Christmas lists

if you still don't know what to get my kids....

moon nuts aka Cashews, the tastiest and most expensive nut!

scotch tape

These two things make my kids so happy. 

Halloween comes before Christmas

 orange hands from pumpkin guts!  Glad these kiddos are not afraid to get a little dirty.

 All the pumpkins lined up at night

 Little queen Elsa trick or treating downtown Ames Main St after her preschool Halloween party.

 Our crew for neighborhood trick or treating.  Austin, Ben, Noelle, Mya, Emily and Dallas the ghost

Pictures tell the story better than words

 Watching a Christmas show in last years pjs.  They have really enjoyed wearing matching jammies lately.  I better get sewing for version 2014!

 The end of our day date a couple weeks ago, which was really doing some shopping we needed in Des Moines.  Robert treated me to a 3 minute massage in this lovely chair at the mall.  It was really nice.

 End of Nov/Dec is my "spa" time or my I go see all my doctors at once.  My opthamoligist collects butterflies, moths and other pinned bugs in shadow boxes.  Picture this room when you are without contacts in, dilated eyes and dark.

 Back from the library, she wanted to fix lunch and read Mrs. Piggle Wiggle for the 30th time

 Laundry, the struggle.  I clean it, but it just doesn't seem to fold and put away magically

 About the same week everyone posted on the internets that leggings are not pants and shouldn't be worn outside the house I bought some jeggings. Actually did it on my date day with the hubs, he watched football and had a beer at Blonde Genius while I tried on 13 pairs of black pants.  These have four pockets, belt loops, zipper and are much more $$$ than my daughters leggings, so I am calling them a win even though am 3 years behind this trend.  -Also they are crazy comfortable!

 The last six weeks of school we have been studying the body.  Our final project was to cut, color, glue body parts on a big traced out version of ourselves.  You can even see Emily traced her pigtails.

 This is the only picture I took at the Kibby Merry Thanksmas, glad it was a cute one!

 Working on the splits on stage preparing for the Christmas show

 Third trip to the Dr for me in two weeks time.  This was for a cold, i coughed once and they made me put on a mask.  Also I was asked at the dermatologist, the opthamologist and the general practice appt whether I had been out of the county in the last month or to South Africa.

 Pretty girl.  She loves these Gap pj's.  I think I will need to invest in the next size up.

Doing kindergarten math on the couch in his pj's.

Dallas is 6

Born on a Sunday, late in the evening.

 This little boy love life, four wheels, sleeping in our bed or on our floor, candy and popcorn, decided not to eat eggs because they are chicken, can read- a little, has several good pals but still plays well with his sisters, eager to help dad and likes cooking.

 We played pin the lego head on the lego man, and they each had to design their head

 His friends gifted him a bow and arrow, hockey game and the Hulk

 They also wanted silly pictures each time

 We put the lego molds my dad got us a couple years ago to good use

 The kids made some lego holders for the table

 

 So much piano lately.  I don't know if we have hit a sweet learning curve or what, but lots of fun new music, and tons of Jingle Bells.

 Dancing on the steps

 Checking out the new tires, he wanted to inspect the blue chalk marks so I sent him out to see them close up

 Four years of Em's

 What the "adults" wore on Halloween

 Dallas "hoop'in" during basketball evaluations.  He made 6 baskets

 So many leaves, I talk about this every year.  Please, someone come bag them for me. (this is one of 6 piles this size, 3/6 trees have let their leaves go so far.

 Robert's favorite.  The kids wanted to buy those and Egg Nog to have at home for when he returns.

 

 We took school to one of the new study rooms at the library.

These two, solving the world's problems at the donut shop.

Wrapping up October

Time for a wordy update.

What a busy season of life, and I know we will replace it with a busy season that will look different.

I can say that I am so glad I have the kids home.  Dear Emily has a hard time getting to sleep most nights, which is after she has read for 1-2 hours. I love that she gets to sleep in until 8:00 am when she needs to.  I love that I sometimes get to go back to bed and get a little nap after I return home from workout at 6:00 am.  It is sometimes still a rush to get to preschool, but it is only twice a week. 
Mondays we have Classical Conversations, and we need to be across town by 8:30, so I can prep my room for my tutoring gig.  Still it is a cake-walk compared to the middle schools I see waiting for the bus at 7:20 am. 
The kids are in a sweet spot right now.  They can get breakfast for themselves if I need them too.  They can make a couple lunches too. 
 Noelle is still a whiny mess and doesn't want to do most things for herself.  Year four has been a challenge!
We are entering travel season for Robert.  He will leave for SEMA soon.  He will have a different role this year, and will be working several different jobs/positions while there.  Hope he gets some sleep in the next 13 days.  He will have another trip in December that I might talk him in to letting us tag along. 

Dallas is making some progress with reading.  He knows all the sounds, and we are working on "helper" blends.  I have already introduced two different ways to say "ow", (yellow/brown) and I know he finds it confusing.  Language is hard.  He knows and can recognize er, ur, ow, ee, ew, ue. 
He enjoys math much more than Language Arts.  He especially likes finding patterns, figuring out which number is missing, or which would come next in the sequence, can skip count by 2's and 10's and we have started working with clocks, pennies and dimes. 

Emily still has not found her fondness of math, but we are getting through the work with less frustration each day.  I think all the multiplication she learned last year has finally re-solidified after summer break.  She likes fractions, money and making up her own word problems. Doesn't really prefer solving for "n" yet.   Grammar is going well, doing things like diagramming sentences.  We know enough about parts of speech now that I think Madlibs would be fun for her.  She is still working on composition each week, memorizing bible verses, cursive, and memorizing the states and capitals. Her cursive is getting good enough that she can compose some stuff her self.  The program we use is mostly copywork, copywork each week is the history fact we are memorizing, so it kind of kills two things at once! 

Noelle is enjoying preschool.  She loves the crafts!  That girl would glitter/cut/paste/scribble things all day long.  She told the teacher she would prefer being called Noelle Kibbe, not Noelle K.  It is very funny to hear her whole name when we go to class.  The other girl goes by Noelle D. 

My yard needs raking for the foreseeable future.  At least this fall has been good to our trees.  The silver maples usually just fall off green in December, we are actually getting a little Fall yellow on them.  Maybe that will keep my attitude better when I am raking in December.   In other news I might order Christmas cards next week, and I already have a couple presents bought which make me feel good.  I think I know everything I need to purchase for the first Christmas which will be on Thanksgiving. 
Kids still need better lists.  They want all the toys! I want them to have nice, well rounded, gets lots of play, worth cluttering up my house type of toys.  Or memberships for experience type of things.  Its a tricky thing to balance.  The joy of opening a gift of exactly what you had hoped for verses a science center membership that we could get fun out of all year long, but doesn't have the immediate gratification. 

 Upwards flag football has come to a close, don't worry basketball season is knocking at our door.  Dallas loved receiving a trophy at the awards ceremony.  He also won a door prize, a weeks stay value at Hidden Acres camp!  Lucky kid.

 Noelle made her face pretty the night before family pictures.  She used a Jesus stamper, and it took some serious scrubbing to remove.

Emily received an award for having 100 memorized piano pieces in her repertoire. 

Sick Noelle

This girl has been sick.  Friday afternoon she awoke from nap with a "croup" cough (sounds like a seal barking), out of the blue.  It got worse, lots of breathing treatments and steamy sessions in the bathroom for the next 48 hours.  She stayed home from church and school on Sunday and Monday.  Constant fever, coughing all night long and then sleeping in until 9:30 in the morning.  Tuesday we went to the doctor because things were just not resolving.  I am confident I would have went to the ER or urgent care Sat/Sat night if she was my first kid, but I feel much more comfortable with colds now, and I know fevers help the body respond, and it's nice to have a neb and albuterol stock at home as well.  The constant sleeping and falling asleep on me was getting a bit much on day 4 so to the Dr we went.  She was encourage to wear a mask in the clinic, lots of stares from the constant coughing, think people were a tad scared of us.   Lots of junk in the lungs, and we got to take home the picture to prove it!  She was prescribed an oral steroid and an antibiotic.  The Dr. told me she has a virus, and the antibiotic was just in case, but they wanted her to take it.  I think it must make some parents feel better, but this mom has 4 yrs of college classes that show antibiotics don't work on viruses.  Oh well, I know they want to prevent a secondary illness down the road so I don't have to bring her back in two days.... she hates the taste of it anyway, so we have gotten less than 1/2 of the daily doses.  I had to wait at the pharmacy almost as long as at the clinic, and we were at the clinic long enough for blood draw, x-ray and Dr. visits.  Noelle then threw up twice, once in the isle, the next we made it too the bathroom, then they hurried our Rx to the front of the line.  And for some reason the oral steroid was the last of one generic, so they filled the rest of the Rx with a different generic, one is clear, one is pink.  Noelle will take one, and the other causes instant gag reflex so I am not sure we will be finishing that script either.  Perhaps it is time to switch pharmacies. 
Wednesday she was 100% better.  Today she slept pretty late, we tried preschool, but I got a call an hour later saying she wasn't feeling well so I went and got her.  Hope we are on the mend.  We have been missing some beautiful Fall days.

 Dallas new favortie pass time is to "craft" accessories for the Tuffy.  He is showing off the rear view mirror here.

 Emily has enjoyed her volleyball season and wants to play again soon.  The winter league is for 4th and up so she will have to wait until next year.  She improved a ton over the 6 weeks and does well for someone who had never touched a volleyball or seen a game.

 Tailgating has taken up several of our Saturdays this Fall.  The people and the food are always good even if the Cyclones don't win.  We grilled steak sandwiches on sourdough.

 And of course we can't forgot small town celebrity sighting such as "the Mayor"

and nice enough weather to wear shorts to the first three games.

 Noelle stilll loves to dance

 Our church has finished the new building.  We did a Sunday morning at the park during the transition to the new building.  It was a gorgous morning, and the kids loved having a playground 20 feet from our seats.