Happy Turkey Day!

Sorry for the lack of upates lately - we were busy with Jason's family visiting. . . More to come!

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Sew cute!

We had a lazy Sunday today - I wasn't feeling much like going anywhere.  We've already visited most of the museums, the zoo, the beach, etc in the past couple weeks.  There wasn't much exciting going on any where and Allie didn't seem to care too much about going any where in particular when I asked her.

I started working on a small sewing project (my goal is to make most of the Christmas presents this year!) hehe, we'll see how this goes.  Allie was bored and hanging around me while I was working so I figured maybe it was time for me to let her try her hand at sewing - something she's actually been asking me to teach her for a while but I was always worried about, you know, kid with a needle.  Anyway, I figure 5 year olds in China make our clothes so she should be able to figure it out.  So I gave her a big embroidery needle (easier to handle and harder to lose or drop on the floor), some felt and sat down and gave her a short lesson and set her on her way.  I cut out the pieces and then just tell her where to stitch them together.  First, she made a Christmas stocking for the kitty!

"Kuromi" was too long to write, so she just wrote "CAT" hehe 

And then she went crazy.  She spent nearly the entire day sewing! I'd tell her to draw something and then working from her drawing I'd cut out the pieces for her. She then sews the pieces together (I usually start the thread for her) and then decorates the end piece.  She loves it - the whole time she kept exclaiming "I LOVE sewing!!"  I think she loves seeing the end product and realizing that she can actually make cool, functional things all by herself. Anyway, I'm thrilled that she loves it so much. And it seems like a really great way to focus her energy and get her to do something that's "quiet."   It's really amazing to watch her - she's actually very careful and you can tell she is very focused on what she is doing.  By the end of the day, she was surprisingly dexterous with a needle (she never once pricked herself), able to thread the needle on her own and able to do several different simple stitches. I was surprised at how quickly she picked it up and how well she understood how to construct things. Each project is more ambitious than the next.

Small pouch, sewn & decorated by Allie

All in all, she made a stocking for kitty, a pouch and a small bag.  I'll have to put up pics of the bag she made, it's really good!

Hat Parade

Sorry - lazy week last week.  Actually I usually update this during my down time at work (shh. . . ) and only worked 2 days last week.  I wish I could keep this kind of work schedule forever!

Anyway, the kindergarteners at Allie's school made hats for their "Healthy Hat Parade" - part of their "Healthy Harvest" theme they had at school.  On Friday they all wore them to the morning school assembly - I like how they do the school assemblies every Friday.

The kids were cute with their crazy hats.  It started pouring rain during the middle of the assembly so there was a moment of all the kids squealing and running under cover to get out the open courtyard.

Allie with her class

Anabel, Allie & Dylan (new man of the moment - hehe)

Allie is starting to learn reading & writing at school! Already!! eek! When we met with the teacher she said they would be reading small books by the end of the year. wow. I think I could barely write "cat" and "dog" by first grade!

Allie's homework.. .

Also, she received her first report card last week!  Pretty good, although it more or less just explained where she was at in grasping certain concepts.

Election Day/Girls' Day

Allie and I both had off Tuesday from school/work because of the election so we decided we'd have a fun girls day!

The night before we went to the library and checked out a bunch of books and a couple movies and stayed up watching the movies and eating popcorn.  Allie passed out half-way through That Darn Cat and I couldn't sit through Barbie Princess Fairy Mermaid Glitter rainbow whatever (yeah I totally made up that title, but I'll bet I'm not that far off - the Barbie movies are THE worst).

On Tuesday, we decided to go to the zoo since we hadn't been in a while.  First, I stopped off at the school to vote.  Ran into some minor problems because I forgot to reregister after we moved. All was okay though.  They gave Allie this ring:

I love how it says "Made in China" right across the bottom of the flag! haha. . . what a statement.
Tried to explain what "voting" was and what we were voting for to Allie. . . yeah, I still don't get it either, kid.

So then I tried to tell her, that as women, it is important to vote because there was a time when some "boys" thought "girls were too dumb to vote" and they had to fight for the right to vote. To which she replied "yeah, but its really the boys who are dumb because THEY FART!" Ah, we'll just have to save that lesson for another time.

After that we headed to the zoo.  Maybe we've been to the zoo too many times because Allie was more interested in the fat pigeons walking around and the guppies in the water than any of the actual zoo animals. Her favorite thing to see at the zoo is still the guinea pigs. They have a gigantic guinea pig cage and a revolving door of guinea pigs (I'm not sure if they just die off quickly or they rotate them, but there's always different guinea pigs. . . hmm. . . ).

There's a lion behind her somewhere.

Anyway, after about an hour, we're both done. Usually there is an argument about eating at the zoo because Allie always wants to eat there and I refuse to b/c the food is really awful and overpriced.  We came to a truce and decided we would go get Yogurtland later.

Hammin' it up for the camera - Yogurtland makes everything better.

Happy Halloweenie!

Allie as a Princess-Kitty-Fairy. She's covering all the bases this year.

I had decided to host a Halloween party at our house this year since our friends had come to the consensus that they no longer had any interest in "going out".  We used to love to go down to Waikiki for Halloween - the main strip around Kalakaua becomes completely packed with people just walking around, checking out other people's costume, taking video, pictures, etc.  It's always good fun.  However, the not fun parts are trying to drive down there, trying to find parking once you've driven down there or if we've taken a cab, trying to catch a cab home isn't easy either.  I guess we're finally getting too old for all of this excitement and I care more about Allie having a good time.  Also handing out candy to the neighborhood kids is fun too. So we decided this year, we would just hang out at our house and hand out candy to the kids.

Anyway, since we were hosting this venture at our house I was in freak-out, OCD cleaning/cooking mode.  Jason left town the day before so it was just me & Allie. I spent the early part of the day cleaning and making last minute preparations for the party.  Allie's school was holding an event so we went were gong to go to that and than trick or treat around the neighborhood surrounding the school.  Her friend, Sabrina, met us there.  There really wasn't too much going on at the school, they had a few simple games for the kids to play and get candy.  When we decided to start trick or treating there were still some house that weren't ready.  Also the road in front of Allie's school is kind of busy and there are no sidewalks and it was dark and sometimes you have to walk kind of close to the road, so it was a little sketchy.  However, we were still able to hit a few houses (plenty of candy for the kids!) but I think we may just return to trick or treating in Manoa next year. (less traffic, sidewalks, more people participating).

Allie and her BFF, Sabrina - Princesses forever!

Monkey

Cute baby pirate! Sabrina's brother, Lucas.

On the way home, I was amazed by the number of kids out in our nieghborhood! They have to walk so far between houses because a lot of the elderly people don't participate.  Anyway, we set up and handed out our candy too. My friends brought tons of candy! Some of the little kids (and even adults) come up and take giant handfuls of candy.  Some of the little kids I feel bad for, you can tell they come from the housing projects and can't afford costumes, and some are really sweet and timid about taking the candy so I don't really care how much they take.  I think that's why I like handing out the candy in our neighborhood, I know the kids come from our neighborhood (not like those who flock to the "nicer" neighborhoods to collect candy. . .ok, we are guilty of this ourselves) and a lot of them come from low-income families.  Its nice to make it fun for them - we decorated our garage up with fake cobwebs, lights,  hanging skulls, etc.   We all dressed up. We had fun. I hope the kids did too.

Mailman Fester (actual mailman) with Mailman Baby Rayne and Mailbox Jaime! Ridiculous!

We're still left with about 5 lbs of leftover candy, but I heard one of the dentist's offices is doing a "candy buyback" -they buy the candy ($1/lb) from the kids and then send it to the troops overseas.  I talk to Allie about doing this and she agreed.  We picked out of few things that we wanted to keep but bagged up the rest. Allie is very serious about getting rid of the stuff that I told her "will rot your teeth out" and also giving candy to "the army" because "they don't have any candy there. haha I'm not sure, she understand what it all means but it works.

This will haunt your nightmares.

Healthy Harvest Day

On the Friday before Halloween, the kindergartners have "Healthy Harvest Day" which tries to get the kids to focus on eating healthy and living a healthy lifestyle (right before they consume mass amounts of candy, I guess? haha).   Each class had to plan some sort of activity and since I volunteered to be one of the parent leaders for the class I got roped into this. Nah, I don't mind it - thereʻs really only a few things we plan for the class each year, so its really not that much extra work.  Anyway,  one class made healthy smoothies, one did yoga, one made ants on a log, etc. So we decided we'd do some sort of physical activity - we did "pumpkin bowling" and "balancing an apple on a spoon race".

man, those little kids beat the apples up - we went through nearly a dozen apples.  The boys are awful.  They would hit them with the spoons, throw them up in the air, kick them. Seriously, what is wrong with boys? Its like they have this need to destroy things - ugh.   Anyway, its was fun - we were wore out by the end! After we completed all the activities with the kids, I stayed for lunch with Allie for which she was very excited!  Mmm... school lunch!  Anyway, we, the parents, were saying we should enjoy that our kids love having us there so much because once they get to middle school that all changes!

Allie & her friend, Zoe, taking turns trying to pick each other up.