The Missing Month

Are you kidding?! Is it really the end of November? I feel like we're still eating the last of the Halloween candy! And have I really not posted anything for almost a month?! I guess that somewhere between school programs, basketball, family visits, and Thanksgiving the month disappeared. Here's a quick recap before the slow-paced December (ha!) sneaks by too:

Aly's Thanksgiving Program

Caroline's Thanksgiving Program
Our little "Smiling Horse"

Jack found a girlfriend at Daddy's game
(did I mention that the Hawks are currently 7-0?!)

Chad and the girls during the post-game interview
Aly was thrilled that Nana heard her say, "Go Hawks" all the way up in NY!

Some sister lovin'

Thanksgiving Day Football

We got to spend a great couple days with Nana and Papa as well as our Alabama family.
Obviously, we didn't use much of the camera during that visit!

Jack feeding his new-found buddy

The kids reading The Nutcracker to...the nutcracker

Super Powers

The girls love Super Heroes and the idea that people have Super Powers. Aly cried at one point when she awoke from a dream in which she was flying and realized that it was not real. Caroline has worn her SuperGirl outfit each day since Halloween and practices flying daily. Once, on the way to school, I looked back at Aly and saw her squinting her eyes at the cars in front of us; when she saw me looking, she informed me, "This is my super power that only I have: I can make things blurry when I look at them." (She apparently doesn't realize the "power" of my astigmatism!).

After thinking about it for awhile, I told them that they do, in fact, have a Super Power--one that grown-ups don't have. I told them that they have imaginations that can make them anything, anytime, doing any action they want. I told them that this power is different because only kids have it.

As I try to keep up with what and who they are pretending to be each day, I realize that this super power of childhood imagination truly is an amazing thing. It allows a cardboard box to be several hours worth of entertainment; it allows a little girl to be a detective, ballerina, and character from a book all at the same time; it keeps them up at night when it fills their closet with scary monsters; and it allows them to have an invisible friend named "Fritz" who is with them always. I can't remember when my imagination left, but I know that our little world will be a lot less interesting around here when these kids' "SuperPowers" are no more.

Junior Prom, revisted.

As I sit at the computer looking at the pictures that I was sure would be Christmas card-perfect, I had to laugh at the fact that the only two that I ended up getting looked like this:






As I thought about it, I realized that Halloween and Prom are really eerily similar in many ways:

10. You decorate with a bunch of things that would be considered either gaudy or bizarre any other time of the year.

9. You visit and revisit stores trying to pick the perfect outfit.

8. You answer the same question leading up to the big day. "Who are you going with?" (Prom) or "Who are you going as?" (Halloween).

7. You spend a long time on hair and make-up, just to find that something is not quite right with the end result.

6. You have to stand around taking a bunch of pictures when you'd rather be doing something else.

5. You get a random group of people together for dinner beforehand but can barely eat because you're either too nervous (prom) or too excited (Halloween).

4. You can't believe that someone else at the party has the same outfit as you!

3. Someone always ends of crying.

2. By the end of the night, you're feet are hurting and you're tired from staying up so late.

1. You're already counting down the days until next year!

Happy Halloween from Popeye, Olive Oyl, Wonderwoman, Supergirl, and Batman