Let the Beast (I mean Feast) begin!

Today, Michelle's preschool had a Thanksgiving feast. One of the mom's donated a turkey, and the kids made the other dishes, including Michelle's class making the corn bread.

Michelle was a little confused by all this talk beforehand about a feast. She finally asked me this morning, "Are we going to eat a beast?" I laughed, and told her to make her "mad-cat" sound. That is what her speech therapist calls the "Ffffff" sound - like a mad cat. Once she was able to put the Ffffff sound to the word, she seemed much more excited about the Feast. (instead of eating a beast.)

Happy Fall Ya'll!

I haven't had much time to take pictures lately, or to blog for that matter. But, I wanted to share a couple of pictures of Michelle outside her school with this beautiful tree and this beautiful smile.

Wacky Wednesday - Climbing the Walls

A lot of my blog friends do a "Wacky Wednesday" picture. I haven't done these in the past, but this picture was too good not to share.

All of my kid have climbed the walls. I don't know why, they just do. Michelle is following in all her big siblings footsteps.

Steppin' out with my man!

Last week was the AUSA convention here in D.C. It is a busy week, filled with dinners, balls, meetings, the Army 10-Miler race, and lots of activities. For me, it's kind of like "homecoming". It's a fun time to see people we haven't seen in years. Above is a picture of me with Bill at the Army Acquisition Ball. Isn't he handsome?

I saw several friends we haven't seen in years! Here I am with my dear friend Dianne. We don't live that far apart, but our busy lives keep us from seeing each other as often as we would like. It was fun to catch up on our children and each other's lives. We saw several friends we haven't seen since before our children were born. That's a LONG time!

We finished with the week with the AUSA dinner. It was a fun week, and it renewed my sense of pride in what my husband does for a living. It truly is a noble calling to serve in our nation's military.

Halloween

Michelle went trick-or-treating with her best friend, Luke. Luke is a year younger than Michelle, lives 2 houses up from us, and when Michelle is listing family members, Luke often makes the list. Of course, she describes him as her best friend, but he is still included in the family list.
Last week Michelle's preschool had their annual parade of costumes. We never did get a good class photo, but here you can see some of the girls.Michelle is not the oldest in her class, but she is the tallest. She is even taller than the boys. Who knew we adopted a basketball player ? At her last physical, the Dr. told us she was in the 70% for height and weight. That is not the chart used only for Asian children, that's the standard American chart.

On Saturday one of Michelle's classmates had a fun celebration at a local park. The kids wore their costumes, played games and had fun running around the park. Michelle was trying to "fly" here.

Michelle was Princess Presto from the PBS show Super Why. Her friend Luke was Wyatt from Super Why. I love that her favorite show is about reading and spelling - she thinks she has magical spelling powers when she uses her Princess Presto wand.

You can see that the costume was already looking a little "weathered" even before we got started. With my first child I never let them wear their costume before the big day, but by the time the 4th comes along you realize it's not a big deal if they break them in a little beforehand.

Michelle with all her loot! She was a happy, happy girl.

You might be wondering where Josh is in all these pictures. Joshua wasn't here for Halloween. He was in ...

DISNEY WORLD!!!!!!!

My parents planned a trip to Disney World with my brother and his family. Josh only has 2 cousins, Walker & Abbey. They are very close in age, and so Joshua was invited along to enjoy the fun. He flew down last Friday afternoon as an unaccompanied minor and met them all in Atlanta to continue the journey down to Orlando. I can't tell you how proud I was of my brave 9 year old, flying alone. He told me on the way to the airport, "Today I become a man."

He had 4 days of the "happiest place on earth" with some of the "happiest people on earth". There is something so special about cousins! I'm so happy he had the chance to be with them for such a fun weekend.

On Halloween, Josh and his cousin Walker dressed up like Thing 1 and Thing 2 from the Cat-in-the-Hat Story. Later that evening they added their blue hair and my Dad dressed up as the Cat in the Hat.

Bill Jr. spent the evening with some friends, doing a little trick-or-treating and watching scary movies. I heard from Lizzy that she had lots of fun at college with her first big holiday - I think there was some dancing and costumes involved. Sounds like fun.