Author Archives: Derek

Halloween Party

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Andrew really wanted to have a Halloween party this year and with a couple of weeks of planning Jen was able to put together a pretty cool shin-ding. Alex invited a bunch of his friends and Andrew had friends from his school and soccer team over, and even Caroline had a friend over from music class. In the end it felt like we had about 700 kids running around the house and thank god the rain held out so they could play outside otherwise it would have been chaos.

For the weeks leading up to the party Jen worked hard at decorating the house with Halloween themed things and the night before the party and into the next day we both spent lots of time baking all kinds of Halloween themed goodies.

One of the funniest things was the morning after the party. We had cleaned up fairly well after the party but we ended up leaving some chocolate cookies on the counter. Andrew thought that he was going to be sneaky and eat one of the cookies for breakfast without telling anyone. When I walked into the kitchen and he was standing there making his broccoli face and looking generally like he was going to be sick.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him. With a his mouth full of half eaten chocolate cookie he managed to mumble while drooling on himself,

“I took a bite of cookie and it’s not good.”

He he, well that totally backfired on you didn’t it.

Here’s the Halloween pictures.

Finally, More Pictures Posted

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It seems like it has been ages since I’ve added more pictures to the website and some of you have let me know it too. These have been in work for some time but I’m finally just getting around to finishing them off.

First, there are some pictures of the kids playing outside from last month. These are focused on Caroline since the boys were biking up and down the street and it was hard to get any good pictures of them.

Next, there is a set of Andrew learning how to ride a two wheeler. These pictures happened not too long after I had my appendix out so I wasn’t much use trying to help him so Jen ran along with him. I have to say I was pretty impressed with how quickly he’s managed to pick up riding. These pictures were from the 2nd time he had ever been out with a two wheeler. I even managed to post some video with these.

Lastly, there is another set of Andrew but this time playing soccer. He’s on the same team as he was in the spring but with a new jersey colour. On the day I took the camera he got to play goalie which he was really excited about and had been talking about all week leading up to the game. While he was in net the team did a really good job keeping the ball at the other end of the field so he wasn’t called on to make any heroic saves. None the less he still had lots of fun.

Police!

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After going to bed last night and falling into a nice deep sleep we were woken up just around midnight with someone ringing our door bell. I’m really not coherent when woken up unexpectedly from sleep and was really disoriented and confused. Jen said, “I think it’s our door bell.” and I was, who the hell is ringing our doorbell at this hour.

When they rang it again, and by ring I they pressed it about five times, we rushed to the door and as I was looking out the peep hole to see who was there Jen said “It’s the police!” She was looking out the front window saw the cruiser parked in front of our house.

I opened the door and the officer standing there said “Sir, I noticed your car door was open, were you aware of that?” Turns out that after coming home from lacrosse practice last night the boys didn’t close their door and I didn’t notice so as the officer was patrolling the neighborhood he saw the light on in the car.

I had to go out and he made me check through the car to make sure nothing was missing “because there have been a number of burglaries in the neighborhood and wanted to make sure everything was in order.” I closed the car door, locked it up and as I was laying in bed about to fall asleep I thought wait a minute, there have been a bunch of burglaries in the neighborhood….

Tropical Storm Hermine

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Tropical storm Hermine rolled through Texas last week and even through we are pretty far inland it brought with it lots of rain and spawned about six tornadoes in the area. I was working from home the day we got bulk of the rain and took a couple of pictures. It was probably the most rain I’ve ever experienced at one time.

My car parked in the street. The water covered the entire street and it was flowing like a river.

Tree in our front yard with water collecting in the mulch.

Gully behind our house that has turned into a raging river.

This is normally how it looks.

Alex is a Publish Artist

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At the end of the school year when the kids bring home their art work for the year I usually scan it into the computer and publish it here on the blog. The other day I received a tweet from @History_Man who runs the website http://www.history-for-kids.com/.

Somehow he came across my blog entry from last year where I posted Alex’s picture of the Statue of Liberty. He was working on a web page for his site on the Statue of Liberty and he wanted to use Alex’s picture on the web page.

We let him use the picture and you can see the final web page along with a statue of liberty poem here: http://www.history-for-kids.com/statue-of-liberty-poem.html.

Boosterthon Fun Run

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As most of you know, since we hit you up for donations, Alex was doing the “Boosterthon Fun Run” at school this week. It started last week with a kick off assembly at school where they got the kids all excited about collecting donations from friends and family and he brought home his information packet. The idea was that they would collect either a flat amount or a pledge per lap and on the day of the run they could run up to 35 laps within the allotted one hour time limit.

The hook they used to get the kids all excited about collecting donations was that at certain dollar amounts pledged per lap they were rewarded with prizes. Boosterthon branded head bands, wrist bands, water bottles, t-shirts, glow in the dark footballs, you name it. Alex knew that prize chart up and down.

On the day of the run Jen went over to the school and took some pictures and here is a crazy face Alex sporting his head band prize and football. Thanks to everyone who donated.

First Day of School

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I’m a little behind the times but last week was the first day of school for the boys. This year they were both starting at new schools and just after a week into it they are both enjoying it. Tonight when I came home from work Alex told me about “all this homework” they were assigned. “I had math and reading, and spelling.”

Andrew hasn’t had any homework yet :-) . During the first week they worked on a continents poster where they cut out the continents from different colored construction paper and then glued them onto another piece of paper. This was Andrew’s favorite thing and he talked about it every night he came home so hopefully we’ll get to see it soon.

Alex and Andrew on their first day of school.

Star Wars at Barnes and Noble

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This weekend at the Barnes and Noble they were having a special appearance by Star Wars characters. Since these days it’s all Star Wars all the time around the house I took the boys to check it out. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go since the last time Andrew saw Darth Vader he jumped out of his seat and tried running away, but then again, that was just about two years ago.

Alex and Andrew with Shdow Trooper, Scout Trooper and a couple of Jawas

Posing with a Mandalorian. (At least that's what Alex tells me.)

Posing with Darth Vader

TIE Fighter Pilot and Jawa.

Boba Fett.