October--Phew!

We went to the Occoquan Halloween Parade for Nana and Papa's birthdays this year.  Tess was a lovely, spooky Spider Princess and Drew was pretty excited to be Thomas the Train.

Tess doing her pumpkin homework for school, with her little brother assistant.

Exciting bedtime activity this week.  Drew likes to protest bedtime by throwing his pajamas over the stair railing down to the foyer.  He tried this trick and his pj pants landed on the chandelier.  Ryan smelled smoke and realized that Drew's pants were smoldering on the hot lights.  Luckily he grabbed them off before a blaze started, but we could see red embers on them.

Drew and I met Ry for lunch in DC last week.  I took Drew to see the transportation exhibit at the American History Museum.  Tess was always afraid of it when she was little, but I thought Drew would love the trains, cars and trucks.  So much for that.  Turns out he was just as scared as Tess was.  It's kind of dark with all these huge trains everywhere, sounds piped in, and statues of people to make the scenes appear realistic.  He couldn't tell what was real and what was for display.  He kept thinking that trains were coming in and out of the building, but he couldn't find them.  He kept eyeing the statues, afraid they were going to move at anytime.

His favorite part was riding every elevator and escalator we could find.  And going up and down all the stairs.  And running on the sidewalks.

Tess' Kindergarten School Photo (2013)

What else?  Tess' school saga continues.  She's a little ball of worries these days.  P.E. makes her the most nervous, so we're happy when she comes home with these kind of notes.

We've been doing a home preschool with some of Drew's friends once a week.  This is the magic of Curious George.

It's been Fire Prevention Month at school, so Tess has been a little nervous about fire.  The chandelier episode didn't help.

Drew's been loving his GEEN and blue quilt from Aunt Maur.

T ess in her fall Nana dress.

I missed this photo from Dipsy's visit.  She came and read a book to Tess' school class.

Tess doing her spelling homework in shaving cream.

Drew dressed like a soupy-hero!

Ryan and I went on a group Amazing Race date with friends.  We had to complete challenges in a race around town.  Our first challenge was to down an extra large Slurpee in the store.  Major brain freeze!  I didn't think I could finish mine, until I had the bright idea to stick it in the microwave.  Slurpee juice. Other challenges took us to Chuck E. Cheese and had us scouring parking lots for license plates from 15 different states.

I chaperoned Tess' field trip to the pumpkin patch.  The bus ride was wild--boy were those kids excited!  Kind of fun to see Tess with her classmates.

More P.E. bravery.  Tess earned this puppy and carrier with four brave P.E. days.

My activity day girls--they are a wild bunch too!  For this activity we made homemade buttercream frosting and decorated Halloween cupcakes.

We went to a birthday party at a neighbor's house and their Dad took photos of the kids.  Drew looks so old in this photo.  I especially love his filthy shirt.

Drew is very good at spotting the letter D around town.  He loves to find his "favorite D" in the holds section of the library.  He can tell you how to spell his name:  "D-R-W!"  He also knows that Tessie's letter is T, and likes to hunt that one down for her.