October

Molly had a field trip and I got to go.  We went to the pumpkin patch.

Ms. Stanton's 1st grade class, 2013-2014

 I was in charge of keeping track of these three cuties.

Jade Boynton, Rebecca Greer, Molly

They are good girls so it wasn't hard.

We had lunch at a park and then went to BYU to their Museum of Paleontology.

Rebecca, Molly, and Jade with Kyson Romney

I hadn't been on a bus for years but I remembered all the old games we used to play on field trips.  Molly and I taught her friends how to play the game "I'm going on vacation and I'm going to take..."-the first person says something that starts with an a, the second person says the a item then adds an item starting with the letter b, and so on...I think we made it to the letter o.  Maybe next time I'll teach them "Who took the cookie from the cookie jar" but maybe I won't because I'm not sure my nerves could handle it.

With Molly in school all day and Stockton in preschool a few hours each week, Brynn and I have some one-on-one time.  I had grand plans when Stockton started that I would teach Brynn all the letters in the alphabet this year.  Well, that hasn't exactly panned out, but we did manage to get all the way to the letter A.

"A is for Alligator"

Stockton is gone during lunch so what realistically happens is that we drop him off, run an errand (library, Macey's, Costco, music store are the most frequently visited), then home for lunch.  I read books while she eats, then I eat, clean up, and then it's time to pick Stockton up.  I'll have more time with her next year when Stockton goes to Kindergarten and we can work on letters then.

Molly talked and talked about having a Halloween party with her friends, a "Haunted Mansion."  She made posters and talked with all her friends about it.  I kind of dragged my feet...I had just thrown a Harry Potter party so I was all partied out.  But she kept talking and planning so finally I said she could invite some friends over the Friday morning of Fall Break for about an hour.  I gave her $10 to spend at the dollar store and told her she had to plan everything.  Well, she stayed in her budget and did all the planning, and it turned out to be pretty fun.

The first game she had set up was spider tag.  She used duct tape to make a huge spider web in the living room.  One person was the spider and you tried not to get tagged by her.  If you did, you were either out or you turned into a spider too.  The last person to get tagged was the new spider.

The next activity was door-to-door trick-or-treating.  She had the older kids (Jade, Porter, Elise, and herself) stationed behind bedroom doors and the little kids went trick-or-treating a few times to each door.

The next game was ghost hide-and-seek.  Everyone hid from the person who was it, the "ghost."

Stockton hiding under the computer desk

And the last thing was to gather around the table for red Kool-aid, or a nice, cold drink of blood.   

Austin Jones, Rhys and Hazel Howard, Stockton, Evelyn Jones, Jade, Elise Jones, Molly, Bailey and Porter Boynton, Brynn

These girls told a pretty funny joke.

After the party we piled in the car and headed to Gardner's Village.

Abby, Stockton, Molly, Brynn, Grace, Tessa

We met up with my family like we do every year.  Grandpa even came this year, a definite bonus!

Ben, Grace, Molly, Tessa, Grandpa, Stockton, Brynn, Chloe, Abby

The kids love finding all the witches on the scavenger hunt.

 

We went on a Friday night at it was so busy!  There were lots of ladies dressed up in witch outfits.  Some of them were quite extravagant.  We couldn't believe how much this one looked like the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz.

Chloe and Molly