soon as the kids headed back into their classrooms, I grabbed Katelyn and we were off to ICDC. We got their with time to spare, thank goodness, since I am not a fan of rushing. Trick or Treat at City Hall for her Pre-1 class started at 9:45am and we got there by 9:15am. Perfect timing to get Katelyn changed into her Ariel costume. She was SO excited to finally wear it - she's been talking about it constantly ever since we bought it at Costco last month. Ariel is her favorite princess, so it was perfect! Here she is with her friend Thalia, who was a cupcake queen.
The mayhem of a class of 2 year olds getting ready to go Trick or Treating at City Hall for the first time.
And we're off! Tyler has gone trick or treating at City Hall every year since he was in Pre1. That's 3 years in a row before he headed off to Kindergarten this year. I couldn't miss this for Katelyn, especially since it was her first time. I love that City Hall is right across the street from our little day care and that they are so welcoming to our school's kids for Halloween. We go through every floor (3 of them!) and there are so many city employees ready with (healthy!) treats for the little ones. It's a great experience for them.
More of Katelyn's friends! Thalia and Mason (cupcake queen and tinkerbell) are MWF kids so Katelyn doesn't get to see them anymore. It was good catching up with them and their moms.
My little Ariel, all ready for some trick or treating! :)
Taking a break with her buddies Harmony (Max from Wild Things) and Kayla (a cross between Dora and a skeleton. She couldn't decide which costume she wanted).
What is this... Katelyn would get various types of candy and ask me "mama, do I like this?" to which I would reply no. Haha! Wonder how long that'll work for.
Here's Katelyn and her buddy Kylee. Kylee is almost a year older than her. I used to think that Katelyn was huge, but now I'm starting to wonder if it's just her friends that are on the smaller side...
Katelyn and Harmony! I'm sure I've mentioned before that Harmony is only 2 days younger than Katelyn, but she's a good 2-3 inches shorter. Not only do I love that they are only 2 days apart, but I get along GREAT with Harmony's mom Yoko. These girls are destined to be BFFs if we have anything to do with it!
Whew, after 3 floors of trick or treating, the kids were starting to get tired. We headed outside for a group picture of the pre-1 class. Even though we were only there for about an hour, I was pretty drained too. The kids all headed back to the class and Katelyn and I headed back to Woodbury (just) in time to pick up Tyler at 11:20am.
I'm going to fast forward through the next few hours because it was DRAMA again and I am SO over it. This time though, I brought it upon myself unknowingly. In trying to be nice and not make a certain person feel excluded, I mentioned that I would be taking my kids to Woodbury after pickup for lunch, if she wanted to join. My only reason for doing this was because I thought for sure that the woman who invited her last time (lunch from hell) would invite her again this time and I didn't want to cause any more tension between us. Turns out everyone was on the same page about not inviting her and me opening my big mouth threw everything down the drain. Lunch was awkward and uncomfortable and none of the other moms even really talked to her. I felt obligated and it was just so uncomfortable. Long story short, I'm steering CLEAR of all things drama and her. Ok, hopefully I'll learn from this!
Whew, what a busy morning we've all already had. The kids ran around and played for a little after lunch, and then we headed home and EVERYONE napped. It was vital that they napped since I knew we were going to have a late night Trick or Treating. The kids were SO excited. After a quick dinner, they changed into their Halloween costumes and were all ready when their friends Kaden and Kylee came by.
LOVE this pose. Katelyn loves to do everything that her big brother does. Everything.
Pictures with their buddies! The progression of photos showed Katelyn analyzing Kylee's growl and then giving her own mean pose a shot. Haha! What a mean looking princess. Either that or she smelled something funny. Love the kids together!
Before we headed out, we got some trick or treaters. Older kids these days barely put any effort into their costumes. Seriously. These kids just had a piece of paper taped to their shirt! Seriously?
Video of Tyler and Kaden planning out how to hand out candy:
And another video of handing out candy to "Ethnic Elmo"?
And we're off to trick or treating around our neighborhood. We started off with our neighbors the Olesky's. That's their daughter Caitlyn. She just started a local college I think. Alright, picture overload time! No captions, really.
Katelyn and Kylee.
Tyler and Katelyn. Tyler liked to stay in character that night.
Look! A young couple! I'm not sure if they actually live in the house across from us, but wouldn't that be exciting? After I saw them I wished I had introduced myself. Doh! Missed a perfect opportunity! Will thinks its the kids of the people who live there (gives you an idea of how old the people are in our community!)
Great Halloween decorations of a house near us. The kids played in it and uh, caused a little damage. I think we are banned next year. Haha!
The girls are still going strong with their candy. I brought a bigger bag to dump the candy in so Katelyn and Tyler's baskets wouldn't get too heavy.
The goal of the night was to reach the local Haunted house. It's crazy! Katelyn was scared of Halloween decorations all night and wouldn't go anywhere near it. She's fearless for everything else, except this! Peculiar. Even going up to the door they had this huge spider that would drop down. You can see Kylee's look of terror..
Moms need to be in photos too. Here's me and Jen in front of the Spooky house. She was quite brave and actually went into the haunted house part. I am not a fan of anywhere dark where things jump out and scare/grab you.
And of course some family photos.
The kids were pretty bummed as we headed home (trick or treating along the way). They had a great time and they were all so well behaved. By the time we got the kids washed and in bed, I totally crashed in bed. It had been such a crazy day!
Thursday was soccer practice - I'm surprised to see that the season is coming to an end soon. Tyler did score one goal during one game, so I think we're good for the season. The kids got to see Kaden/Kylee two days in a row! Stacy was out of town and Jen had an event for work so we picked up the kids and watched them that night.
Here's Luke, Kaden and Tyler at the soccer field.
The kids had a long discussion about which kids should go in which car. It finally was decided that the boys would go with me and the girls with Will. Look how huge Kaden is in Katelyn's car seat! Haha!
The kids were greatly behaved that night too. Dinner was a ton of chicken nuggets and then TV time. We even gave all the kids a bath too!
Friday was Tyler's piano lesson again. We're making slow progress, quite painful I think in the beginning. Tyler's getting the hang of it though. Katelyn was nice and quiet with the iPad.
After dropping off Tyler, Katelyn and I had a quick park playdate. I always need to get her down to nap as soon as possible since I need to wake her in time to pick up Tyler from school. I'm always so nervous about how she'll react.
After pick up, we headed to Stonegate for a playdate with Tyler's friend Kobi and Sonali. The kids had a great time playing, even with the park super crowded.
Whew, what a week it's been. And the weekend was only going to get busier. Katelyn noticed on her Star Wars shirt this week that Anakin wasn't on it. "Where's Anakin??" she kept asking. Haha!
Saturday morning we hit up a couple stores trying to find a Halloween costume for a Halloween party that night. Will and I haven't dressed up since Halloween 2007, a week before I found out i was pregnant with Tyler. Hasn't happened since! We were unsuccessful in finding any heavily discounted adult costumes so we ended up digging up our old costumes. I'm AMAZED that I found my referee jersey from 5 years ago. We had to hit up a sporting goods store to get Will a jersey though.
It was a rushed morning and I knew we had a busy afternoon/evening planned, so we opted out of Tyler's soccer game. It was causing me unnecessary stress trying to get the timing right. Plus I had heard that the team they were playing was very difficult. Instead, the kids napped at home, and then we headed to a birthday party at 3pm (even though it started at 12pm!). We missed most of the festivities but the kids still got to meet the Ariel impersonator (super princessy!). The party was for the twins of one of the moms in our KMC (Kumon Mommy Club) group. Ironic that those are my initials too, haha! Here's the 6 of us.
Katelyn and Ariel!! Super cute girl.
The party favors were Beta fish. One for each kid. Will was not too thrilled about it, but the kids were BEYOND excited. You'd think they didn't already have a pet...Tyler named his Cutie and Katelyn named hers Ariel. We'll see how long they last!
Video of Tyler and KK with their new pet fishes:
Saturday evening. The party we had been invited to had the start time moved from 6pm to 8pm. Hmm. That's kind of late. Should have been a warning sign. My friend Yoko invited us to a party they were going to and they were bringing Harmony, Katelyn's little BFF from school. I was a little surprised to find that our kids and Harmony were the only kids at an otherwise quite adult party! Reminded me of the party we went to the week before I found out I was pregnant. Haha! The kids didn't seem to mind and we still had fun. Katelyn decided to be a cheerleader that night (I got the costume on total clearance last year) and it matched my referee and Will's football player costume nicely.
Katelyn and Harmony had lots of chips that night. I think that was the only kid friendly thing to eat. And there wasn't even any water/juice - we had to get a bottle of water from the car. Tells you how kid friendly the party was, haha!
Will and Tyler. The kids kept busy inside dancing, which was good since there was a pool in the back yard.
Tyler and Capt Jack Sparrow.
My favorite picture from the night - Tyler and Thor! OMG Tyler totally got super shy when this guy showed up. He ran and hid in the bathroom! I asked why he was scared and he said it was because he was so big. Very true. The guy had grown out his beard and hair for 3 months apparently in preparation. It took a while (and some prodding from big Thor's girlfriend Black Widow) to get a photo.
Picture with Yoko and the girls.
Family photo! Apparently I didn't get the memo that the women should all be scantily clad for this party. If I had known I wouldn't have gone, for sure! Oh well, the party was fun but we got home quite late. I think we left past 11pm - amazing!
We all slept in the next morning. So much that Tyler didn't even make it to Chinese school that morning. Oops. Instead Will took Tyler to get some fish food for our new pets and also hit some tennis balls (which he has been asking to do for quite a while). I took Katelyn to her friend Wes's 3rd birthday party at My Gym in Tustin. It was actually really fun for all the kids, Katelyn loved it!
Video of KK following game directions:
Video of bubbles at My Gym:
Video of Katelyn on the My Gym zipline:
Group picture!
After the party, we headed home and both kids went down for naps. Naps were key this weekend. We ended up having to wake up Katelyn to get us ready in time for our family photos that afternoon. 3:30pm and San Juan Capistrano Mission. Sure hope they came out well. I'm a little annoyed with myself that we didn't take a group photo of us that day - and we left it all up to the photographer. Doh! We did get a couple of the kids after our photographer left though. The mission is beautiful and an amazing backdrop for photos.
Whew, now that was a long post. Good thing we'll be taking it easy next week... I think!
No comments:
Post a Comment