Birthdays and Halloween

This year Alicia and I decided to bring the girls to ACL to see the Barton Hills Choir sing with Belle and Sebastian's lead singer Stuart Murdoch (who is the NICEST guy). It was the best day at ACL I've spent that's for sure -- we skipped school and headed down there when it opened at 11AM. The Austin "Kiddie Limits" activities were pretty nice, actually, like the graffiti painting station below.

I LOVED the Barton Hills set. They actually played in the evening too, but in the afternoon it was basically just parents and friends and siblings, and Murdoch sang at least 4-5 songs with them.  In the evening they played with Belle and Sebastian just a few numbers at the end (and amazingly all four kids + James and I lasted there through 8:00 or so -- maybe a bit later!).

James picked up Miles and Louis from school and walked down with them to meet us. Miles hilariously warned James before they left on the walk, "I'm not going to be able to control myself on this walk." True to form, there was some craziness, but they made it. Do these boys know how to music festival or what?

A swig of... SODA (shh don't tell).

With the "Mayor of ACL," one of their classmate's mom.

A couple of too-cool-for-school teens... or wait, is that Ez and Rosemary?

A few days later was Louis's real birthday, one of a few birthday celebrations. We started the day with pancakes.

He wanted to go fishing for his birthday so we took out the kayak. Unfortunately only Rosemary caught a fish but she very kindly let him pretend to have caught it.

His birthday celebration at school:

 

Marshmallow sculptures:

A very beautiful handmade dream-catcher by Louis and Kyle (feathers courtesy of the late Turkey):

Happy Hikers

These four sat in the dry arroyo pounding rocks together for at least 30 minutes solid:

We had a very nice fall visit with Grandma Mary and Grandpa Dan:

 

First grade pumpkin painting party: 

 

Rosemary's "pumpkin project" (you had to dress up a pumpkin as a character from a book. It's Charlotte from Charlotte's Web. James did a good deal of it, and I think it is awesome, but for whatever reason she was really embarrassed by it. It was really sad -- to the point she cried when I picked her up and she was bringing it home because she claimed the kindergarteners were making fun of her pumpkin. What?!?!

 

Pumpkin carving with kids:

Louis and Miles dressed up for the St. Mark's Halloween parade:

Louis's class (he had just stopped crying -- didn't like the parade, didn't like that I was late to it):

Rosemary's Halloween composition about me:

Halloween night! Maid Marion and Robin Hood:

We went to friends/neighbors for a potluck and trick-or-treating. It was a blast:

James and I are lame and were maybe the only adults not to dress up:

 

With Teacher Becky who is a "Garden Fairy":

 

With Barkers and Portman kids:

Rosemary's adult twin!

That same week, Gregoire and his precious family came to visit. We had a lot of fun with them, and even hiked Enchanted Rock!

 

Lucie and Rosemary at Lego League together:

Rosemary reading (actually she was too shy so her teacher read it) to us at "Writer's Celebration Day"). Composition was about losing her first tooth (as many others that we heard were!):

 

Eliza's birthday party with a real petting zoo:

 

Louis started soccer this fall -- he improved SOO much in six weeks, it was really amazing. He even got a header goal! It surprised him so much that at first he started crying but then he was happy once he realized he had scored.

 

And, of course, most memorable in October was Louis's fifth birthday. As usual, there was much preparation -- hours of researching and testing how best to make bows and arrows fit for a gaggle of five year old boys. We tried many many prototypes but a combination of steamed wood dowels and flexible PVC pipes were the winners. We topped our dowel arrows with erasers so they had soft tips. Dev suggested (seriously) we give the boys real bows and arrows, a suggestion we politely ignored.

 

We set up a table for kids to decorate their own bow and arrow with markers, stickers, feathers, and duct tape.

 

Golden goblets for wine:

Several targets:

Camouflage over the tree fort:

Robin Hood himself:

Maid Marion in the forest:

Target practice:

Target practice! Many of the dads were really into it:

Stealing from the rich (mom) and giving to the poor (Kyle and Eric):

A wandering minstrel arrives:

My cake masterpiece:

 

It had all gone so well and was such a blast that of course, in the last 10 minutes, just as we were really wrapping it up, Louis jumped onto James in an attempt to spear him, missed, and hit his chin on the bench. Went straight through his cheek -- once I realized James's bandaid wasn't going to work and we had to go the ER, was very very thankful that my dad was there and clear-headed and that his friend Thatcher's mother was an ER doctor AND on call! She stitched him up while dad held him and James and I cowered in the corner, and he was very brave (on the way to the hospital he was hurting but also freaking out because he thought we would leave him at the hospital like in the Curious George book). Poor kid was pretty out of it, but on the way home he said it didn't hurt at all (thank you modern drugs) and he was happy that he had gone to a REAL hospital when Rosemary had only gone to the emergency center when she had to get staples. He was also THRILLED that Stacie let him keep the forceps she had used for the stitches!

 

The next day: