Fall Dance Showoff

Charlotte is taking jazz this year for the first time. She's done ballet since she was 2 years old and done two tap/ballet combo classes, so this year we decided to try out a new genre. So far she's loving it! It's definitely been the favorite. She's been taking with her friend Madison (on her right in the picture below) for several years now. Yesterday was their fall showoff day and they got to wear their costumes to class...

First each girl took a turn practicing some leaps they had just started working on...

Then they did a dance to "The Pumpkin Twist". I took a video for most of it, but did get this one still picture while she danced with her partner. I can't remember her partner's name, but she is good friends with Charlotte's friend, Madison from above...

 

Here's the Pumpkin Twist video...

 

I love watching her dance!

Armstrong Carnival

James is in Mississippi this weekend for the State game, and the rest of us Brookses had big plans scheduled. We had our school carnival Friday night and on Saturday, we were going to go to Sachse's Fall Fest and then our church's neighborhood block party. We were maybe going to squeeze in our neighborhood fall party, too. I was a little nervous about handling all 3 kids (mostly our crazy 2 year old) alone at all of these activities over the weekend. Thankfully, Aunt Kate called right as I was taking these pictures when we were about to leave for the carnival. The drill team and band were cancelled from Sachse's football game, so Katie was able to come with me to the carnival. I was soooooo thankful for her!

My tough ninja...

And cute Rainbow Dash...

And Jake who refuses to wear his Jake headband...

We got ZERO pictures at the carnival because Grey was just too crazy. I don't know what I would've done without my sister. We had a silent auction there, and I bid on a Sweet N Sassy package (at Charlotte's begging), an awesome photography deal (I'm REALLY hoping for this!!), and a month at ASI (I was going to sign Grey up for a class soon, anyway). There were several for lunch with teachers or principal or assistant principal for the day, but neither of the kids wanted to be principal for the day and neither of their teachers were on there for a lunch date. My cousin, Kristin, is a kindergarten teacher there and when I walked by her Saturday morning breakfast date, the highest bid was already $200!!!! Way to go, Kristin! I haven't heard if I won any of the items I bid on yet. Fingers crossed!!

Because it rained so hard this weekend, every single event that we had planned for Saturday was cancelled, so we spent the day in front of the tv...

Grey was watching Cars here, and we watched The Lion King later that night while we ate dinner. We're ready for James to be home in a couple of hours!!

Mom and Dad Duties

Today James was the Aviator Ace at school and the kids were THRILLED! We didn't have this at Hunter's first school and last year (it was called Watch Dogs there), he was never able to do it. He spent the morning in Charlotte's class, and this afternoon he's helping in Hunter's class. He sent me some pictures with each kid at lunch...

The kids got to be on the morning announcements with James and then got to be with him all day. I can't wait to hear all about it when they get home!

James sent this picture of the kids and him before the announcements after I originally posted...

 

 

While the big kids were with dad, Grey and I met one of my college besties, Kristin, and her boys at the Heard Museum. They had a dinosaur exhibit with all of these animatronic dinosaurs that roared. Really loud. Since Grey is in his fearful stage right now, he was very unsure about them. Of course he kept saying, "Dinosaurs not hurt you." in his terrified voice the whole time we were there. I went to take a picture of him right when one of the dinosaurs started roaring. He's mid-startle here...

A little further down the path, we came to the biggest dinosaur there was and he froze in his path...

Sweet Price (he was a little scared, too), walked over and tried to take his hand to help him over to us...

Grey looked at it and tired to give him five (Ha!), but it did help him walk over to us.

We found this little village of houses that the boys loved hanging out in...

You can barely see him, but Price is in the window:)...

 

Such a fun day! Loving my days off during the week!

Pumpkins Not Hurt You

Last Monday the kids were off school and I took off work, so we headed to the pumpkin village at the arboretum. Since it was fair day for basically all Dallas area districts, it was packed. Seriously, all of Dallas seemed to be there. It was worse than a Saturday. The good part of that, though, is that we ran into several friends there, so it was fun to visit with all of them!

So far Grey has been pretty different than Hunter was at this age. He's very rough and tumble - we call him Wreck It Grey - and loves sports already. But over the last 3 or so weeks he has become really fearful kind of out of nowhere. Hunter went through a phase were he would say "_____ hurt you", but that stopped years and years ago. Grey has started in on the "____ hurt you", but to more of an extreme. Hunter was really afraid of dogs and a couple of other things, but Grey will say it about everything! He adds the word "not" in the sentence, though...."pumpkins not hurt you", "moon not hurt you", "train not hurt you", "Buzz not hurt you". Take your pick! It became worse on Monday at the arboretum. I think the pumpkins set him off. He was constantly saying, "pumpkins not hurt you!" in his scared voice and refused to sit by them for a picture. So I didn't get a cute one of all three little loves, but I got several of the 2 bigs...

Look at the terror here...

Notice Hunter posed on the left. Charlotte is beside him, but this is as close as Grey would get to the pile of pumpkins...

They actually have a UNT one!!! Go Scrappy!!

Some of the friends we ran into. Riley and Noah an Hunter were all friends in our old neighborhood. Love and miss them!

 

Then on Thursday we went to the pumpkin patch at Murphy Road Baptist Church to buy our pumpkins for the front porch. Grey was again terrified and refused to get in a picture...

So we decided to force him, and this was the best I could get...

Awesome.

Tonight, we went to Sachse's Pumpkin Prowl and had so much fun! Even Grey did! No whining about the pumpkins either...maybe it's just the big ones that scare him. First they had a costume contest...we didn't get there in time for that part, which wasn't a problem because my 8 year old is apparently too cool to wear the $30 costume that we bought him:/

Then they counted down and all kids under 10 got to run onto the ball field to hunt pumpkins and candy...

Rainbow Dash posing before the hunt...

Our little pirate Jake (of course he won't wear the Jake headband. And he freaked out SHAKING when I put that shirt on, yelling - you guessed it - "shirt hurt you!!!")...

The kids got tons of candy.

And Grey got a pumpkin. Oh, the irony.

Then, Char and I went to wait in line for the haunted hay ride while the boys played at the bounce houses. They joined us just in time...

The Sachse HS theater students were running the hay ride and did AWESOME! They had a witch, zombie, mummy, screeching monkey and some scary horror movie girls and lots of other people that would pose or run beside the tractor. Charlotte and the other girls riding with us shrieked the whole time and Hunter kept saying, "This is so scary!" in the most excited voice ever - with a smile on his face. Grey just sat there and stared, not phased at all. Then when it was over he said, "moon not hurt you!" in his scared voice. That kid is crazy.

 

They were showing Hotel Transylvania on the big screen on the ball field so we went over to watch it, but Grey just couldn't last and the concession stand was taking longer than you can even imagine just to get some hot dogs, so we bailed and came home to eat and watch a movie. Hopefully next year Grey will be old enough to stay for it. Such a fun night!!