I got Juliet's preschool pictures back and here's a screenshot of the best one. I cannot believe how blonde she is. I didn't order the pictures this time, they were okay but not absolutely ridiculous like they were last year.
I have my phone set to have random photos of the kids pop up as the background and it changes the photo every hour. Some of them just kill me. She was so little!
And now she is big and having dance recitals! Well, it was a really casual recital. They called the parents in and we got to watch the dance they had been practicing.
I love how every child is doing a different move in these pictures.
Here are the videos from the two attempts at doing the dance.
She had so much fun and loved doing the class with her friend Carmen.
Every once in a blue moon the kids sit in the front seat with Callie and then they realize it isn't as fun as it looks like it will be. Callie is never really sure where to stand while the kids are there. But it's cute upon occasion!
Sometimes when Callie is really exceptionally tired she puts herself in her crate for a little rest. I pointed this out to the girls and they thought it was so cute and so they joined her in the crate and the poor dog didn't get her rest. She's so nice, she's just happy to be loved.
I tried a new hairstyle on Juliet and we called it princess hair and she was exceptionally vain about it, as well she should be.
I left her at home with two older children for twenty minutes while I drove another child to an activity. When Nathan got home from work he was greeted at the door by this sight. She had been busy with dress-up and Callie is always there to help greet people coming home.
Sleepovers have been a big deal for Juliet and Patrick this month. Sookie is also a fan.
And then I walked in the next morning to see this. Are you kidding me? Can it get any cuter? Patrick is actually really really good at reading aloud and is my go-to choice for a child to read to Juliet when I need some help at bedtime.
Another sleepover. We've discovered since moving that Sookie cares more about Patrick than the bed and has followed him to his new bed to remain his cuddle buddy, even though she could be sleeping with Juliet in the bunk bed.
Bradley finished his tennis season - he's in the far right of this photo. He did really well and enjoyed it, which is good news for our future! I can't wait to actually have enough free time to go hit with him more often.
Juliet had a double birthday party Sunday and I am struggling to keep up with the social life of my four year old.
This was a very fancy party and face painting was involved.
It was held at a park and playground and they had a truly overwhelming number of crafts, activities, and food for the girls. I very much hope Juliet forgets all of this by February because her party will definitely not be this fancy.
With Aria at the end. They were in the same preschool class last year and were best best buddies. They're not in the same class this year but Juliet still managed to score an invite to the party because she's just that awesome.
Party #2 was a gymnastics party at the rec center.
It was Carmen's birthday. Juliet was so happy about a gymnastics party!
Meanwhile, I was running Patrick around to basketball games galore. This is his pregame look.
His highlight of the day was a game of bump in between his double header. He ran around hard the entire break and I think there was just one sub on the team so he was already running around a lot during the game. No rest for Patrick, although I always say he's rather like a puppy and needs to run around a fair bit.
His art was put on display at a local bank so we made a trip to the bank in order to view it. His was right up front in front of one of the tellers. A place of honor! We made sure all the kids could go so they could all appreciate the exciting art exhibit.
Patrick also had a field trip to the School of Economics where he ran a little business. This is the best field trip they take throughout elementary school and Eleanor had been talking it up to him in advance so he was properly prepped and excited. It lived up to expectations!
And in a "fun" development, Patrick decided in our last week of living at the house that he loved building forts and he built that all over the place. So much for an easy transition. They were so cute though. It was kind of terrible having to leave our Green Meadows house in the fall, it's best time to play outside.
Juliet also soaked up her last bit of time playing on the swing. We have to take it down once we rent out the house, it would definitely be a liability issue.
Callie also got to say goodbye to the swing.
The swing! Poor Callie.
I was chatting with a friend in the driveway one morning while Callie was happily chewing on a stick near us. Then I looked more closely and realized she was chewing on the fox skull Eleanor and a friend had discovered in the park and left by the tree in the front yard. Ewwww.
Sookie likes to snuggle in my hair to feel safe.
Meg is so soft and fluffy and will come and yowl for me on the stairs now so I will come and cuddle her and she doesn't have to come downstairs where the gross dog will sniff her.
Eleanor's rock climbing club is going well! A few weeks ago they had the kids climb while only using their feet, no hands (!!!) and Eleanor was one of the best at it.
Juliet loves her gymnastics class. It's currently her only activity now that dance is over. They have little end of class ceremonies that don't really mean anything but they're cute and fun.
Callie is such a little snuggle and is always near where the people are.
Patrick and Juliet decided to play dress-up together one evening and the results are what you would expect.
Packing is a beast. Juliet is naughty. Patrick can whistle!
Kids loving our backyard right after we have to leave it. This has been a really good house.
Poor kitties snuggling on a chilly evening.
And then it was the big day! We got our keys and the new house was ours!
Moving day was a beast. I didn't think we had that much stuff but I was wrong and it took most of the day to move everything. I did load after load of breakables and smaller items in my car. But we got it done!
Bradley got home from school and relaxed with a sucker out in the back.
Patrick hanging out by the fire pit.
And our first family swim! We moved in on October 16th but it was a reasonably warm week so we heated the pool through Sunday the 22nd because if you move into a house with a pool you want to use it!
We were all so happy. The pool is amazing.
And the animals did pretty great with the move. It helped a lot that it was most of the same furniture and all their people were there.
Layla enjoys her new view from the master bedroom.
The cats have been very busy exploring all over the new house and Callie is so delighted whenever they come around her turf. Although we did have an incident one evening where we couldn't find Layla anywhere and couldn't imagine where she could possibly be. And then I remembered that Nathan had just assembled Bradley's bed in the basement that evening and Layla had been wandering around in the vicinity. Sure enough, Nathan went down and rescued Layla from the room where she had been trapped with the horrid DOG because Callie sleeps on Bradley's bed each evening. Poor poor Layla. At least we found her before she had to cuddle the dog or something equally horrid.
This is how we call the cats now. The Meow Meow song. The joke is that Callie comes when you call "Here Kitty Kitty" because she hopes the cats are coming too.
Another pool afternoon with the #1 pool fan! Juliet got in every single day, even when I thought it was definitely a bit chilly to be in the water.
I dipped my toes and Juliet was a swimming fanatic. It looks nice here but I think it was mid-sixties.
We're so happy Callie doesn't like getting wet! She runs all around the pool but never wants to get in.
And she's thoroughly enjoying her new walk terrain with me. Although our new route is 1.7 miles round trip, so it's a bit longer than what we typically did at Green Meadows. So pretty though!
Chilly day but the pool was warm. Time to take a dip!
Most of my work the first week was setting up the playroom which is just off of Juliet's room. I cannot describe how nice it is to have all the toys contained to a room off the main floor. We have arts and crafts on the main floor and we have one little toy piano and that's it. So kids can run around and make a big mess in the playroom and it's out of sight. Amazing!
An excited Bradley and Callie thought Sookie might sleep with them one evening. Sookie doesn't particularly mind Callie these days but she noped out of that. She loves Patrick and prefers to sleep up in his loft with him.
Nathan got to go to a donuts with dads event at Juliet's preschool. She at her donut and then ate his because he couldn't eat it and then I found out she was given a donut as her snack that day. My four year old at three giant donuts over the course of one morning. Dear goodness. She survived it, but I can't believe what people are feeding my children when I'm not around.
Back to the pool for one of the last swims of the season!
Bradley got cold pretty quickly and came over to relax by me. We got all the pool furniture from the previous owners and they had great taste!
Juliet and Patrick had to lay out in the sun under towels to warm up after they were done swimming.
Summer is going to be glorious.
A bunch of neighbor kids discovered us towards the end of our first week in the house and the kids have tons of buddies to play with already. There were a couple of 6th grade boys that already knew Bradley from school and Patrick has hordes of 4th grade boys who want to play sports with him whenever he's available. I really need to find him a 3rd grade boy or two so he'll want to transfer to the new elementary school but that hasn't happened yet.
Our new island is big enough for everyone to sit and eat together.
Having friends over to swim in the pool! Nothing like a mid-October swim!
Bradley and Sookie played the new cooperative version of Unmatched with Nathan on a long afternoon right after we moved in. We probably should have been unpacking and organizing more but we worked pretty much nonstop all week and it was nice to relax. Although I was unpacking while this happened.
I took my breaks going for lots of walks. The boys enjoy going with me although I haven't had the chance to make Eleanor go yet. Juliet whines about how boring nature is when she is forced to go on a walk. She rides in a wagon the entire time and one of the two times I drug her along with me she got to have a PJ mask watch and play games the entire time. Apparently it was still a time of suffering because she was out in nature while it happened.
My dad has been on a big health and fitness kick so we didn't give him a cake for his birthday, instead we put in a candle in a bowl of cashews. He was properly delighted!
And this was our big swim on the evening of October 22nd. It was a really warm day and it was our final hurrah before giving up on swimming for the season.
The moon was out. It was so pretty.
Nathan inflated the little basketball hoop our real estate agent gave us and Patrick was so so happy. Lots of jumping in and trying to dunk the ball. And you can kind of tell here, the pool has lights. It's a very nice pool. We are so excited about it.
Bradley got chilly so he joined me for popcorn and Callie cuddles and games on my phone by the fire pit.
I think Patrick had gone in for a shower at this point but everyone else hung out by the fire pit for another few minutes after swimming.
Sometimes Bradley smooches Callie right before going to bed and then he doesn't get to smooch me right after. Callie is such a dear, I don't think she particularly likes the smooches but she doesn't mind them either and she LOVES sleeping on the bed with Bradley.
Callie is doing pretty well for herself these days. She has kitties to cuddle in the sunshine.
A comfy couch for daytime naps.
And she's such a lady when I leave her in the car while I run errands. She likes to come to the back of the car and watch me whenever I load groceries.
Juliet preschool time is just the best. She doesn't particularly care about any of the boys in her class but she loves the girls so much.
They do the best arts and crafts. Her teachers are amazing.
And we've been working on fixing up our old house to prep it for renters. We had the entire interior painted and it was so weird to walk in when they had it covered up so they could work on it.
The end result was really nice, which was good. It was definitely overdue!
We got to go to Nathan's work Halloween trick or treat event this year. Patrick loved the guy who made you shoot baskets to get candy.
Here's Nathan with our crew: Patrick was Bob Ross, Eleanor was a black cat, Juliet was a pink bunny (second year in a row), and Bradley was Yoshi.
Nathan was a champ and also took Patrick and Eleanor to the elementary school fun run that night. The kids had a blast and mostly hung out together which was really sweet. They're a pretty fantastic duo whenever they team up.
And the next morning Eleanor got to go to a show choir event at the high school. It's really fun, you learn a song but also have a kind of mellow dance routine that goes with it. Eleanor was properly dazzled and I will be very surprised if she doesn't end up in show choir after getting to do this.
The video of the kids in action. Eleanor was a natural!
I spent a good chunk of the day working on putting away games in the office. Can you tell Callie found a kitty who came in there to keep me company?
And we've been making good use of the ping pong table in the basement. This is a topper for the pool table underneath. It's a pretty fantastic basement. We bought all their furniture off of them and the only thing we did to this basement was we added our NBA Jam console to it.
Eleanor's friend Maya spent a good chunk of her Saturday at our house and ingratiated herself with me by being delighted with the game Hurry Up Chicken Butt and played a bunch with Eleanor, Patrick, and Juliet.
We had a fancy Halloween party that night at the Neil's house (Xavier's parents). Bob Ross went a bit crazy on the ring suckers.
Group picture! Nathan and I were party people of the 70's.
Nathan found a bunch of old rings and put them on and looked incredibly skeezy. I was into it.
Too much party time makes Layla tired. Oh these kitties and their cute tummies.
Sookie and Callie. You can always tell when a kitty comes downstairs because of Callie's high pitched excited whimpering as she follows them around.
Although Sookie does have her limits of what she is willing to tolerate. I love that this video begins with an attack scene.
Bradley and Eleanor were sitting next to Nathan at church. Do you see the number of legs across his lap? I love how cuddly they are. 5th and 6th grade!
We had a church trunk or treat that afternoon that was moved indoors because of cold weather. It was great! We found our old Happy Catoween sign during our move so we signed up for a last minute trunk or table. We just put a ton of kitties out on it and had kids push a button on the Wheel of Fate toy before getting some candy. It's not particularly fancy but it works! I was over at the chili area, because I also brought a big crock pot of chili to pitch in for the chili cook off.
Katie's family arrived on a flight late the night before but she made it to our trunk or treat! Juliet had the best time ever, a bunch of her preschool friends were there and she was inseparable from Katie once she showed up.
Sweet little Ethan was also there. I told the kids to all show Ethan a piece of candy for a picture and do you see Juliet's face? I love her so much. Also, she is so very much my daughter.
This is also my daughter. She is always so happy if there's face painting and wants pictures to commemorate the glory. Her costume was a bit of an ordeal this year, it's difficult to find something between a big fluffy onesie or a slinky animal print type costume when you want to be a cat. She had a definite vision and I couldn't find anything that fulfilled what she was going for. Finally I handed her my phone and said, "Fine, you try to find something but I think you're going to have to be what you were last year." It took her about five minutes on Amazon and she found flare pants, a plain black shirt, and a cheap kit that had kitty ears, a bell necklace, and a tail. Outfit complete!
Afterwards they came home and everyone carved pumpkins with Nathan. I love that he always handles this. Kids had a blast and I bumped the Halloween party music and snagged Juliet for some enthusiastic dancing. She loved it. I sometimes forget how often we used to do things like this with the older kids and now that they're too big to pick up and twirl around I forget to do it at all. But she was a big fan and has been requesting much more of this fun dancing so I foresee a happy Christmas season with festive music and dancing for this girl.
We had a Katie afternoon on Monday. We got her during Ethan's nap and took her to the library and then back to our new house for a play date. I learned a lot from Katie as she chattered to Juliet in the car. Juliet was asking if Katie would play with her even when she was a teenager and Katie had to inform her that no, she couldn't play with her because teenagers never played. Juliet asked what they did instead and Katie explained that they sang a lot of songs. And then she sang one to us. I'm really excited for the teenage years now!
Play time! These two spend a rather outrageous amount of time together when Katie visits but they play so well most of the time and I'm relieved that they're such good buddies. I certainly enjoy Katie, she's a lot of fun to be around.
We noticed that Juliet and Grandma had almost the same outfit on so I took a twin picture of the two of them, which was promptly crashed by Bradley. Next time we have family pictures I'm just going to forbid children from getting in photos and that's how I'll make sure they hop in and have the best smiles. It would work for all four of them.
If you look closely in this photo you can see Patrick asleep in his bed in the loft with a Sookie kitty draped across him. She loves him so much.
We weren't sure how the cats would do going up and down from the loft. Layla and Meg don't ever go up there but Sookie seems to manage it just fine.
For Halloween Juliet got to bring in a pumpkin and paint it at school. I can't actually handle how cute she is sometimes. I had to double check that the pumpkin was going to be just for Juliet because we had a bit of a debacle when her teacher asked for the toys I was giving away on the community gifting page. Usually I squirrel away and donate toys Juliet doesn't like or use anymore because they take up space but she'll get upset if she knows I'm giving them away. However, I felt obligated to give them to her teacher even though I thought it was pretty likely it was going to be a disaster. Sure enough, I walked in at the end of the day I had Juliet bring them in to give to her class and was told there had been many tears and Juliet had kept on crying and saying, "That one was Eleanor's faaaaaavorite!" (quavery crying voice) and "That one isn't even Shopkins! We should keep that one!!!" The teacher sent back a few that were the most wept over and said she would hide the rest until the following year. Oh dear. So the pumpkin went well at least, that was all for Juliet!
I made it to Eleanor and Patrick's Halloween parties at the school that afternoon. Eleanor and friends were giving themselves "tongue tattoos" by putting a fruit rollup with a design on it carefully on her tongue. I thought Eleanor had a tree but she swears this is a rainbow.
And I went and hung out with Bob Ross at his class party. The art teacher already loved Patrick but she was practically beside herself when she saw he had dressed up as one of her favorite artists. Apparently they took a picture together and it made the school slideshow for morning announcements.
Then we went home and had a traditional Halloween dinner of Papa Murphy's Jack-o-lantern pizza.
Eleanor went with her friend Maya to trick or treat around her neighborhood. I got a message from one friend saying that Eleanor had gone inside her house in order to pet her cat while she and Maya were going around the neighborhood. I'm pretty sure Eleanor knew the mom and wouldn't enter a random person's house if they said they had a cat she could pet, but I'm not one hundred percent positive.
Maya and her brother came over to our house after trick-or-treating and then we called it a night at around 9:00. The big kids compared Pokemon cards while Nathan got Juliet in bed. It was a pretty fabulous night. And the school wisely decided that they could make a Wednesday a teacher in-service day if it was the day after Halloween. So we got to sleep in and have a relaxing day the next day too! Best Halloween ever.
