Painting

We decided that after years of living with whatever color walls the landlord wants, we wanted different colored walls.  We may eventually go back to a more tan/neutral color, but for now we picked a nice blue for kid rooms.  A actually picked it out and convinced G to agree.  After we got it home we were able to paint the room, with help of course.

Not much new is going on here.  We're working with A in school and she continues to do well.  She is better if she doesn't think you are paying her attention or asking her to do something.  She knows what she is doing, however she doesn't want to demonstrate that to anyone.

After a difficult weekend of behavior from the kids, we got to go to a park. We missed out on all sorts of things over the weekend because of children refusing to get dressed or clean up toys or really anything they were asked.  One of G's and Chris's favorite things to do is feed the fish at this park.  There is a place to get food for a quarter and the fish definitely come up for food.  The kids both got a kick out of it, and the first few startled A.  They don't quite jump out of the water, but come awfully close.  These pictures are from the fish feeding.

Our other really big news is that G has decided he is NOT a baby and will wear underwear to bed each night.  We've been working on the potty training for what seems like forever and it has finally stuck! He will still often wait until he REALLY REALLY has to go and dash to the washroom.  However, we manage one pair of underwear and pants most days.  The funny thing with him though is that if he gets his shirt sleeves or shorts/pants wet from water he has to change that article of clothing NOW.  However, if he has a little pit of urine on his underwear he stubbornly refuses to change the underpants with a drop or two of urine on them.

Rock'N'Roll Fun

Yesterday was the third half marathon I completed this year.  I did Chicago in July, one in Philly in Sept, and then St Louis yesterday.  For completing the Chicago and the St Louis races I completed a special "Midwest Quest" for the Rock'N'Roll Series. I got a special medal for it that is a license plate which flips back and forth between the two races.  The kids like just flipping it back and forth.  It was quite a challenging course, and I look forward to a rematch with the course next year.  Hopefully it also won't be so hot next year.

Today I took off since A was out of school and we explored the Missouri Botanical Garden.  Thankfully the children's garden was still open and it had lot and lots of stuff for the kids to explore.  We played with boats in the water ways section for about 45 minutes.

We are looking forward to school starting back tomorrow, and I think A is as well.  It will be just a few short weeks until Thanksgiving though.  Hopefully we get back on the school schedule easily.  We shall see.

Hope all is well by you.

Done with Term 1

Today we had our first parent/teacher conferences with A's teacher.  It went well.  She is doing well in school and marches to the beat of her own drummer as the teacher said.  The teacher also doesn't think that A gives a good picture of what she knows -- similar to us.  When we do her homework and such we always get the impression that she is purposefully not showing all she can do and taking much more time than is necessary to get stuff done.  The teacher agreed with us but she's a bit more patient about it since she's been teaching for 20 something years.  It is obvious that the teacher and A have a good rapport system going on.  It is just hard to believe that term 1 is done!

The past month has been busy though.  We've managed to buy a new to us minivan that was in our price range and sell the Focus.  The Focus has been a good car and we are sad to see it go.  However it is what needs to happen right now for us.  It is going to a good teenager who needs a dependable car and so that fits the bill quite nicely.

We also managed to do a few things in the area here.  We had a neighborhood night out a couple of weeks ago that was a lot of fun.  We walked and surprised everyone by walking.  Not sure what else was supposed to happen in the neighborhood. We had fun until the mosquitoes decided we were a yummy dinner.

Last weekend we managed to go for a bike ride on the Katy Trail.  We did about 15 miles round trip with a group from a church around here.  Of course G fell asleep on the way back.

We also managed to get to a festival around here last week.  It is at the Botanical Gardens and was a lot of fun.  The kids got to decorate pumpkins and milk a cow.  They could have done more but refused to take naps and we refused to go until after naps were taken.  Eventually they did cave and take naps so we went late.  We got to make silly hats as well.  The kids had fun and we were impressed with the gardens so we shall go back.  They also have a butterfly garden and a nature reserve that we can visit since we just bought a membership.  Here are a few pictures from that day.