la la la la la.....LADYBUG!

Our little ladybug donned her wings and wand and flew off to her costume parade and fall festival at Bethany last week. She looked precious if I do say so myself...

So many cute little people dressed up for Halloween -- of course a sea of beautiful Disney princesses and brave super heroes showed up in full force and there were some super cute cowboys, tigers and an adorable (but very sad because he missed his Mama) hamburger too! All the children were so excited and took turns handing out their Halloween treats they brought for each other.

Linda and I manned the Halloween Hopscotch station at the festival. We managed to hand out stickers efficiently without injury to any of our guests. It was nice to catch up between hopscotchers and we got to enjoy some time with our little ones too. A lovely LAST Bethany fall festival for us!!

The next day was Winston's turn, he had a Storybook Character parade at school yesterday morning. Any bets as to his costume??

Yep, you guessed it - there are books about football players you know!! Winston enjoys the Matt Christopher sports series and of course we have the football book!

He looked even more authentic this year with REAL pads AND a missing front tooth that came out on Thursday. (Sorry for the graphic picture...Winston requested an EXTREME Close up of the snaggle tooth mouth he now has).

This is our 2nd year in a row as a football player - he wouldn't even discuss anything different....imagine that!!

There were some FANTASTIC characters in the BHES parade yesterday....the Paper Bag Princess rocked (Winston's PE teacher), we had some great Pinnochio's too.....it was super fun to see all the Beacons decked out in their creative costumes.

I double dipped on school time yesterday and went back in the afternoon for Winston's class party. The kids wrapped each other as mummies and had a great time. The energy in the class was at an all time high -- A Friday before Halloween weekend makes for a high octane cocktail for elementary school children!!



Great Friday for sure!!!

We ended a fun week with Future Fox Night at the Swamp on Friday Night- that was so great it deserves a post all its own....stay tuned for that.

The Halloween trickery ramps up tonight....time for the sugar overdose and an extra hour of sleep!!!

Happy Halloween!!!

"F" is for......

FALLING BEHIND
Once again, life got the better of me and the trusty blog went to the back burner. The month of October has whizzed by in a blur of field trips, football and fall fun. Here’s my lame attempt at playing catch up.

FIRESTATION

I made my 4th and final trip to the Summerville Fire Station with a Bethany preschool class. It’s quite bittersweet this year, knowing this is our last hurrah with the good folks at Bethany’s CDC. I won’t let myself get too carried away with the notion of Lilly heading to BIG SCHOOL next year (plenty of time for that) but certainly in a small pocket of my heart, I know this is our last year there and there’s some sadness for sure.

And can I just say this...

Lilly - if your current desire to someday marry Parker Azevedo comes to fruition -- I can tell you now...your Mother approves of your choice and maybe someday I can include this in a rehearsel dinner slidehow. Parker is PERFECTION as far as I am concerned.....what a fine family to join in 30 more years (not a minute sooner though!!)

We had a great trip and as always the firemen were gracious hosts. We saw a new fire safety video this year and had fun with our friends. Lilly enjoyed the trip with her best buddies McCoy, Hannah and Parker.

Football
The Bantam Packers are down to 2 games left in the season and we’re still having great fun. We are 2-4 so far – as painful as that sounds, Winston is handling our losses like a mature young man. We’re doing our best to instill in him an attitude of grace in winning and grace in losing and I think he’s doing well in both. Even as far back as a preschool parent-teacher conference, his fierce competitive spirit has been pointed out so a little bit of experience with a “losing” season is really good for him – and quite humbling for Mom and Dad too!!

And I would be remiss if I posted about football without a big shout out to the AWESOME #4 of the Vikings. He's led that team to a 6-0 start and well, considering he's 40 years old, I'd say that's NOT TOO SHABBY. This summer was difficult as I heard the constant barage of frustration and slams from the media about my favorite football guy so I'd say REDEMPTION is the word of the day!! I've had some stressful games to suffer through - one that even required a dose of alka-seltzer just to get through it but no matter what happens now, he's hushed the critics for now and I say GO VIKES GO!!

Farm
Lilly’s class went to West Farm Corn Maze this year for their annual pumpkin patch outing. As it happened with Winston’s final year at Bethany, I got demoted as a “driver” for Lilly as she opted to ride the coveted BUS to the farm so Jodie (McCoy’s Mom) and I had a nice drive to the farm and waited on our bus riders to arrive.

BIG FUN AT THE FARM…it was a lovely day. The children had lots of fun on the hay ride, painting their pumpkins and learning about animals and such. The Moms enjoyed it too. I had a little moment of nostalgia when Lilly was in the “pumpkin patch” selecting her pumpkin. I had taken the kids there back in 2006 and remembered so vividly sitting BABY Lilly down in that SAME spot to get her picture with all the pumpkins – she was 8 months old and super sad as the hay was VERY ITCHY on her legs. I want to dig up that picture I took and compare it to the ones I took this time – 3 years ago….hard to believe...my baby girl is not a baby anymore.

Fortunately the “petting zoo” portion of our trip was last on the agenda; a farm girl I am not – the whole petting zoo scene is well, not my cup of tea….the smell, the pens, little hands poking through small fence holes to touch the animals….let’s just say I was overwhelmed with an urge to bathe myself and my daughter in a bucket of hand sanitizer!! After this, we headed back for home and I was frantically in search of the Purell I keep in the car!!

Fall Fun
Pumpkins, pumpkins, everywhere!!
We started this past week with a trip to select our family pumpkin. It’s neat to see how this trip changes with each passing year. Pie-sized pumpkins were once considered the perfect size but now….not so much. We look for the biggest pumpkin we can find without regard for bruises and blemishes. The bigger the better and it’s quite a feat to reach consensus from the two little people in our family. We came home with two beauties and will commence with the carving in short order….the next big decisions…what to carve…..stay tuned for that.

Last night we had our annual Province Pumpkin Block Party – always one of my favorite October traditions. This year we had it on a Saturday night which was awesome – we all stayed a little bit later and didn’t feel quite so pressed to get our children home and in bed for school the next day. As usual we had long tables full of yummy food – chili is the star of the show for this event and we had several new recipes this year. Loud screams came from the house as many were inside watching Tiger and Gamecock football games. Oh what is not to love about this time of year!! Many carved their pumpkins – we did not as we opted to do that as a family this year and it worked out beautifully – no lugging the pumpkins down the street, Winston played an endless game of football with the neighborhood boys and Lilly was stuck like glue to Courtney, Sophie and Sydney ALL NIGHT LONG. We arrived home at 11:30 with the kids in desperate need of a bath – by the time we got them to bed, it was pushing midnight. They were exhausted from running and playing – great stuff. Such a favorite party of ours every year. Thanks Gary and Holly – as always, it was FANTASTIC!!

Festivals
This past Friday night, we had our biggest event of the year at BHES. This year I experienced it from a whole different perspective…no longer a guest!! I think I’ve mentioned before but I am a member of the PTA Board this year – a role that seems to be well suited for me and my skills but frankly, not anything I would have predicted for myself. It’s been an ENORMOUS undertaking and I can’t even explain how much time has gone into PTA stuff this year – but as exhausting as it is, I do love it and the people I work so closely with.

Okay so…the festival….essentially it’s like planning a party for 500+ guests. The closest thing I can relate it to – a MINI version of a fair. We had inflatables, a rock wall, funnel cakes, cotton candy, popcorn, Italian Ice, face painting, dunk tanks and really, I could go on and on. So many moving parts to this shindig and I was one of the people “in charge”…scary thought isn’t it?? I had to schedule over 70 shifts with gracious volunteers….and manage that process throughout the night. Thank the Lord for walkie talkies is all I can really say! There were some hairy moments but over all, I’d say it was a huge success considering this was our first year at it. We learned a lot and frankly, are a bit anxious to do it again next year having a bit more experience under our belts.

I am beyond exhausted as I know my partners in crime are too. We’ll take a few days off to rest and recover and then move on to other programs and projects. By comparison, everything else coming our way this year will be easy by comparison.

Finally
This post is over….aren’t you glad?!?!?

Happy Fall Ya’ll!

Weekend Recap

We had a nice visit with Grammy and Granddaddy that began on Thursday when they arrived from VA in time to see the Bantam Packers take on the Bantam Panthers. Simply put, we got outplayed. Word around the league was that the Panthers were looking strong this year and they certainly lived up to their billing. Solid, fast team and they got the best of us for sure...to the tune of 21-0. It was still fun to watch and Winston showed his might a few times. He got some good tackles in and even stopped a Panther extra point play!! He's having tons of fun and that's what counts.

We paid a visit to Bethany's Tea Room for lunch on Friday. I checked Winston out of school early so he could join us. It was a wonderful lunch together and the kids enjoyed the dessert tray! I snapped a few pictures during our lunch and Winston sure provided some entertainment to some of the other patrons. He finds lot of enjoyment out of the old "bunny ear" trick - he loves to make bunny ears behind Grammy when they are posing for a picture. Some sweet little ladies who were having lunch next to us got quite a chuckle out of Winston's bunny ears during the picture. Especially since Mom didn't notice! She got him back though....and I think it's safe to say they are tied 1-1 on bunny ear tricks!

We spent Friday afternoon in the backyard enjoying the fall temperatures and for dinner, I introduced Dad to the Lowcountry tradition of Shrimp & Grits. I've tried several recipes and recently came across one that was a huge hit with Joe so I tried it again and got good reviews from Dad too. Mom is not a fan of shrimp or grits so she ate with chicken and fries with the kids!! I made an apple pound cake for dessert and that paired with ice cream and caramel sauce was a nice finale to the day.

We took a boat ride to Ft Sumter on Saturday. It was a perfect day for it -- mild temperatures and bright sunny skies. We had a late lunch at Vickery's on Shem Creek. Winston was voting for wings at Dog & Duck and was griping a bit but once we got outside at Vickery's and saw all the boats coming in, he quickly forgot about the Dog and the Duck! I found a little bit of happiness in a tall, frosty Mojito myself!!

It was a nice weekend which made for a rough re-entry to the school week, especially when we woke up to a dreary, rainy Monday morning!! We've got a monumental football game on MNF tonight...I wish I could just not watch and catch the score tomorrow (I get VERY wound up and pace...ALOT) but I won't be able to help myself. It's a tricky one for me - I am a long long time Packer fan but for now, my loyalites lie with #4 so I'll be cheering for the boys in purple tonight. Go Vikes! (good grief, that sounds weird, even to me!)

Lilly's class made their annual field trip to the Fire Station this morning. More on that trip tomorrow. Meanwhile, here are a for more pics from the weekend....

One of the Bantam Packers' biggest fans ... CHEER LILLY CHEER!


Lilly tries to get in on the bunny ear action....and instead uses a gesture that's not all that appropriate from a little lady...bless her soul, she has no idea and we plan to keep it that way!