Halloween 2005-2011

I really don’t get into Halloween that much.  I don’t decorate for it, and I don’t dress up.  But I do like the traditions of carving pumpkins, and of course letting the kids pick a costume and dress up.  I love the pictures…I love to look back over the years (which have SPED by!)

2005: Shelby the Peacock

2006: Holly Hobbie

2007: Little Dinosaurs

  

 

2008: Batman and “chicken-rider”

 

 

2009: Witch and Frankenstein

 

2010: Officially poodle and T-Rex, plus Romo and princess too!

 

2011:  The bride and the ninja!

 

Shelby’s Pumpkin Partner Day and Coleman’s Halloween Walk

The first grade at Shelby’s school has a “Pumpkin Partner” day where each child has someone come up to school and help them decorate a pumpkin to display in the cafeteria the week of Halloween.  The students bring their own pumpkins and décor, and use the last hour of one day to do this decorating.

So, Mommy took off work a little early and headed out to be Shelby’s pumpkin partner last Tuesday.

On Monday Shelby and I headed to Hobby Lobby to come up with some supplies and an idea for our pumpkin.  We decided to paint the pumpkin like a candy corn (which Shelby loves) and write “I {heart} Candy” on the pumpkin using hot glued candy corn.  We painted the pumpkin the night before and the next morning we found out that tempera paint on a pumpkin doesn’t work, as it was all flaky and peeling off all over.  Luckily we had an extra pumpkin, so we started with a clean slate at school!

Shelby had fun with candy corn, glitter paint, ribbon, and sharpies, while mommy helped handle the hot glue gun.  She decided to use a pattern of ribbon, glitter, and candy corn to write the word “candy.”

On the back of the pumpkin, she just had to write “I Love You!”

Shelby and her “pumpkin partner:”

Shelby proud of her pumpkin on the stage:

Later that week, Coleman’s school had their annual Halloween candy walk, which we have been a part of for the past 5 years.  You can see pictures from 2009 here and  2008 here, and well, the other years are just not blogged.  (How dare I miss those?!)

This year is special because after 5 years, it is our LAST YEAR.  Daddy took the morning off work to do this with our little Ninja!

The Stepping Stones in their room, ready to head out on their walk:

I left work for an hour to meet up and walk with him for a little while.  By the time I got there the ninja already decided to lose the mask in favor of green teeth.

Ms. Pat’s penguin costume cracked me up!

A lot of the parents dressed up.  Daddy did too, he just didn’t realize he.  He went as “College student.”

Mrs. Barbara in her zoot suit:

This walk is LONG.  They cover the entire large college campus, going through all the buildings and departments to trick-or-treat.  They start at 9:00 am and at 11:05 Jeff sent me a text “Entering hour 3 of the walk…”  Yeah, I guess after doing it for 5 years, that last hour and really drag out! 

They stop for a couple of candy and water breaks.

And (as if they don’t do enough walking) they get to expend some energy in open fields:

This is towards the end, with a diminishing costume and big smiles.

Finally, they are back in the center, hands washed, clothes on, and ready for lunch and a big nap!

We will miss this tradition!!

Bikes, Soccer, and Rangers!

Since that day last year when we rode bikes without training wheels at the park, we haven’t really done it again.  The kids have to get good at it before we can just go anywhere without the training wheels, so the wheels went back on.  But last week we decided to practice without them some more.

Shelby has improved immensely since last year.  This time, she was able to practice starting off by herself from standing (no parents holding on running behind!) and she was able to stop on her own instead of falling to the ground every time.

She was all smiles (and is WAY too big for this mama.)

Daddy and Coleman watched on with smiles…

And then it was Coleman’s turn.

Coleman did a great job but got frustrated a bit.  He can ride fine but it’s the taking off and stopping without a fall that are challenging.  He wanted to do it perfectly (or as perfectly as Shelby) from the start, and learning that some things take lots of practice is a tough lesson!  But with some time he gave it another shot and rode of into the sunset…

 

Shelby’s soccer season is nearing the end, but we still have 3 games left!  She is REALLY enjoying it, and she’s improved so much!  She is a GREAT defender…she works really hard, hussles and gets right in there to the ball, keeping the ball far away from her goal!

 

There’s a cold front coming through today, and the Rangers are playing game 6 of the world series! 

Jeff has told me the story of this picture (Ventura rushing Nolan Ryan on the mound) and a few days ago he emailed it to me.  So I just had to do a little photoshop play on it and turn it into the coach of the cardinals, La Russa!

GO RANGERS!!!

October Update

It's October!!
I usually take 300-600 or more photos in a month, and since August we have a very measly supply of photos. Less than 200 a month. I have fallen off the wagon and must get back on!
So what has been keeping us so busy??
On top of having practices and games at least 3 or 4 days a week...
Coleman has been fighting allergies and being right on the edge of sick for about a month. He's had all kinds of stuff flying around his school, including strep, bacterial bronchitis, and tummy bugs. My theory is that he has an amazing immune system but it is in overdrive and instead of getting full-on sick, he just feels really run-down and crummy. He hasn't had a fever, but he's been through hives, runny nose, stopped up nose, itchy red eyes, ear pain, and now diarrhea and upset tummy. (and he's been to the doctor with negative everything...strep, infections, etc.) Poor little buddy!!
Shelby finished the 1st six weeks of first grade and we are still working hard to make adjustments from kindergarten. She is a student who likes to take her time and do perfect on every assignment. As her teacher has stated, she has beautiful handwriting (the best in her class for sure!) and as we know, is a pretty amazing artist. But she has to speed up. Many of their assignments require drawings with their writing and this really holds Shelby up because her drawings on these writing assignments are impeccable. Now that we're past the first six weeks, unfinished work will be sent home to finish AND have grades taken off. We are praying for her to do better at this, as it is a big struggle for her to let go of her attention to detail and to hurry it up!

Shelby lost her first tooth on Sunday October 9! It had been just a little loose for a long time but on Friday it really started moving. Sunday she came into my room and said it was bleeding. I asked her to let me try to pull it (as I had done the day before) but she said she wanted to try first. She used a kleenex and pulled it right out on her first try! What a big girl! She wasn't scared or worried at all.  But she was very proud!  Of course the tooth fairy came, and even left her a note that she could keep her very first tooth.  What a nice tooth fairy!



We all went to the last Rangers game of the regular season a few weeks ago.  Nonnie, Poppy, Millie, Luke, Anna, Tyler, and the Peck fam.  I stole a few pictures off of Aunt Millie's camera from that game:

Nonnie and Poppy:




Millie and Luke:




Poppy, Nonnie, & Anna:



Shelbs and Aunt Mill:




And just the proof that Buddy was there too, in his Vladi jersey :)



This past weekend Jeff and I went to the ALCS Game 1 to see the Rangers beat the Tigers.  Against the plans I had in my head, we ended up IN the ballpark as soon as the gates opened at 4:00 pm (THREE HOURS prior to gametime!!!) instead of eating somewhere before.  With rain delays, we didn't leave until midnight.  It was the most miserable night I've had in a long time.  (Will not ever again go to a game with a friend and their date that we've never met who can turn out to be the most annoying person I've ever met in my life!!!)  Y'all- she asked how old our kids were, we told her, then she asked if they were walking yet.  Really?  I could go on for hours with stories like that!
Here's the one picture I took, of batting practice:  Then I drowned my misery in beer and nachos the rest of the night.




I love going to Rangers games, but it was really hard to keep up with the game from our seats, where we were up high and couldn't see the big screen.  I'd much rather watch each pitch from the comfort of my living room, and we would be $300 richer.  I don't know if I'll ever pay to go to a game where we can't see the screen again.  You just feel so disconnected from the game!

Okay, on to more fun things!  Shelby just had a 4-day weekend.  She spent Friday with Millie and Anna, where they walked to the dog park, and Monday with Millie, where they got to walk to feed the ducks, and eat at Chick-Fil-A.  Millie and Luke are waiting on their pending move to Madrid, but have already leased their house and are staying with Nonnie and Poppy temporarily.  It is pretty darn cool to have them close by and for Shelby to get this quality time with Aunt Millie before they move away (tears!)  And just how blessed are we to have this family who love to help us out on days like that?  Jeff had originally taken off work, but then we booked a trip to SAN FRANCISCO so he switched out his vacation days so he could go with me ;)

We leave Saturday for a quick little 3 night trip to the Golden Gate city and wine country!  Besides our honeymoon, this is our second or third getaway without our kids and we are excited (happy 8 years to us!!)  Once again, thank you to our amazing family (Millie and Luke especially!) who will be keeping Shelby and Coleman and getting them to school and all that stuff while we're gone!  And thank you to American Airlines for providing round trip fares for roughly the price of a tank of gas! :)  We will be missing seeing Mimi and Jack, Carolina Story, :( one of Coleman's ballgames and picture day for Shelby but we know they'll be in great hands!

Colemanisms

My little SERIOUS buddy has been cracking me up lately!  This kid is pretty serious, so that makes these little conversations very funny to me! 

We were at the grocery store where he acted pretty good but had to have some warnings.  At the check-out, I gave him 50 cents to buy a tattoo, but when we got into the car he was having some serious attitude so I told him he did not get the tattoo until he earned it, by making good choices this evening.
We were doing math in the car. 

M: "What is 5 take away 1?"
C: "5 take away 1 plus 4."  (He is confused and says plus instead of equals, and gets sick of me correcting him.)
M: "That's right!  But say 'Equals 4,' not Plus 4."
C: "No PLUS 4."
M: "No Buddy."
C: "Mommy!  That's how you say it in Spanish!!!"
M: "Since when do you know Spanish?"
C: "Well I know that one word.  And I know amigos."
M: "Oh yeah?  Ok.  What does amigos mean?"
C: "It means Bye!  ...Mommy, what if you walked to Colorado?"
M: "Well that would probably take a year."
C: "What about Lubbock?"
M: "That would take a few months.  Why?  Do you think I should walk to Lubbock?"
C: "Well you should because you're talkin so nice of it."
M: "You are cracking me up." (I've been laughing during most of this conversation.)
C: (Very serious) "So can I have my tattoo earned because I'm being pretty funny now?"


On Sunday while driving, Jeff and I were having a conversation about a couple we know who has the same first name, Shannon.  I jokingly told Jeff that if we were both named Shannon, I would make him change his name before we got married. 
...we were debating what he would change his name to.
M: "Or just Shane.  That's not too much of a change from Shannon."
J: "Shane would be good, that's a nice name."
C: "Or Awesome."
M:  {side-eye to Jeff, realizing kids were listening right along to us} "Yeah, Awesome's a good name."
C: "Can I change my name?"
M: "You want to change your name?  Awesome Peck.  That sounds cool."
C: "No, I mean Dude."
M: "Dude Awesome or Awesome Dude?"
C: "Dude Awesome."
M: "Ok, Dude Awesome Peck."
C: (grinning) "Mommy will you tell everybody?"

Then Tuesday, again in the car, on the way to Coleman's t-ball game:
C: "Mommy, instead of the Peck family, let's call our family the Sport family."
Shelb: "Oh yeah!!"
C: "Because we both play sports."
S: "Yeah and Mommy plays Tennis. " (Random!  Tennis is one sport I've NEVER played!)
M: "Shelby I have never played tennis.  I do like softball and volleyball, and exercising."
S: "I could have sworn you played tennis with Daddy before I was born!  At that place where we play on the playground by Nonnie's house."
M: "Ok, maybe once.  So...Coleman Sport."
C: "No my name's not Coleman!!!"
M: "Oh yeah, Dude Awesome Sport."
C: "No!  Dude Awesome Sport Peck!"