M video

Alright.  Since you begged...

Micah's silly singing in King's Kids

http://youtu.be/4rLs5XucsW0

Party Girl

Claire went to her friend Addison's bday party on Sat.  Had a TERRIFIC time.  It was held at the 4-Star Gym, run by one of the workers there, and the girls got to do all sorts of games and gymnastics activities. 

 Claire trying to stand on her head. :)

 One of Claire's best friends, Audrey, is very tall for her age-- she can easily pick up Claire.

 And Claire picked up Marlie, the younger sister of the birthday girl.

 Above-- Claire jumping into the pit.  Below-- Claire and friend Jenna in the pit

WV Leaves

Calculator

This is one of Micah's favorite entertainments.  Besides games, he likes best to play with timers and calculators.  Not cars or trains or blocks, etc.  Those things are only for when someone else will play with him.  When he's entertaining himself, it might be with a book or paper and pencil/crayons/paints or playdough... but, otherwise, it's with timers and calculators.  Sometimes, I feel guilty about him spending a half hour or more at a time just watching the timer run out (seems an odd occupation, doesn't it?) but that's what he loves to do.

No Stage Fright

This is Micah on stage at church last week.  Sorry, we don't have a better still pic, and I'm not going to post the video because it's embarrassing. :)  Let's just say he doesn't have any stage fright.  I didn't actually see him up there, because my children's choir also sang that day, so I was occupied elsewhere-- when I saw the video later, I could have crawled in a hole.  He sang, oh, yeah!  He sang!  He also did some motions.  He also did extra dance moves and stuck his tongue out at the camera, etc.  I think he was hamming it up because he saw Daddy over there with the camera.  I think before his choir sings for Christmas we'll have to have an in-depth conversation about how to act on stage.

Vote

This is what the girls did while Daddy waited in line to vote.  We have a really nice school to do that in now (new one in Spring Mills)-- farther drive, but much nicer waiting environment.  Micah and I waited about 75 min; I think Chad's wait was a bit shorter.  I think maybe they need to get some more voting machines-- we only had 2, so the line inched along.  For this election, the girls really learned a lot.  We made/encouraged :) them to watch much of the debates, conventions, and the election results on the 6th.  We had quite a few discussions on the electoral college, etc.

PA Leaves

 Chad took 3 kids up to PA to rake Gpa and Gma's leaves and pick up their storm sticks.  Thankfully, the neighbor's granddaughter and her boyfriend also helped, so they got it all cleaned up.

While they were there, Katie was on the IBC high school retreat-- had a great time.

Hurricane Halloween

 This is what the kids did on the first morning of no school-- piled in our bed and were silly together. :)

 Above-- how are backyard looked on Tuesday, after the worst of the wind went thru.  We had the leaves mostly raked before that...

 Our collaborative jack o'lantern.  The girls helped me plan it; I bought and carved; Jenna found its accessories.

 Ever see a snowman playing piano?

We skipped church last night to do Trick or Treating (yikes!).  Not that Halloween is a priority with us, but we feel like it's one of the only times the neighbors are out (except when there's a marijuana bust and we haven't had one of those since last year :), and we felt like we needed to be friendly with the neighbors.  Micah was a VERY cute clown; Claire was Laura Ingalls; Jenna was a snowman; and Katie was our candy/tract passer-outer.  Cute bunch, eh?  Weather was nice and there were quite a few kids out.

Concert

 Chad took Katie and Jenna to a concert in Frederick Sunday pm.  Main group was the Newsboys.  They also got to see/hear Building 429 and a group I never heard of called Illumine?  They had a great time.  Enjoyed the music and all the bells and whistles.  Made it esp good that they ended up not having school on Mon, since they got home so late.

 Above-- the Newsboys drummer on a circular platform that turned sideways and then spun in circles.  I don't think I could do that without throwing up, much less keep drumming all the while.