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

Halloween Costume Construction

 As is tradition, Amelie picked an obscure Halloween costume that A) we can't find at the store and B) none of the people passing out candy will recognize and therefore C) she will want to explain it in a complicated way to them. BUT it is a spooky, great character. 

She wanted to be Hornet from the video game Hollow Night (on the left). She roped James into being the Hollow Night himself (on the right) -- even though Sam had already ordered a Sonic costume for Leah and Leah thought James was going to be a Sonic character with her! The drama! 

Here's another inspiration photo of some other folks who went all-out on this costume: 

After some input from a cosplaying friend, we made giant papier-mache heads on top of balloon-and-styrofoam frames (for Amelie) and 10 cent pool noodle horns for James. It was a multi-day process. 

Don't they look thrilled? 

I used the hacksaw to cut a wire hanger in half, which provided the correct bend for the pool noodle horn. 

We painted the heads in the garage and used some of the giant piles of cardboard from moving to make their weapons (a needle and a nail - I think!) Since those are supposed to be silver, we just wrapped them up with duct tape. 

There was a woman selling various capes for $5 each on facebook marketplace and James and I took a trip to pick two of them out down a long gravel road lined with creepy Halloween decorations. And then Amelie suggested that I sew a pipe cleaner into the collar of the red cape & I figure she can just wear it backwards. I mistakenly thought that the Hollow Night character had a black cape (despite the reference photos I had!) and no one corrected me. 

The kids helped quite a bit with design and construction and painting them white out in the garage. One of the neighbor kids even came over and slapped some papier-mache on with James. 

Here's one photo from Halloween & I'll put the rest with the regular Halloween post: 

And! There was ANOTHER Hollow Night trick-or-treater who came to our door! His homemade costume head/mask looked like it was constructed with a craft foam sheet (so maybe not as polished looking, but much lighter-weight). The kids had abandoned their heads by this point, but I should have asked for a photo!

Doctor Visits

I like to do all of these appointments BEFORE the start of school, but then COVID made things weird, and now I'm afraid I'm stuck in a just-AFTER-the-start-of-school pattern with the doctor and the eye doctor and the dentist since insurance wants the visits to be a year apart.

James had his well-child visit on Tuesday and then all three kids had their eye exams Wednesday, since they were off school for a teacher workday.

Leah and James both have slight prescriptions, but the doctor said no need to worry about glasses for them at this point. Here's Leah doing the colorblindness test, I think. 

And here's James at the regular doctor's office. A man in the lobby threw a fit about wearing a mask (I think?) and James kept making googly eyes and head motions at me about it. 

Here are those vitals:

Height: 4 feet, 4.5 inches (50%) 
Weight: 92 pounds (96%)
Shots: 1 (I told James that he wouldn't have any shots at the appointment since there aren't any for 9 year olds on the schedule and I filled out the paperwork for the flu shot at school, & then he just insisted on getting his flu shot when I got mine. So then I gave him $1 because I swore there would be no shots at the appointment. He thinks he's sneaky!) 

Here are some things that James is doing now that he's 9 (I keep messing up and saying 8 still!)  

• Likes to be independent 
• Wants to go play with the neighborhood kids without mom & dad (& especially siblings)
• Still drawing a great deal - he's improving (& he sure practices enough)
• Still very much into graphic novels and independent reading
• Wants to discuss long and complicated plotlines from (and/or theories about) books he's read or superhero movies
• Loves youtube animators and wants to watch brief comedy sketch videos
• Easier to get along with & seems to be getting along better with Amelie, too
• A big help with Leah. He readily agrees & seems to enjoy helping her (reading to her, helping with shoes & toothbrushing, things like that)
• More self-directed, will finish homework quickly and on his own
• Has started back doing gymnastics
• Learning cursive 
• Learning multiplication

Here's the link to last year's visit for comparison purposes. 

And then here's Amelie, too, since the other kids have pictures in the post. She's sitting with the piles of homemade pasta that we made the day they were out of school & I scheduled all those appointments. The one closest to her - the cavatelli shape - did not turn out at all! It was my first time making a more complicated shape and it just tasted like hard lumps of flour. So probably a good decision not to make too much of it. Oh well, it was fun for the kids to mix up and roll out and then try at supper. 

New House

 We bought a new house!

Sam and the kids and the dog spent some time over at the empty new house when I was showing the old house. 

Amelie found the one piece of furniture in the new house and made herself right at home. 

Leah's finding ways to have fun even after most of her toys are packed up.

"Put books on top!" she said, and then when I declined, "Just do it!" 

Here she is with some of those toys that we already moved over. The kids are loving playing in the empty rooms.