Thanksgiving

I really need to be better about photos in the bootheel. I'll make a renewed effort next visit!

Here's Aunt Holly getting in the spirit:

We had a quick trip to see my grandma & family & uncle Jeff in the bootheel for Thanksgiving, since both mom and I had to go back to work on Saturday. James and Leah played hooky (Leah missed her preschool feast & James missed a spelling test) and drove down with me and Nana Jana on Tuesday and then Amelie, Sam, and Steve came down on Wednesday. 

We took some of the kids & dogs out to the big nice park since the weather was good. The dogs had a BALL and did not want to listen one bit.

The kids had fun, too. (This was before Amelie got there, though.)

 

 

The rocket ship slide is older than I am: 

Still fun, though!

 

 

 

Holly & I got up at 5am to preheat the oven for the 24 pound turkey. She'd placed the grocery order for pickup and that's what they sent us. We couldn't decide if they were out of the smaller birds she'd requested (10+ pounds), or if it was a mixup and some big family got the wrong thing, or if they just didn't care and threw the first one in the cart since I'm sure it was super busy for the holiday. All equally likely options, I think. 

I'm thankful for Aunt Lana getting a picture of Grandma Doris with two of her great-grandkids. 

Second cousins - their birthdays are exactly 1 month apart. 

All ready for the feast & sitting at the folding table: 

Yum!

So sweet.

Not as big of a group as most years (there were 14 of us there), but very different from last year's pandemic Thanksgiving.  

 

Aunt Holly has been practicing rolling my hair for a perm. It looked a little wonky right after it came off the rollers, so I sent her this picture after I'd fixed it a little (I'm in the passenger seat of the van)

When we got home, we made our annual trip to Westlake for a tree & Sam bravely bungeed it down on top of the van. I guess there was a Christmas tree shortage this year (along with everything else) and the smallish tree to fit our 8-foot ceilings was $60!

 

Haircuts

 Aunt Holly came over and trimmed the girls' hair. Notice that it's pitch black outside at 7pm because we're back on standard time. 

Haircuts inspired by my dramatic chop:

I cut off 12 inches of hair to donate, DIY. This is my face immediately afterward (had not intended on going quite so short.) 

Photo Op / Preschool Fashion / Fall Photo Dump

Leah was looking particularly fall-ish. She has to take mittens to preschool. "Really?" Nana Jana says, "It's 60 degrees!" This must have been before Halloween, since the pumpkins are not yet carved. 

This was Amelie's dress! (And before Leah lost one of her new sneakers, apparently.) 

I was trying to get a picture of her curls. 

She was not particularly cooperative.

Here we are waiting on her flu shot. Leah was at home sick the day they got their shots at school and then it was a pain finding a place for her to get one - you have to be 7 to use the walk-in pharmacy. 

More fall leaves & a denim jacket. Our elderly neighbor Bobbie said to be sure not to rake up the leaves, so that's a relief that they won't be judging us. 

Leaf and child pile, photo credit to Sam. 

Folk Dance Night

James wanted to miss gymnastics to participate in folk dance night, where the kids showed off the dances they'd been learning in music class. Their teacher was surprised by how many kids showed up!

Vaccines!

I didn't realize Sam had taken pictures, but then they popped up in our shared folder & I thought this might be a memory we'd like to have documented on the blog. You know, for history. 

I came home from work the evening of the announcement that the pediatric COVID vaccine had gotten the FDA go-ahead & asked if it would be too annoying to call our doctor's office first thing when they opened. Sam replied yes it would, and that he was already on it, anyway.  He had been monitoring all of the provider websites to see when they were open for appointments (Hyvee, Walgreens, Health Department - not yet at 10:30pm) but then he was up at 4:30am and snagged appointments. 

According to the nurse, Amelie was the first under-twelve shot administered at Walgreens in Columbia. 

And James was the second: 

It was Saturday morning, so they didn't even get to miss school.

No complaints about a sore arm or anything - hopefully that trend continues for the second dose, which will be the Monday after Thanksgiving. 

School Pictures

 School pictures are in!

Amelie got hers done right away - in the first couple of days of school. I actually didn't even know it was picture day, she just came home and said that they'd been taken. It looks like maybe the photographer tried to tell her a bad joke to get her to smile and it didn't work. She is #NotAmused 😂

I asked if she might want to retake them, but she was not too concerned! Amelie is 11 years old and in the 6th grade (middle school!)

We got the picture packets from the other two kids yesterday. James is 9 years old in unit B (3rd grade) with Ms. Sirna again at Ridgeway:

And this is Leah's first year for school pictures! She's 4 years old & in the afternoon pre-K at Russell:

Happy Halloween!

It was the first Halloween in the new house!

I was hopeful, since a good percentage of the new neighbors had decorations up, but the old neighborhood really is the best in Columbia especially for trick-or-treating. 

Sam put out an amp on the front porch playing spooky tunes, and we carved pumpkins and did a little bit of decorations. Not sure if you can tell, but Amelie's pumpkin is the same shape as her costume.

James carved his pumpkin as Venom and Leah drew a face shape and then did about 1/2 the carving on hers. We roasted the pumpkin seeds and ate them all up. 

Leah wanted to be Sonic the Hedgehog:

Her pumpkin bucket has a light on the bottom: 

Sonic, Hornet & the Knight (from Hollow Night). They sure were creepy!

James had me duct-tape his sword to his back to free up his hands for holding his pumpkin. 

Their heads got heavy and they took them off partway through. James drew this picture of their characters:

Group photo!

Also as is tradition, our friends Samantha and Jedlow came over to pass out candy and go around the neighborhood with us. Our friends went as a tree and Swamp Thing. Spark was not a fan. 

A bunch of skeletons came to the door, too!

I wanted Sam to take a picture of my costume, and some other people wanted in on the photo, too.

After feasting on candy Halloween night, the kids chose pieces for the 12 days of Halloween & have been having 2 pieces per day picked out of this repurposed yogurt box. Amelie managed not to have enough candy left after trick or treating to make 24 pieces so James shared some of his excess with her.

Here’s the link to last year: http://babybuffaloe.blogspot.com/2020/11/halloween-continued.html