Morning Buddies for Life

Scooter loves cuddling on the couch with the kiddos in the morning before school.

Colonial Day

The culminating event in the 4th grade study of Jamestown was not the big 10 hour field trip to Jamestown, but rather Colonial 

Day at school!  Boys and girls were asked to dress the part and started the day demonstrating the Virginia Reel in the gym.  They spent months working on this and it showed.  After the dance was complete, we went up to the classrooms to play colonial games, do some tin punching, make dreamcatchers, practice weaving, and quilt making.  I was thrilled to volunteer in the games room all day and we had a blast playing "Skittles", a large wooden tabletop game where the player spins a top and tries to knock down various pins.  We were even able to re-use the $3 Thomas Edison vest from last year's Biography Day!

Thanksgiving in Ohio

We trekked over the river and through the woods to Ohio for Thanksgiving.  The 10 hour drive is generally scenic and traffic free, just long.  The kids got to the zoo to see Festival of Lights, enjoyed some down time just playing games, helped Aunt Nicci and Uncle Andrew set up their decorations, celebrated Nicci's birthday, played with cousins Aiden and Liam, and went out to lunch for Grandma and Gigi's birthdays.

Thanksgiving Lunches

The week before Thanksgiving Break, the school opens up the lunches for families to share a cafeteria turkey lunch with their children.  The Kindergarteners dressed up like Pilgrims, which was adorable.  Honestly, the food wasn't half bad.  No pic at Alex's table...didn't want to "embarrass" him.

So. Many. Leaves.

This was pretty much every Sunday in November.

Run Kiddos, Run!

The whole family ran the school Fun Run again this October, as it is a basic 1.5miles down our street, around the circle and back up to the school.  We even made encouraging race day signs and placed them in the front lawn.  Even little Abby ran most of the race.  Way to go!

This fall, we signed Alex up for a program at his school called RunFitKidz.  It is a running club that meets after school once a week and our friend, Brenda, was going to be the coach.  They start with some warm up stretches, a lesson on nutrition and running form, a fun game, and then at the end they run laps on the school's small track.  

The first week they started with 6 laps (one mile) and each week they built up from there.  By the end of the 8 week program, the kids would run a 5k race at a local park, along with participants from all of the area schools.  Each week Alex exceeded the number of laps they had set as a goal and we are so proud of him for putting forth so much effort.  He had fun challenging himself and was amazed that he could run such a far distance.  It helped that so many of his buddies were running too so he had someone to talk to besides Mom.

Abby's First Nutcracker

When we found out that our neighbor (1st grader) would be performing in the Burke Civic Ballet's Nutcracker, Abby and I were quick to buy tickets.  It was held at a local community college and those kids rocked it.  You could tell how hard they had been practicing (all fall) and even Abby noted that they must have spent a lot of time getting ready for the shows.  It was the perfect introduction to the Nutcracker for Abby.

October Happenings

My Mom came to visit over Columbus Day weekend and we spent some time at the Museum of Natural History checking out the gems and minerals (the kids are obsessed thanks, in part, to Minecraft).  Mom and I spent one rainy day at Mt. Vernon, which was absolutely lovely aside from the chilly, rainy weather.  We had a delicious lunch on site and leisurely strolled the grounds.  The kids talked Grandma into playing castles with them and also the game HeadBanz.  

Abby whipped up a pretty intriguing Columbus Day book, for fun, which her teacher was nice enough to laminate and send home as a keepsake.  At one point she came in and said "I ran out of facts and have a few pages left", so we had to look up more things about Columbus.   I love her enthusiasm!  

I also had the opportunity to run the Army 10-Miler race (when a neighbors bib became available due to injury) and finished without collapsing, so we will call it a victory!  Never having run that far in my life, and also swearing off all races longer than 5 miles, I am happy to have finished and run the whole thing (albeit, slowly).  1:47 is not fast but I felt honored to have run alongside so many wounded warriors and members of the armed forces.  My friend Kim was kind enough to meet up in the morning to ride the train into DC together so neither of us was alone at 6am on the train.  She ran super fast so we were most definitely in separate corrals.