Years of Costumes We Have to Explain to Everybody

Sometimes, especially Halloween, I can’t help but think I’ve somehow ruined my children. Every year since they’ve been old enough to pick their own costumes, they’ve gone as something so obscure and webby that we end up having to explain it at every house we go to. That’s doubly true since we moved to Savannah and most of our neighbors are retired.

Here’s a quick recap of the last few Halloweens:

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2006: Max was both Calvin and Spaceman Spiff. Brian was Hobbes.[/hang2column]

[nohang]Crazy enough, in 2007, they were a tiger and an elephant

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2008: Max and Brian from Abe Koford’s awesome web comic, Laugh Out Loud Cats

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2009: This one wasn’t so obscure… Max was Luigi and Brian was Darth Vader. We still had to explain Max’s costume to the neighbors.[/hang2column]

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2010: Max as Geno from Super Mario RPG and Brian as Link from Legend of Zelda.[/hang2column]

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And 2011: Brian as a Peashooter from Plants vs. Zombies. Max decided not to dress up this year after failing to manufacture all the pieces he needed to be Gordon Freeman from Half-Life.[/hang2column]

[hang2column element=”div” width=”500″]I have no idea where they get it from…

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[nohang]Happy Halloween, everybody![/nohang]

My Baby With a Real Baby

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We went to my co-worker Juliet’s birthday party on Saturday and my other co-worker, Steven, brought his daughter. Brian also had a project last week at school where he had to take care of a tiny pumpkin like a baby, so we’d been having lots of chats about what it was like to have a baby. Brian told me he couldn’t remember ever holding a baby before. I tried to remind him of the time he held a baby at Uncle Tim’s birthday party in Ohio, but he didn’t remember it.

So, the day before the birthday party, I asked Steven if we could “borrow” Stella at the party. Brian was an absolute champ with her, and Stella was an angel. She’s the coolest and calmest baby I’ve ever seen and had a ball laughing at everyone and being the center of attention. Brian was super gentle and did a good job holding her and keeping her from tumbling onto the lawn.

I think the reason I love that photo so much is that it sort of cements that Jen and I don’t have “little” kids anymore. The boys are growing up and we have entirely new things to deal with – no more dirty diapers, but we get to deal with peer pressure, girls, school projects and trips, parties, etc. I kind of miss having babies around, but I don’t think I’d trade places with Steven. We did the baby thing, and now it’s time to do this.

Christmas Fun

Brian really liked Christmas.

The boys

The kids have had a fantastic couple of days.

At school on Friday, Brian was recognized for achieving High Honor Roll and perfect attendance and Max was recognized for achieving High Honor Roll, perfect attendance, and was his class’s Super Hawk, which is the best all-around student. YAY school!\
At soccer on Saturday, Brian received the Good Sportsmanship Award, his second of the season, and Max’s team won 5-0. YAY soccer!

I still think Perfect Attendance is silly, but as long as those awards are being handed out, I am going to brag that my kids got them. 😛

Bus change = more talky time

The school changed the bus pick up time. It is now 90 minutes before school starts. Isn’t that ridiculous? I offered to drive the kids to school because that extra hour in traffic is stupid. (We live 3 miles from the school!!) However, Brian wanted to still ride the bus, but Max wanted me to drive him. I went out with Brian and spent 30 minutes waiting for the bus (it was really late) and talking. When I got back home, I tried to finish up the dishes, but Max was really interested in talking to me too and he spent the whole drive and wait talking. So, not necessarily a bad change after all.

Brian \o/

Brian’s really tearing it up at school, in a good way. He received the first High Flying Hawk Award for his class for embodying the monthly theme of Peace. He has all A’s on his progress report. He scored 100% on his first two Accelerated Reader tests. He has all 100% on his spelling tests each week. He got a 100% on his Summer Reading Project.

Check him out at his first soccer game:\

Two cute boys!

I’ve been messing with photoshop again and the results are fantastic! Never will I have to worry about one kid not smiling at the right time again! (Knock on wood.)

I started out with two pictures, where the kids were smiling in separate pics:

and I turned it into one cute pic of the both of them!!

Bow down to my awesomeness!!

Mississippi Fun Time!

I hope I don’t kill y’all’s computers. More cute pics! While visiting my parents, we went to Pep’s Point which has water slides, a river to swim in, canoeing, a couple of docks to jump from, and various other games. Since I wasn’t swimming with them, I made each kid wear a life jacket. They were good sports about it and I got some cool shots:

Brian:

Max:

Brian’s hair cut before the Avatar one. I really like the cut, but it’s being overshadowed by the awesomeness of the arrow!

Brian with glasses. We don’t have many of these. Brian looks so great with them on, don’tcha think?

The boys being silly:

Too cute not to post

More Brian-as-Avatar photos:\
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Before and After

Before we went to visit my parents in Mississippi, Brian’s hair looked like this:

Less than 24-hours after getting there, my dad buzzed Brian’s hair off. It was pretty short and made his beautiful blue eyes stand out:

But then! We went to see The Last Airbender and this happened (Brian’s doing Airbender moves here):

When Kevin picked us up at the airport, Brian made sure to have the arrow covered by his hands so Kevin wouldn’t see the new cut right away. Brian lifted his hands and said, “Surprise!” Kevin loved it, as I knew he would. We’re all really impressed with the great job my dad did and how well Brian sat still for it!