Halloween Part One-School Carnival

We had a very busy day of Halloween celebrating on Thursday. I started off the day visiting Jackson at school, and watching the Kindergarten Halloween Parade.

After the parade, we headed back to the classroom to PARTY! A Kindergarten party consists mostly of gorging on cookies, brownies, cupcakes, candy and chips that all of the parents bring. Needless to say there was no need for me to make lunch this day.

Sade made herself right at home, and I believe envisioned herself as part of the class.

After the party we were treated to a truly rousing rendition of a pumpkin song that was quite entertaining, and adorable.

That afternoon it was time to get ready for the Halloween carnival at school.

Introducing:

Megan The Mummy

Jackson As Luigi

And Sadie As A Ladybug

Jackson refused to sit still in any picture. Insisting on doing Luigi poses from MarioKart. I am now rather glad he insisted on it.

After playing a few games at the Carnival, it was time for the costume contest. Megan's age group was up first (3rd - 5th grade). I thought Megan had a good chance at placing, so I stayed towards the front of the group with my camera ready.

Sure enough she got 2nd place! Just beat out by Frankenstein who was standing next to her.

Next, it was Jackson's turn. I actually leaned down to him right before his age group (Kindergarten - 2nd grade) took the stage and asked him if he wouldn't rather just go and play more games instead of participating in the contest. I felt like he didn't have a chance, and thought our time would better be served by exploring the rest of the carnival. After all he was wearing a store bought Luigi suit, and didn't even have his moustache on because it was bothering him. But he wanted to participate, so he went up on stage, and I went to the back of the room, letting the other parents take pictures of their kids up there.

Well, you can just imagine my extreme surprise and genuine excitement when he won 1st place! When I heard them say Luigi I started looking around for some other kid in a homemade Luigi costume. But no, it was Jackson that they wanted. And the best part is his little Kindergarten friend that was Mario won 2nd place. The judges must have been huge fans of MarioKart, just like Jackson is. Or they thought Jackson was too cute to resist. I would have to agree.

He won this cool football, and they both received certificates.

After the costume contest excitement we played a lot more games.

I'll end with a picture of Sadie dancing while Megan was singing Karaoke. It was a great carnival, and I am grateful for all of the teachers putting so much work into such a fun night for the kids.

Pretty In Black

Look who found the black Halloween lip-stick.

Aside from Sadie, it also found its way onto a door and the bathroom wall. It didn't come off easily from any surface!

Off The Sauce

Addiction is difficult. It's hard on the addict. It's hard on the family. It's especially hard on the mother! There comes a point when a choice has to be made. You can either continue to enable, or you can force the addict into treatment.

Sadie had been hitting the bottle pretty hard lately. It was a crutch. She was self-medicating. She was using it to self-soothe. She believed it was necessary to function. She was using it to stifle her feelings. She was suffering from detrimental effects (namely leaky diapers).


Well, with a lot of support, I can now report that she has broken free of her dark, deep addiction hole. Her treatment plan consisted of no access to the drug (bottles were thrown out of the house), replacement therapy (when she asked for a bottle, something else was offered instead), and good old fashioned fit throwing. The bottle put up a good fight, but little Sade was victorious!

Four For Friday-Sadie Edition

I know my blog has been featuring my little Sade quite heavily lately, but she is changing so much I feel a need to document all of it.

1. She is blood-curdling scream afraid of spiders. Just yesterday I had to pull over on the side of the road when she freaked out. Since the scary spider scream sounds exactly like the hurt scream, I logically thought that she had somehow been injured. Well it turns out a fly (that's right a fly) had landed on her hand. I told her that they do not hurt us, but she told me over and over again, "It did. It did." Then she said, "I want Daddy" about 50 times.

Here she is after her close encounter with the fly.

2. Wind also scares the living daylights out of her. Which is not great, since it is always windy here. If we walk out and it is windy, she will say "indy, indy" and clamp onto whoever is closest to her.

3. This girl loves her some Elmo (or Melmo as she calls him). She is obsessed. Discussing him at least 20 times a day. She says something like this, "I hatch Melmo tt." Which of course means I want to watch Elmo on T.V. (just in case any of you are babysitting and need to know this bit of info.)

I found this Elmo costume at D.I. I didn't buy it, but made her pose for a picture in it.

4. She is a potty rock star. She still will not always tell me when she needs to go, but she will go whenever I put her on the toilet! I know it is the Elmo unders that are making her do it.

And believe me when I tell you that I am in no way bragging about her potty ability. I am more than aware that she could decide at any time to stop using the toilet, and not be potty-trained for years!

Killer Geese

Yesterday I took the kids to Floyd Lamb State Park. I haven't been in years and had forgotten how nice it is. Especially when you go on a beautiful fall day.

We started off by feeding the ducks and geese.


They look cute and nice don't they? Well they are not! They are scary and I feared for our lives.

These ones actually snatched the bread out of Jackson's hand. Strangely, Sadie seemed to have no fear of the killer geese, which was extremely surprising given her irrational chicken fear from last weekend.

We started off feeding them pieces of our bread, but quickly abandoned that idea, and dropped it to the ground, hoping to keep them busy why we fled the vicinity.

Unfortunately it didn't work, and they kept following us! Luckily those people you can kind of see in the picture above, stepped in, and forced the geese to leave us alone. They must have been geese whisperers.

After we escaped the geese, we walked around the rest of the park.

Sadie thought this was some sort of trampoline. She would jump on it, and then fall to the ground. Amazingly she was never injured.

We explored the lakes, bridges, and just basically ran wild.