one little, two little, three little indians

every year at the girls' elementary school they have a kindergarten indian pow-wow. this year it was gracie's turn. they make a vest and head bands and practice their thanksgiving songs to perform for the parents.

since i am all about being lazy time efficiency, we used savannah's from three years ago. (that she also used in preschool. dang! i should be a poster child for a reusing campaign.) we did add a few more "indian" drawings and her hand print. it was very cute and they were adorable as always.

rock star indian.

all hail the honor student

this was sarah's 1st, and hopefully not last, honor roll assembly for middle school. this is her first one ever for that matter. they don't do them in our elementary school here. (whatever!)

anyhoo, the story behind this is that she set a goal to make straight a's this quarter. the week of finals she had almost all a's except a few b's in a couple of classes. of course she was sick finals week and had to really hussle to get those last few assignments done to bring up her grades. she did bring up 2 out of the 3 b's, but we wouldn't know for sure with math until she made up the final she missed while out sick. so she takes the test and totally aces it! yahoo!

to get an a you have to have 89.5% or above. guess what she ended up with?????? 89.3%!!!! are you kidding me????? i asked her if she asked her teacher for a quick extra credit. no! hopefully she will be more aggressive with that next time if she needs to be.

we are proud of her nonetheless. keep your fingers crossed for this quarter. so far, so good.

as you can see she really likes being in front of large audiences. the nerdettes.

an evening at the beach

one evening after dropping mauricio's mom at the train station we decided to take a detour and ended up at the beach. it was a perfect evening. i LOVE the beach when it's chilly and windy. believe it or not though, there were some people actually IN the water. crazy tourists!

not as big as the ones in california but still beautiful.

gazing at the waves is always a breathtaking experience no matter how young or old you are.

nothing like a girl and her dog.

the wedding of the century

dum-dum-de-dum!

in the kindergarten this year there was a wedding. yes, i said a wedding in kindergarten. it was to bind forever in holy matrimony the letters q & u. it was adorable. all of kindergarten attended in their best attire and since one of gracie's teachers was in charge of it, her class was able to participate. gracie was one of the bridesmaids! isn't that a hoot?

here is the principal presiding over the ceremony.

there was even a wedding cake!

everyone had to bring a "gift" for show & tell that started with "qu". gracie brought a "quillow". if you don't know what that is please try to figure it out by the context clues and picture.

here she is with just a few members of her posse at the "reception".

one of the top ten reasons why south florida is sooo grand

i took the little girls to the park one day during the 2 hours we have between school dismissal times and lookie what we saw. these were taken in mid-november. south florida does have it's perks. (you know, besides fabulous winter weather and me lounging by the pool all day sipping on dr. pepper.)

thank goodness this joan of arc didn't get burned at the stake

this year savannah's class had to do an oral biography report on someone famous in history. and they had to dress the part while presenting. she originally wanted to do j.k. rowling, but because of some misunderstanding (don't even ask. it's a long story.) she ended up choosing joan of arc. which, quite frankly, was much more fun to dress up for.

most everything was borrowed from my good friend, MaryBeth, who has EVERYTHING. the helmet, with a few coats of silver spray paint, came courtesy of my other good friend, jenny, who has EVERYTHING else. and good ole dad even chipped in by making the breastplate. i did all the borrowing and spray painting and putting together. that counts right?

and did i mention this was due the day before halloween?????? is this some kind of ploy by the teachers to make our lives even more out of control than they are? four costumes for three kids in one week!

joan of arc off to battle barefoot. =)

and now the fall festival of all fall festivals

how can you go wrong with a kindergarten fall festival? it's a win-win-win situation! gracie's was really fun. thank goodness she decided to be the same thing for halloween so we only had to do one costume for her.

she had to bring in a decorated pumpkin and of course she went with the princess theme. her official name was "penelope the pumpkin princess". and seriously the only thing i did on it was cut the yarn for the hair and pierce the ears. she is quite the creative girlie girl.

halloween in november?

yes, i am well aware that halloween has long since come and gone, but i know you all have been dying to see how the wild banshees dressed up this year. well, now the wait is over!

pumpkins, ghosts and goblins! oh my!

i am officially addicted to this site. (thanks to heidi.)

here is little red riding hood. bellatrix lestrange
le chef
here the girls are with some buddies the night before for the trunk or treat at church. this is when sarah decided against being a tree when someone called her "leaf girl" and "magical fruit girl."

never again will i make THAT many leaves for a child unless i get it in blood that they will wear the dang costume! and for the record, i tried to get her to do leaves all over her head and a few branches, but she wasn't going for it. whatever!

at least she was creative and came up with the chef thing in like 5 mintues. work it girlfriend.

sarah the sassy science nerd

i couldn't go without posting the pics from sarah's science project this year. we got an A on the display board. i did let her pick out the colors and do some gluing, so i wasn't a complete layout hog. the poor child has been cursed with an ocd scrapbooking mother. what can i say? i will say that she did the ENTIRE experiment on her own. and her dad did do the fancy graphs for her. see, i let go a little! and look at that sun would you! doesn't it rock? good thing i decided not to throw out that paper crimper.

and just for the record, i made her turn it in even though she was not feeling well and this was the first day of her being out for an ENTIRE week from school!!! what dedication.

the pumpkin patch

here are a few pics from our annual trip to the pumpkin patch. i know. i know. it's past thanksgiving. but hey! better late than never right? plus it's still november and pumpkins are still festive till dec 1st. and enjoy my fancy schmancy effects. (thanks to heidi for the tip about picnik.)savannah picked a white one this year. super cool! there were tons of fantastically shaped and multi-colored pumpkins this year. i couldn't resist snapping a few extra pics.