Fun Run: a school fundraiser where the kids collect pledges and then run around by grade level while being cheered on by parents and teachers. The head of the fun run (one of the great parents at our school) uses a microphone and instructs the kids to do silly stuff like “run with a buddy” or “skip” etc. I volunteered during the kindergarten, 1st and 3rd grade allotted times. Logan and Aiden both individually grabbed me for the “buddy run” – I was touched. Date of this year’s Fun Run: October 25th. It was the first time in the history of the school (now 6 years old) that the event was held outside! It was a bit chilly, but at least it wasn’t raining like usual.

Aiden running with the 1st graders

This is Logan’s class with the Famous Dave’s Pig (they sponsor our Fun Run). The gym teachers took turns in the pig costume and they were DYING. They kept sneaking behind this big truck to take the head off and asked all the volunteers repeatedly if we wanted to take over!

Logan rocking the 3rd grade run

Brady is in a grey coat and a rainbow-striped hat

 

Brady in his standard pose – arms victoriously in the air!

That same day, from 6-8, our school had it’s annual Fall Event: Family Game Show Mania. I have been involved with this event since it’s conception because my good friend Susan heads it up (organized doesn’t even begin to describe Susan!). This was our 4th year and the thing pretty much runs like clockwork at this point (thanks again to Susan who reorganizes everything meticulously before the event each year). I wanted to take lots of pictures because 1. this is the last year we’ll be at our school and 2. Because I spent HOURS the first year making all these signs that I’ll probably never seen again (sniff sniff). I used metallic markers for the borders and words and sparkly black, white, gold and silver sticky foam paper for all the “pictures”.

The whole school is set up with various TV-game-show events. This is “Deal or No Deal”. Susan made these awesome “briefcases”

Jen and Dave are amazing at wood-working games. They made this spin the wheel and a putting green (we all get to store these things in our houses every year)

Again…I make signs :)

We decorate the hallways the Thursday before the event and then finish set-up Friday after school.  

Susan runs to check out game set up

The kids earn money at each game and can take it to the Community Room (aka: Southbury Store) and buy prizes. You may not recognize this young man because he’s covered in “prizes” ;)

The last time I posted soccer pictures, I realized we had none for Logan. This past season, L was on 2 different teams for the same club. It was hard to juggle 20 games in 12 weeks along with Aiden’s 10, but we did it (we hardly did anything else, but we did it!)

So…I’m not sure how they chose the game ball, but it always ends up being one of ours. The yellow one is Logan’s. These pictures are from 2 different games, but they used his ball for both. Maybe he offers it up…I’ll have to ask how that works :)

Oh…and while I’m here talking about soccer, I’ll post the pictures of the boys in the Italy jerseys Memaw and Grandpa brought back from their trip. The boys loved them so much, they all wore them to school the day after they got them. It made the crossing guard (a great TA at the school who we love) giggle to see them all coming in their matching shirts!

This was right before school…obviously taken when it was still nice and warm outside!

This was also the afternoon that the boys got excited about fall leaves and wanted to rake up a pile of them (this ended with Aiden, Brady and 2 of the neighborhood girls “de-leafing” our trees with a rake so they could get a bigger pile)

I found Aiden up in this tree with a drink in his hand (?!) I reprimanded him, but told him to stay put so I could get a picture.

The kids have all read a book at school about being “bucket fillers”. I believe it’s called “How Full is Your Bucket?” It’s a lovely message about how doing nice things for others puts a drop in their imaginary bucket (full bucket = happy person) and how making others happy adds a drop to your bucket as well. The opposite? Bucket tippers!

I’ve realized that brothers (possibly siblings in general) do quite a lot of bucket tipping. It’s becoming a problem lately as they keep tipping my bucket as well (and by this I mean that they are making me quite angry and upset with constant bickering!)

Logan’s teacher had each of her students make a paper “bucket” at the beginning of the year. They are all mounted on a board and the class is encouraged to drop off “bucket notes”. Logan’s notes say things like, “I like your shoes” or “I like you because we play together at recess”. Last week, I decided we needed buckets at the house as well.

The first day the boys got their buckets, there was a flurry of nice-note writing to each other and they ended up spending about 2 hours forming their “Bro Ko” which is a club including brothers and the dog (Ko for Kona). They made a giant sign for their room.

It’s been about a week now and I have to remind them about their buckets, but when I do, they will stop and write notes. It’s a work in progress. Has the fighting stopped, no. However, I’ve been throwing around a lot of, “you’re being a bucket tipper” and that usually motivates them to at least say sorry. :)

The first night of bucket notes was so successful that they all decided they wanted to sleep in Logan’s bed together. It took them a while to fall asleep, but I was so pleased by their “brotherness” that I let it slide…and snuck a picture of them and Kona later that night.

Today was our annual family Bears game. It was a gorgeous and sunny fall day – perfect for football!! We were originally going to scrape up a 5th ticket for me, but after looking at prices, I decided Brian could just take the boys. Next year I’m going for sure!!

We spend the night downtown at the closest Marriott family hotel (thank you Marriott travel points!) It made the tailgating arrival time of 8:15 totally doable! plus it was within walking distance (2ish miles) of the stadium so I was able to leave after tailgating this morning and walk back later (post nap, starbucks coffee and book time).

Last night we ordered some really great Chinese food and sushi to our room and watched a bunch of TV on cushy beds (p.s. Logan likes tempura shrimp and tuna/avacado sushi…the other boys not so much).

Look at this swanky place! Logan actually said, “why are we staying here? It’s so nice! What if we accidentally destroy it”. I kinda had the same thought! ;)

Ug – blurry pics! Bag from Hot Wok, Cool Sushi Logan poses with sushi.

Chilling at the hotel. ahhhh

View from the room. The lit up windows in the far-off building say “We Hire Vets”

Brian cooked up some awesome tailgate food for us: ribs and big chicken legs with some homemade spicy hash browns and cornbread. We saw lots of cool Bears cars and silly fan-stuff on the way in!

Brady loves chilling in the van-chairs with his IBC Root beer

Burnham Harbor lot for tailgating…great because you can throw rocks in the lake and feed cornbread to the ducks. Bad because mommy freaks out that you’re going to fall in and makes you stay like WAY TOO FAR BACK!

Halloween candy for dessert…three lollipops at a time, why not?!  

Our friends Joel and Kristin were at the game as well (anniversary celebration). They joined us for pre-game fun and ended up sitting right in front of Brian and the boys! Kristin sent me this picture from the game with the message “we miss you!” NEXT YEAR I’M GOING TOO!!! (Oh – Logan had packed some acrylic paint so I did a C on one cheek for him and lots of war-paint on all the other cheeks right before they went in)