September

 Somehow September is over and I'm still not ready for it.  Is it foolish to hope that the rest of the year will be different?  Here are a few pictures that I liked that never made it into posts--starting with Alice in a locker while she was waiting for Jack at PE.

 Dance night!

 Reading together

 Jay and I went to see The Birds.  I hadn't seen it in years and I had forgotten what a strange movie it is.  Speaking of birds, you should listen to Sparrow.  It's just awesome.

 Watching Little Bill while waiting at PE.  I love Little Bill and will probably still watch him when my kids are grown.  If I ever had a therapist she would need to sound like Phylicia Rashad.  It's just hard to get too riled up listening to her.

 Today we got together for Jay's mom's birthday and the kids decorated the cake.

 Alice's is the left and Jack's is the right.

 Alice dancing to Poker Face.  (I'm not going to link that so you're not tempted to get it stuck in your head.)

Can you spot the boy in the tree?

I'm hoping to get caught up on some school-related posts in the next couple of weeks.  I hope your September was great!

Fun Friday: Entertainment Overload

 Usually I try to space things out a bit, but it seems like there are always a few times throughout the year where we don't do a thing for a few weeks and then there are the days like today.

 A couple of days ago I found out that there would be a homeschool bounce time, but we already had something planned.  We haven't been to the bounce place in over a year, though, and they don't have the homeschool times as often now (and I don't have the fortitude to take them to a regular open bounce time), so we went ahead and added it to the day.

 They had this new thing that Jack liked.  He also hit it off with another kid there and his mom asked for my number so she could text me about maybe meeting up sometime.  I didn't tell her that other than reading them, I am clueless about texts.  Hopefully this doesn't cause a problem.

 Other than the giant slide, I think Alice's favorite thing was styling her hair with the baseball blower.  She looked like she had walked straight out of 1987 when she was done.

Our original plans?  Seeing Hotel Transylvania on opening day.  Jack has been not-so-patiently waiting for this day since May and was soooo excited.  It was pretty funny!

Happy Friday!

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Check out our favorite fall books in today's post at MetroFamily!

Homeschool Skate

 Today we went to the first Homeschool Skate of the year.  Alice was big enough to get real skates this time!

 We haven't been skating since February, but Jack caught the hang of it pretty quickly again.

 Alice used one of the skatemates.  I have no idea why she was making this face, but she wouldn't stop.

 The skates were off and on about 20 times over the two hours, but she never tired of the skatemate!

 Trying to go solo!

 It still seems funny to me that the 8 year old in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shirt is mine, especially since it doesn't seem like that long ago that I was going to skating parties.  They were even playing the same music from when I was a kid, but I resisted the urge to clap my hands over my head during You Give Love A Bad Name.  (On a side note, other former hair band singers really should take a lesson from Jon BonJovi.  He is one of the few--or perhaps the only one--who looks better 20 years later, and I would guess that not continuing to use eyeliner is a big step in the right direction.)

 Jack was even steady enough to play Red Light, Green Light!

It was a fun  (and sweaty) afternoon!

Happy Fall!

 We're so excited it's finally here!  It has been a loooong hot summer, but things are finally beginning to cool down.  Today we had beautiful weather!

 We found some of our favorite things in the yard today!

 Jack kicked.

 Alice stomped.

 We didn't really do much particularly fall-ish, but the kids did get new crayon packs and if you hadn't guessed from their attire, there's a game on tonight.

And we did work on a pumpkin pie!

Happy Fall!

Fun Friday: Incredible Pizza

 Today we went to Incredible Pizza with friends.

 Jack won 125 tickets right after I took this picture and was able to get two different prizes off the wall.

Alice got prizes, too!

Then we went to Sam's, which is the opposite of fun, but we really needed to go.  Tonight we watched Saving Shiloh because we recently read all of the books and watched the first two movies. 

Today's post at MetroFamily is all about how we start our mornings!

Happy Friday!

Fun Friday: Playdoh!

 Today has been laid back.

 We got school finished up and Alice helped me make more playdoh.

It entertained both kids for close to an hour!

Read about what we're using this year in today's post at MetroFamily!

Read about Apple Farmer Annie--one of those books we checked out of the library and ended up getting our own copy--at the HomeschoolShare blog!

Happy Friday!

Quartz Mountain

 The whole reason we made our little road trip was to visit Quartz Mountain for an upcoming Exploring Oklahoma With Children article.  My friend Rachel and her four kids were  nice enough to accompany us on our adventure!

 Our first stop was the nature center.  Jack usually comes up with some good poses when animal parts are involved.

 Alice and Sam loved playing in the track tray!

 Next we tried out the Cave Trail.

 Everyone made it!

 Alice liked being able to climb up like the big kids.

 Zoe found a frog and Alice thought it was great!

 Tracks!

 We tried another trail after lunch.  It was about 100 degrees at this point--no exaggeration.  I had put this trip off until September so it wouldn't be so hot.  I guess I should have waited until October!

 This doesn't look like our landscape in northeast Oklahoma!

 At the end of the trail there was more space for climbing.

 See that speck at the top of the mountain?  That's Jack.

Poor Alice got in some kind of really fine cactus needles as she was scooting down a rock.  I couldn't find anymore on her shorts and it turned out they were actually stuck in her buns--which led to me buying the last pair of tweezers in a convenience store and trying to get her to hold still so I could get them out.  And as I was trying to console her at the bottom of the mountain, the other kids were getting stuck and getting into bigger cactus needles.  I am pretty sure Rachel may not ever go anywhere with me again.  Except for that part, though, we had fun, and I am positive the kids aren't going to forget it!

Kite Festival

 We went to our first kite festival this morning!

 They had all kinds of different kites.

 This pirate ship was my favorite.

 The kids also got to make their own kites.

 There was a bit of a wait, but Alice was very patient.

 Then we got to test them out!

Happy weekend!