The boys were able to play around in some of our leaves. I distinctly remember thinking that they didn’t play in the leaves as much as other years, I think because of the rain and because the boys are often tired when they get home from school. But here are some cute shots that Jeremy got of them over the weekend before Halloween.
I helped host another round of field trips at the HHH for the kindergarten students. And this time Dallin got to participate!! Woo hoo! Just like Tanner, he loved the burlap sewing activity and was so excited to finish it when he came home. “Mom, can you tell that it looks like the Hormel Historic Home?” He had the idea to make a window on it, and we got a picture as soon as he finished it. Notice his sticker on his shirt that says “I am a Hormel Historic Home Shape Expert!” He put the sewing on display in his bedroom for a few months and now it is with our travel souveniers.
Here are some pictures that were taken of the actual field trip. This was our biggest group yet! The theme of this field trip is Shaping HIstory, where students discover shapes everywhere in the home that connect to the home’s history, sew shapes of the home onto burlap, and explore making high and low shapes with their bodies.
Woodson had a school fundraiser at Pizza Ranch, so Jeremy took the boys there for dinner while I taught piano lessons. They saw a very good friend there from preschool and Jeremy said it was a big giggle fest all through dinner and after dinner. So adorable.
We made crafts with a cute kit that Grandma Z sent us in the mail.
I got to participate in a special event on Halloween with Dallin’s class and all the classes in the blue hallway at Woodson. It’s called rotations, something only done on holidays. Each class rotates from room to room to do a different activity with each teacher on the team. When the children came into the Blue Fox room taught by Miss Leathers, I had the opportunity to lead the children in the singing game Old Mother Witch. It was a big highlight for me that day, and the children loved it, too!
Just for my own memory, I want to mention that it was a 15 minute game/lesson. I was the witch for every round of the game. The children stood in a circle, but there was no chasing. Instead, when a child said the part, “No you mean old ugly witch,” I cast spells on the whole class! “AlakaZam, alakaZee, now you must do ten jumping jacks for me!!” I also did spells that involved push-ups and squats. It worked out really well with every group, and I wish I had thought to do the game this way many years earlier. Totally more fun for everyone and easier to manage than the chasing version that belongs in a playground atmosphere.
A few weeks later, I was subbing at Woodson and a student was staring me down as I walked past her. Finally, her memory clicked and she announced, “You’re the girl that taught us Old Mother Witch!” She gave me a big high five. Then, I heard her singing the song down the hall, which absolutely warmed my heart even more than her enthusiastic high five.
As soon as flashlight reading was finished, I walked outside to the busses at Tanner’s school to get Dallin. His bus begins at Woodson, then stops and waits at Banfield for the older kids, so I snagged him off the bus in time for us to drive over to Hormel for their famous trick or treating hour. Perfect timing! The boys really like looking at Jeremy’s desk and all his things. This is the only chance we get to see his office space during the year.
So, time to talk about our costumes! Tanner was set on being a bald eagle. It’s one of his favorite animals this year. To make it, I bought a brown hoodie jacket, some white and brown feather boas, and a foam mask that came in a kit of 24 masks that I used later for a singing lesson. We used pants that he already owned for legs and felt that we already owned for a beak and the bottom layer of the head. I loosely sewed the white felt onto the hoodie so that I can take everything off someday and just have the boys use the hoodie as a real jacket. Then I hot glued the feather to the felt, instead of the jacket. I loosely sewed the brown feathers in just a few places and it filled his arms and front really well. He even had a little eagle tail with some of the extra boa that I had. Tanner was very skeptical at first because it was not was he was expecting (and nothing I could have made or bought would be what he was expecting!). But he warmed up to it and was excited to wear it. We warned him that some people would be stupid and say he was a chicken or just a normal bird, but that he could tell them nicely that he is a bald eagle. Sure enough, people were stupid, and Tanner was really upset about it, but we got through it okay! Special note to all adults, don’t guess what a kid is dressed up as. The best and only thing to say to a child on Halloween is “Wow, what a great costume! Tell me about it!”
Dallin really wanted to be a solider, but not just any soldier. It had to be one from World War II, like the ones that Grandpa Papa teaches him about. Before buying a costume, I did an inventory of anything we owned that could pass as soldier gear. I was pleasently surprised to discover that this was going to be one of the easiest costumes we ever put together. Dallin had 7 or 8 different types of clothing with camo patterns on them. And we had a vest and hat in our dressups that Grama Z gave us a few years ago that was still in good shape. I suited the boy up in camo longjohns, camo camping jeans with lots of pockets, the vest, and hat. I added the letters WWII to his vest with permanent marker and filled his pockets with accessories from our camping toys, including flashlight, pocket knife, compass, walkie talkie, and his special cricket clicker that is actually from WWII. Dallin loved it! But when he came home, he said that he wanted a real army costume like some of the other kids. I told him he had it as real as it comes, with real camo pants, real walkie talkie and real cricket clicker, and the most types of camo patterns in one uniform. He seemed to be okay with that.
So a bald eagle and a solider. I figured, sweet, let’s go with an American theme! I was all set to be the Statue of LIberty. But when I got the teaching gig at Woodson with rotations, I realized my bedding sheet toga just wouldn’t work for teaching a music game, and I didn’t have time to make all of lady liberty’s accessories anyway. So, I decided to go with getting another cool skirt like I did last year for Halloween that I could then wear anytime. This idea yielded great results! I found a colorful skirt from amazon with autumn leaves and trees blowing in the wind. Then, I safety pinned fabric leaves to my leggings and sleeves, hot glued leaves to my earings and hair claws, and tadah! I was the wind beneath the eagle’s wings and I was the soldier’s wind! (A soldier’s wind is actually a real term!) With all the sentiment behind this costume and how it connected me to each boy individually while also making us a cohesive group, and the fact that it was an adorable costume when I wasn’t with them, and the fact that I could use the scarf from my costume for the singing game at the school, I was in LOVE!
Then, we headed home for dinner. I think we ate pizza because I wanted to keep it super simple. Then we let the boys trick or treat in the neighborhood by Banfield. Such a great nieghborhood for this! We did about an hour or less of homes and got home before 7 pm. The highlight was seeing the cleverness of this zombie home. The boys said they were not scared at all. But we think Dallin must have gotten the jitters because when we came to a house a few doors down with a friendly Frankenstein that lit up and sang to us, he screamed and wouldn’t go to the door without us pushing him. Bahaha.
The boys surveyed their stash in the living room. Tanner had no anxiety about chowing down on candy this year. We let them chomp away for a bit. Tanner loved sorting his candy this year and he strategically managed to get a ton of Kit Kats, his favorite. Dallin still favors suckers and chocolate of any kind. What a fun day, and what a fun week!!
