Anna Kate sang the National Anthem before the first LCS football game of the month. They sang beautifully! Check out our new attic above the addition - just sitting there waiting to be filled with Christmas decorations!
My first attempt to teach Wesley to drive I couldn't persuade him to pull out of the parking lot of the Methodist church next door, no matter how hard I pushed. I realized this would be a job for a professional. Wes had his first official driving lesson on the 5th, and somehow survived despite scoring straight D's on the day's performance. You gotta start somewhere! Thank you to Marco the Brave for taking on the mission. We snapped this picture after Wesley pulled up in front of the house after the lesson. It's one of those cars where there's a brake on the passenger side that the instructor can use. I asked Wes, "Did Marco use his brake?" He replied, "Oh yeah... a lot. We braked together."
Growing
up is hard to do... now that we’ve converted the front room from a play
room to a formal dining room, the fun and funky foyer zebra chair
needed a makeover. Surprisingly, zebra print doesn’t coordinate well
with colonial. But we sure do miss her spunk:
Anna Kate likes to send me pictures from school. It makes me feel loved. Coach Thor is her favorite sub. Speaking of feeling loved, Wesley comes in our bedroom on weekend mornings and hangs out and shows me memes and funny things on YouTube. Typically on a Saturday morning you can find all 4 kids piled on or near my bed. Carigan was taking pictures with my phone, which was annoying and I delete them all, but I decided to keep this one to remember that my teen still likes to come hang with me.
So we tried to go back to church on October 11... We are starting to feel a sense of "normalcy" (albeit a different normal), so with the kids in school and us out and about to some degree, it felt like we should be back at church. We knew not everyone would be wearing a mask, but we weren't prepared to see no one wearing a mask and no social distancing. We probably should have just turned around and left, but we didn't want to do that to the kids. So we got one Sunday back with everyone, and then we sweated it for the next couple of weeks praying we weren't exposed. So back to doing Southside online at home with just the six of us. Which isn't really a bad thing. But we sure do miss physically being with our church.
The summer heat is on its way out and we can resume regular evening walks to the park! Meanwhile, my little helper elf has been busy busy... One day I even came downstairs to find my elf on a shelf:
The kids were off school on Monday the 12th for Columbus Day (or Indigenous Peoples Day), so Grandma came over and made personal pumpkin brownies with them.
Wes had his second driving lesson with Marco on the 14th and was much improved! I texted the kids this meme (below) and Anna Kate did not like the cigarette in the hand, so she personalized it just for me:
Tate made the LCS Facebook page running in PE... he's taking up the rear. There's this magical thing called Amazon Prime Day, and it made all of Anna Kate's dreams come true. It's like having a Chick-fil-A drive thru inside our house! My dentist is going to hate me, but I'll probably lose 20 pounds, because who wants to eat when you can crunch on ice all day!
Pandemic 1st Grade - Parent drive-thru parade to check out the kids' habitat dioramas. They dressed up like an animal from their habitat. 2020-2021 School Pictures:
Well that didn't take long... Wesley's first time driving himself through the drive-thru at Taco Bell. Note it: Friday, October 16, 2020. The first of what's sure to be innumerable in a lifetime. It's the single best motivation we've found to get him to drive!
Anna Kate joined the Heritage Youth group for their annual game of Broomball this year. Her D-Group dressed as the 12 apostles. AK was Matthew. She came home with battle wounds, and was quite proud.
Selah's birthday party was a "glamping" party... Selah, Carigan, Kerrigan, Amberly & little sisters Olivia & Harper played outside and then slept in the camper at Nan's house. Big fun! April texted us pics.
Very little actual sleeping took place, so I made Carigan go take a nap after I picked her up. Then I took Anna Kate shopping and Carigan proceeded to text me constantly. I feel so loved. The turkey-naming campaign is the talk of the town... we see 'ol Gary almost every day:
So, Spirit Week... Wesley
has always just grabbed something out of his closet last minute. With
Anna Kate, Spirit Week has entailed hours of shopping and driving me
crazy not being the least bit flexible on her vision for each outfit.
She wanted a shirt with the Toy Story alien on it for Out of this World Day, not even
knowing if that existed in box stores (not enough notice for online
shopping). She dragged me to every store in Lakeland until
we found it. Girls make me tired.
Next was Trend Tuesday. AK ordered an Among Us shirt that reads "Red is Sus" from Amazon, but it didn't arrive in time. So she dressed as a VSCO girl. She texted me these pics from her yearbook class:
Tuesday the 27th was also Marianne's 14th birthday. But Eric has the 'rona, so they're all quarantined. We had to bring (set down, back away, and then call and watch from afar) the party to her. We brought her balloons, a cookie cake, and some gifts, including this 2020-appropriate hoodie.
Wednesday was Western Day, and Thursday was Neon Day.
I came downstairs Thursday to find Wes back in his home base hoodie,
despite the fact he'd had a neon giant squid hat standing by all week
for this day. Apparently, Thursday is when the Spirit Week boundaries
set in. But AK was all about it. Friday they just wore their spirit shirts (gimmick to get parents to fork over more money), and it was Scarecrow Day for Tate.
I have to brag... I've so mastered the dress up day scramble. Having done 7 years of kindergarten at LCS, I can throw anything together from my stash in a hot second. I had forgotten completely about Scarecrow Day until the morning of, but I knew exactly where the cowboy (also, cowgirl... worn by all 4 kids) shirt was, and I keep face paint in my bathroom drawer. Bippity boppity boom. I've got this down.
Also, Michael has been feeding Tate pumpkin brownie for breakfast every day and it's not my fault. Carigan
got to stay home on Friday, because a 5th grader tested positive for COVID on Thursday and they had to spend a day doing contact tracing. All 5th graders stayed home and throughout the day they notified kids that needed to quarantine... which ended up including almost every single one of C's friends. She's pretty much going to be all alone in class next week, along with a few boys. Thank goodness she's been wearing her mask, because they quarantined kids that teachers said often take off their masks. I
personally know more people that have COVID right now than at any point
since the beginning of this pandemic. Praying this spike passes quickly
and they will be able to keep school open! Since Carigan got to stay home yesterday, she got to be my walking buddy around Lake Hollingsworth. Then Grandma came and took her to her place to swim and make cheese ball. She had a big time.
Mrs. Palm just posted this class picture on the 1st grade website. Tate takes his social distancing very seriously. Last night was Homecoming... at least they still had the game even though they cancelled the dance. Wesley's first ever Homecoming and it was canceled! He did get to sing the National Anthem at the game, along with the rest of ensemble choir. Then Krissa, Christie & I took the boys to IHOP. It was their big Homecoming plan. There was a nice clear plastic COVID barrier between their booth and ours, and it was delightfully effective at sound-proofing. The boys kept trying to talk to us through the plastic and we could see their mouths moving and hear a muffled sound, but didn't have a clue what they were saying. Wesley, Jacob, Sean, Solomon, Everett & Jonas:
With so many of her friends in quarantine, Carigan had a 2020 style costume party this afternoon on Zoom with Kerrigan, Anna, Addie, Brianna & Audrey. Then she helped me make our traditional pumpkin brownie (this time the traditional way) for the boys.
We had the same group of boys (minus Solomon plus Caden) over to watch the new Mandalorian season that dropped on Disney+ today. Since Wesley is refusing to trick or treat this year, I made them at least post for a photo for me.
