Maya's prayers

On our route to Maya's preschool from our house, we pass Collin's school.  And our morning tradition is that at the point we pass Collin's school, we pray for Collin and other family members with Maya in the 3-5 minutes before we arrive at her school.  Some of her recent prayers include:

- That Grammy's toe feels better [she stubbed it over Labor Day but it still receives prayers 2 months later]

- That Collin would be a good listener and get his wiggles out [Collin's excuse the afternoon before when he received a conduct mark was he just needed to get his wiggles out.]

- That Daddy would receive help with the pool, that it wouldn't be green, that it would be blue-y

Here are some other iphone photos and conversations with our kids:

Monday morning, 6:00am, before I even woke Collin up, I came into the living room to see Maya on the couch.

E:  Maya, we stay in our bed until it's light outside or Mommy comes to get you.   How long have you been in the living room?

M:  Maybe 50 hours.

A moment of sweetness - Collin providing moral support to Maya as she asked for a snack at Collin's soccer game -

Maya setting up a tea party for her friends.  She constantly pretends to be the teacher, imagining her friends from school are always with us and instructing them to listen to her book as she reads or to be careful when climbing the jungle gym at neighborhood parks!

On an overcast Monday, we had the park to ourselves, and I was trying to work in some exercise moves as we moved among the equipment on the playground.  Maya imitated, "playing squats" - 

 And enjoyed playing on the equipment the way it was intended too -

Cas:  do you want to go swimming?
M:  I literally do not like kicking and blowing bubbles. [we make her practice her skills before letting her play in the pool normally]
E:  Who says literally?
M:  Grammy [according to my mom, she picked that up from somebody else!]

Collin:  this is my favorite dish to wash (ie lick the icing!)

Between Collin's observations and Maya's dramatic outbursts, we laugh with or at these kids every day!

Halloween 2016

There was a long lead-up to the Monday night Halloween of 2016.  On October 21, Collin's school kicked off the dressing up activities with book character dress up day.  The week before Halloween, his school had red ribbon week where every day there was something different to wear (crazy socks, sports team jersey, etc).  And Maya's school had a two week plan where they were bringing or wearing items related to nursery rhymes or other stories.

It was all we could do to get Collin on the bus on time, so we didn't capture the crazy sock / backward shirt / all red, etc outfits in the morning.  We did get one of super hero Maya.  She originally planned to be Wonder Woman for Halloween.  Though she changed her mind numerous times, Maya was able to wear Wonder Woman on Thursday to school for their super hero day (and then later that evening to Collin's soccer practice)!  Looking happy and looking fierce -

Friday morning was Maya's fairy tale ball.  She went in what was supposed to be her Halloween costume, Belle.  Collin was geared up for the color run at school (followed by sno-cones).

Maya and her friend Gail at school (not pictured, Maya's three boys - Ben, Walker, and Pierre - who reportedly have all received kisses from our silly girl) -

Friday morning, I was able to volunteer at Collin's school's spooky science lab.  My station was a bloody hand print - a combo of a special paper and some magic potion (ie Windex).  It was fun, I always had a volunteer who would let me suck the blood out of their arm, and it was simple.  But the actual experiment took 10 seconds, and then I stalled for the remaining 3 minutes, 50 seconds with 6-12 first graders!

The kids made slime, made tissue paper ghosts stick to balloons after rubbing the balloons on their hair, and made dry ice bubbles - a fun morning for all!

Friday afternoon we went to our church's trunk or treat.  But first, we had to paint Collin's shirt for his homemade Halloween costume, Eli Shane from the cartoon Slugterra (it was so obscure I couldn't order it on Amazon!).  Cas and I had a dress-up party on Saturday, so we had Halloween costumes for the first time in years.  Cas was Grimes, a sheriff from the tv show Walking Dead.  Basically he wore the only costume in his size at the Halloween store on Friday at 3pm.  His cheap costume was clearly ironed on icons, but someone at our trunk or treat thought he was a really officer and started asking him questions! 

We had the lamest trunk or treat game - we ran out of time (mostly due to Collin's costume) and we just grabbed some glow sticks and random bottles of juice/cokes in our house for a ring toss.  We did have candy, which was the main thing the kids appreciated anyway!

Maya in Belle, I'm dressed as a bandit.  The ski hat and gloves were a little toasty in our 85-degree late October weather-

We had a low-key Sunday - no soccer practice, no big community group.  Moments like this - which is what you get when you play hangman with a 6-year-old boy!

Maya wore a Halloween dress from last year for church Sunday morning.  As she was getting in the car, it was evident how much she had grown - the dress was basically a shirt.  I had to scramble inside for some leggings.  Photo to document my first attempt at pig tail buns - which she left alone for maybe two minutes -

On Halloween Monday, we got Collin off to school and then Maya and I met my mom at 9am at the zoo for the last day of Zoo Boo.  Maya was in a pitiful mood on Monday morning - rounds of tantrums in the morning (for the horrors of me not letting her wear dress shoes to walk around the zoo or not letting her have candy in the morning, etc).  The only reason she's smiling here is that she was allowed to climb on the sea lion statue -

The zoo wasn't crowded on a Monday morning, and we let Maya completely set the pace, visiting whatever she wanted.  We stayed at the elephants to watch the baby take a 20 minute bath, saw the cheetahs sleeping, and posed by every statue we passed -

She once again was happy as can be to sit on the immobile bench on the carousel and enjoyed making faces for selfie pictures -

Near the end, we visited the petting zoo, a spot we hadn't been to in over a year despite almost monthly trips to the zoo.  It was cute watching all the kids, most in costume, all over the zoo -  

 Checking out the horned stork -

And posing before we headed to our cars for the ride home -

What a fun girls morning with these two -

Finally it was time for trick-or-treating.  We donned our costumes for a few more pictures -

Maya stayed in her Mulan costume through the zoo, her nap, and all afternoon.  Though she's never seen the movie and didn't know the princess' name, this is what she chose to wear for Halloween -

Family selfie before we grabbed our jack-o-lanterns -

We first stopped by my grandma's for a treat and picture -

Then crashed our friends' neighborhood trick or treating party, where both kids saw classmates and we wandered their family friendly neighborhood with friends from church, work, school, Cub Scouts, sports and pre-school -

At one house the kids were invited to hit a big pinata -

Halloween 2016 plus the ten-day lead up - you were a scream!