Grace Like Rain

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Fall Carnival

Tonight was the Fall Carnival at Emily's school. We got to Trick or Treat through the school and the new cafeteria and media center. Then we went over to the gym where each class had a game booth set up, a silent auction, concession stand, etc.

Here are Emily and Noah before we left for the carnival.

Emily is a Skeleton Sweetie and Noah is Thomas the Train. He wouldn't wear the conductor hat. He barely wore the "Thomas shirt." He was a cute Thomas though.

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Tom the Turkey Bulletin Board

Want to see my Sunday School bulletin board for fall?

I have had this Mr Turkey for two years. I got it from Oriental Trading last year and got all the pieces laminated. It stored really well and looks great again this year. I have a lot more feathers, but I didn't think he needed any more.

I also got the cute fall border at Oriental Trading. The border sections are fairly short, but they work just as well as the longer ones.

The other little fall pictures were given to me. They appear to be pretty old, but I thought they were cute and just perfect for my bulletin board.

I intended to put "Give Thanks to God", but I have not gotten that done yet. Last year, I stapled up some fall leaves and that was cute but I felt like it was too busy on the bulletin board.

As you can see, Mr Turkey extends beyond my short bulletin board. All of my bulletin boards are short, but very wide. Sometimes I feel like it's harder to decorate a very wide board. This Fall display is only half the width of this bulletin board. I divided it to make it easier to decorate.

The church recently painted our preschool bulletin boards. Originally they were covered in a old tan textured fabric and we would always have to cover them with colored paper. But the church painted the textured fabric with glossy black paint. Now we don't have to put up colored paper unless we just want to. I think the black is a perfect background and I just use it as is.

So what do you think about Mr. Turkey?

Field Trip - Pumpkins, Hayrides, Trains, and Animals

Today was Emily's field trip to Orr Family Farm. I took the day off so that I could go have fun with her. The kids had buddies for the day so another little girl walked around with us. The field trip was self-guided so each parent/kid group could go around to all the different activities whenever they wanted. I know I had a lot of fun and I think they did too.

Went on a Hayride to the Pumpkin Patch. Everybody got a pumpkin to take home.

Rode the Train. I wish I'd gotten a better picture of the train.

Played on a little carousel at lunch.

Rode the horse swings at the playground.

Petted some animals. Fed them too.

Fed this goat. Goats don't eat rocks, by the way.

Climbed the Hay Mountain. And slide down the giant slides.

Learned about animals and plants.

Being silly.

Posing with the big pumpkins.

Fall Break 2012 - Parks

Today was day two of fall break! The funnest things we could think of were a trip to Andy Alligator's Fun Park and a trip to the park.

I put $5 on a Gator Bucks card for each of the kids. Emily spent her money on just a few $1 games and Noah wanted to run off instead of playing anything. So we didn't get to stay there long. Emily was pretty disappointed, but it was really hard trying to keep Noah in one spot while she played a game.

After Andy Alligator, we ran by Sonic for some lunch. I'm not sure Emily was too happy about this either, but it was fine.

Then we went to the big park. First, we got the stroller out and walked around the track. It was only a mile, but every couple minutes Emily was asking to sit down or get a drink. We eventually did make it around and back to the playground.

Noah went right to the swings and was just laughing so loud saying "high high Mama!" Emily liked sliding down the big slide and climbing up the rock wall. She played with Noah on the little kid playground for a while too. I didn't get any pictures of them on the little kid playground because I was working too hard trying to keep Noah from sliding down the slide without me. They had a good time though.

Here are some pictures from our day.

Fall Break 2012 - Zoo Fun

Emily is on Fall Break the end of the this week so I am taking a few days off and we are going to do the "funnest things we can think of".

Today our funnest thing was a trip to the zoo.

My pictures are out of order, but that's okay.

I wanted to get Emily and Noah's picture in front of this little brass elephant figure, but Noah was not too thrilled. This the best one I could get. I think he was a little scared.

This was the first time I'd been to the new Elephant Habitat at the zoo. It was really cool. There was an elevated walkway that overlooked the elephant play yard and you could see down into their house where they lived.

There is a new(ish) baby elephant name Malee. Here she is with her mom and her aunt.

We also went over to the aquarium to check out all the fish. We let Noah out of the stroller and he ran around the place yelling "Look! Look, Mama!" This picture was at the sea lion viewing area where they dive down right in front of the window.

We saw this giant anteater. (Of all the animals at the zoo, I ended up taking a good picture of an anteater? Really?)

Noah was checking out all the animals. And he didn't even have to trudge up and down all the hills at the zoo. Lucky.

Emily really enjoyed the zoo. She had gone with her camp this summer so she was telling me all about the different animals and where to go.

We rode the tram to see all the animals we didn't get to see on foot. At first, Noah seemed to be excited to go riding on the "train". But after it started, he really wanted to get down. I told him that the conductor will make us get off the train if he stands up. That didn't help.

There is a new Children's Zoo. It had a waterfall that ran down to a pond full of the Koi fish above. Emily thought those were really neat and just so huge.

There was also a petting zoo, but Emily said "no way" to that. Also there was a Lorakeet exhibit with some little birds that land right on you and you can feed them nectar. But Emily said no to those too.

So we settled for these pink flamingos. Very awesome.

We all had an awesome time at the zoo. It was pretty windy, but not too cold. I think we picked the perfect funnest thing we could think of.

Who knows what we'll do tomorrow ....

Story Time

Look who has taken over story time at our house.

Also, this has started happening ...

Oh boy!!!

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Milk's Favorite Cookie

Noah is a big fan of milk's favorite cookie.

He likes to split the two halves apart and separate the cream part. Then he dips the cookie part into his milk and eats it all up.

And after that, he likes to hold the cup of milk himself and drink it up.

He says this is "yummy!!"

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The Trains!

Noah loves to play with his trains. He has several different sizes and types of trains.

Here, he is lined up his miniature trains on the floor. Sorry about the bad picture. It's from my iPhone. I need to start using my other camera, but I can't find the cord to upload the pics to my laptop.

You can't really see it in this picture, but Noah was wearing his Thomas the Train shirt this day as well.

And he was also watching Thomas the Train on TV.

Sorry about the fuzzy picture, but what can I say? He loves his trains.

Also, Noah went to the doctor one last time to make sure his leg was okay. The x-ray looked good. The doctor said to give him another month before he starts back to sports. (What two-year-old do you know that plays sports?) He also said to get rid of the trampoline and the monkey bars because they see more injuries and broken bones from those two things than anything else.

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