Miles' Character Parade

Miles' school did a character parade today for all the parents. It was so cute! Each class got to pick a book and they all dressed up as the characters from that book. The whole first grade did the 101 Dalmatians. I went to the school one day this week to help paint the shirts. They looked so cute laying out in the hall drying I could hardly way for the parade today.

The kids look adorable. All the grades looked really cute. Even the principal was dressed up. The principals of the two elementary schools in Aubrey were having a contest on raising money for books. If they reached the goal, the principals would dress up as Sumo Wrestlers, and if which ever school won, they would come to that school. Brockett raised the most money so the principals were both at our school and did a relay race around the gym dressed as sumo wrestlers. I was laughing so hard. I really wish I would have brought my video camera to get that.

My picture is not that good. My camera was dead so I was taking pictures with my cell phone. :(
Miles was cute, but would not acknowledge me during the parade at all. He walked right past my and did even look at us. Afterwards I went up and got a picture of him, and asked if he saw us. He said, "yeah."

I said "why didn't you wave us?"

"Because I didn't feel like it."

Here I was worried that he didn't see me and would be crushed thinking that I didn't come. They started to dismiss the classes and so I left and and went and got in the carpool line. School was out in like 5 minutes so thought that he had just enough time to walk back to his class and get his bag and then they would be out. When he came out to the car he was crying. I ask he what is wrong, through the sobs and tears came out, "you didn't watch me walk out."

Honestly!! I just sat there for an hour with him ignoring me because he wanted to, and he is now crying because I didn't watch his class leave the gym. I don't think that I win.

Drew's Halloween Party

Drew's party was today. I am thankful for my friends working around my two preschool schedules so that I could be at both parties. Drew's was fun...although he wouldn't stay in his costume. I was getting him dressed and he was already asking me to take it off. So we got a quick picture of all the kids, and then off it came.
The kids got to decorate cookies. Drew just took the knife out of the frosting and starting licking it...he didn't need a cookie.

Eat a donut off of a string. I thought this was funny, he tried like two bits, then just grabbed the string and stuffed the donut in his month. Thanks Tara for standing in and helping me with it.
The last game that they played was Halloween bingo. I think that he would put a candy corn on as a marker and then eat one. But, if you look at his card, he has one candy corn covering up each picture. At the top of the card was a picture of several candy corns, and when that one was called he put one piece of candy corn on each one in the picture. I was laughing at him, because then he sat there staring at it, like now how am I going to eat the candy corns when they are all covering a picture.

Tyson's Halloween Party

Tyson's preschool Halloween party was today. I love Halloween and getting the kids all dressed up for their parties. We had a great party. Play a game of tossing the ring around the pumpkin, and looking for the hidden pumpkins. The kids got to decorate pumpkins, and make them look like bats. Tyson made his and then took off, so I didn't a picture of him with the finished product.
Then they had lunch and treats. Wendy them peanut butter sandwiches that we cut in the Halloween shape of their choosing. So cute....I need to learn to be more creative like my friends.

I think that I enjoy the parties as much as my kids, I like to go hang out with my friends and catch up. Some time I feel like I am running such a crazy schedule, that I don't get time to just hang out with friends and have fun.

I'm Going Private

I am slow in following the trend, but I am going to make my blog private. If you are a blog that I follow, I will send you an invited. If you are a secret admire of our family, let me know and I will add you also.

Cowboy Miles

Next week at Miles school is Drug Free Week. All week the kids get to dress up a different way. Monday they are to wear boots. Miles has been telling me all week that I need to go buy him some boots so that he can wear them to "drunk week".

Today we got his boots after school. He was so excited and has been wearing all day. At home he has been wearing them with a pair of sport shorts and I have been teasing him about his shorts and boots. Tonight we ran out to the store and so I made him change back into his jeans. When he walked in front of me I started laughing....he had his jeans tucked into his boots.

So I told him to un-tuck them. When we got out at the next stop, the jeans were tucked back into his boots. I told him again, Miles you wear your jeans on the outside of your boots. His response was - but then everyone can't see my boots. Good point.

I bet tomorrow morning he walks out of my house with his boots under his jeans. Then when I pick him up from school, his jeans are tucked into his boots.

Sad Day in the Whatcott House

Troy doesn't want me to blog about this, but it is a day in the history of our family, and that is why I am doing this blog. So, when you see kids please be sensitive to them.

Our story starts on Saturday. We had been gone all day, and so when we got home we took Zena for a walk. We walked her over to the dog park in our neighborhood so she could get a good run. When we got there, there was a stray dog locked in the park. We felt really bad for the dog. It looked like our Tipper that we lost in the spring, just brown and white instead of black and white. But this was so skinny. You see her ribs, spine, hip bones...it was really sad. Miles kept calling her that sad, lonely dog. We decided that we would go get some food and bring it back to her, and then we ended up bring her home. We thought that we would keep her through the weekend and then call the SPCA on Monday.

We did OK, until Sunday night when Troy and Miles were cleaning out the guinea pig cage. They had the piggies in a basket, and door closed, but one of the boys walked in and that dog grabbed Mater. I didn't get to see it, but Troy said that it all happen so fast he didn't even really get to react to it. I guess it went something like - the dog grabbed Mater, and then Zena jumped on the dog and dropped Mater, then Zena chased the dog downstairs.

The boys say that the piggies are Zena's puppies. It has been really funny to watch Zena with the piggies. She does protect them and likes to keeps to them right by her when they get to play together, so I guess that we where not surprised by her reaction when someone touched her babies. We had got Zena because we wanted to have her to protect our family - I think it extents to our piggies to.

On with our story: Mater ended up dying about 30 minutes later. I think that in the process of being grabbed and dropped his back got broke. It was one of the saddest thing that I have seen. We let the boys all say good-bye to him. There were alot of broken hearts in our family that night.

We told the boys that we would get another one after school on Monday. So, Monday we went to the pet store to get our new piggie. We walk in and they ask how can help us, I said that we are getting a new guinea pig, so if someone could come help us that would be great. We walk over and start looking at them and the boys are all getting excited to get there new pet...it has been a long day waiting for this. What a nightmare!! The girl that was helping us started arguing with me that I could not have two males together. I kept telling her, we have had two males together since Christmas and then I pointed to her cages asking why they could have all their males together. Anyway, this went on for a little while, with me practically on my hands and knees begging to get a piggie. I tried to talk her into letting me get one, and if they started fighting I would return him. No way! She was not going to let me walk out of the store with a piggie.

She ended up going to the Manager, and the manager said that I could only buy a female. I told her I didn't want a female - I wanted a male. Long story short, after about 30 minutes of arguing, three crying kids, I left the store without a guinea pig. I called Troy and told him to go to another store and get us a new guinea pig. His experience at the pet store was a lot better than mine. He got us a little baby male guinea pig that the boys named Jett. He is so cute! Just in case you were wondering...the piggie have not fought. They get along great. We put them together down on the floor and Jett ran right over to Optimus and snuggled up under him, just like Mater used to, and they were both happy.

Field Trip Monday - Frank Buck Zoo

I know that it is not summer anymore, but it was Columbus Day and the kids all had the day off school....and they wanted to do a field trip day. I think that I have started a tradition, without realizing that I was started a tradition. I am really happy that the kids like the field trip days. It has really made me stretch to come up with fun activities for the kids to do, and I am so happy to get to enjoy this time with the kids as a family.

Today we decided to go to the zoo. I have always taken the boys to the Ft. Worth Zoo, but since I have had Drew I have taken them once! When I started to think about that it made my sad. I know the kids love the zoo, I just haven't had the courage to tackle the zoo by myself with the three boys.

We went to the zoo in Gainesville, Frank Buck Zoo. It is a small zoo, but I have heard great feed back about it, so thought that today would be a great day to try it out. I was very happy that Troy decided to take part of the day off and join us, it was a very "Family Field Trip Day". We have had rain for the last several weeks. When we got up today and it was cloudy and dreary looking outside, but I told Troy there is no way that the kids are going to let me out this today. So decided that we would go for it, and if it started raining I could take the boys to Cabelas, or as we call it in our family: the dead zoo.

Miles - amazed at how big a birds wingspan can be.

Drew - not sure what we were trying to get him to do.

Tyson - Happy that we took his picture, as always, and that he was bigger than his bird.

They had a petting zoo were we could feed the goats. This goat decided that he liked Troy and kept jumping up on the fence to get his attention.

Miles

Tyson

Drew

We had a great time at the zoo today. I think that the weather was a deterent to most people because we ended up having the zoo basically to ourselves. It was so cool! There was a couple of other families there, that we passed here and there. Also with the tempature being cool today most of the animals were out and we could see them. That was the best part. Most of the time, I pick hot days to go to the zoo, and so all the animals are hiding.

Of course it wouldn't have been complete unless we got to go to lunch. We got two, kids eat free at Chili's coupons at the zoo, so took advantage of it and finished up our fun day with a yummy lunch.