Thanksgiving 2013

We celebrated Thanksgiving on Friday so that more of our family could get together. There was lots of food, fun, laughter, and stories. Boogs really looks forward to hanging out with his cousins.

Every year, we pass out leaves for everyone to write down what they are thankful for. Some years, we make a Thankful Tree with the leaves. This year we attached our leaves to Boogs' Thankful Turkey craft. Boogs said it looked like the leaves were trying to bury the turkey.

We almost had enough room at the big table for everyone, only had to sit three at the kid table.

The food was good this year. I am not the best cook so sometimes things don't turn out how they should (burnt crust on apple pie). We had turkey, ham, Daddy's stuffing, roast with potatoes, green bean casserole, salad, veggies, GF rolls, wheat rolls, and way too much dessert.

This is the only group shot of the family I got that was not blurry. Unfortunately, Gabriel was pushing up his glasses. We missed my brother and his wife, but he had to work.

Boogs and Little J (who is all of the sudden not so little anymore) played Skylander for a good part of the afternoon.

 The big cousins were upstairs playing other games.

 Movie time!

 My honey and I spent a lot of quality time together cleaning up the kitchen.

 Boogs and Daddy had a special song to share. They played Amazing Grace for Nonnie.

This year is flying by so quickly. Hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving holiday!

Fall Break

Boogs had the entire week off for Fall Break/Thanksgiving. We only have one story themed lunch to post this week.

Billy Tartle in Say Cheese by Michael Townsend

I am so glad we read this book after picture day. Billy wants to look cool for his school picture. He tries to get his mom to give him a spiky mohawk haircut. When he realizes his haircut is just like all of his other plain haircuts, Billy gets very upset. The barber lets Billy take as many lollipops as he wants. The lollipops make Billy's teeth turn red. That gives him an idea for how to make his class picture extra special. Billy makes sure he has enough lollipops for all of his classmates before picture time. Boogs laughed at this book but said he would not do that. Boogs likes having "normal" pictures.


Boogs and I did not do much this week. We spent a lot of time at home just reading, relaxing, playing games, baking, and decorating for Christmas. We did leave the house to go to a movie, shop, swim team practice, and library. It was pretty cold most of the week. There was actually frost on the ground most mornings.  Boogs and the neighborhood kids warmed up by spending hours playing and riding bikes and scooters up and down the street.

 Boogs had a friend over to help make a maze for the hamster.

 Boogs was a big help with setting up and decorating our Christmas tree.

 I always enjoy getting out the ornaments. One of our yearly traditions is for Boogs to pick out a new ornament each year. I use a thin line Sharpie to put his name and the year on each of his new ornaments. When he grows up he will have a small collection of ornaments for his own Christmas tree.

Family Skip-bo Game

 Boogs helped make an apple pie for Thanksgiving dessert.

Daddy spent the afternoon hanging up our Christmas lights. Oh, it made me nervous when he was up on that ladder.

  The lights look so pretty and festive.

We enjoyed our week off and are kind of sad that regular life, school, and work will have to resume on Monday.

Christmas Gift for Teacher

Boogs is in 2nd grade this year. For Kindergarten and 1st Grade, we gave Boogs' teachers a 12 Days Until Christmas Break gift basket for their holiday gift. This year, I found a cute box at Michaels Craft store to use instead of a basket. Yay, I got to use a 40% off coupon on the box, too.

The teachers at Boogs' school fill out a "favorites" page at the beginning of the school year. They list favorite food, restaurant, snacks, drinks, what they collect, wish list for classroom, and favorite places to shop. We used Boogs' teacher's list to fill the gift box with little goodies.

Doritos, Coke Zero, Lindt chocolates, lotion, red blinking nose, bronze Sharpies, checkers, markers, Kit Kats, sticky notes, note pad, and gift card.

I wrap each item in tissue and place it in the box. Whew, the soda took up a lot of room.

I am going to attach a note to the box that says, "It is not quite time for the 12 days of Christmas, but it is time for the 12 Days Until Christmas Break Countdown. To help you make it through the long last days until the holiday break, we put together a little box of treats. You can open them all at once or pull one out each day until the break begins. Thank you for all you do to make your classroom a special place for your students."

Boogs is going to make a card and we will put an "Open Me Last" note on it. This card will contain a gift certificate and reveal that the gift box came from Boogs. 

I am going to drop the box off for the school's office to deliver to the classroom on Dec. 5th. 

Last year's basket can be found here:



Be sure to check out the wonderful sites I link to on my sidebar! 

Lunches November 18th - 22nd

Boogs' lunches are inspired by the books we read at bedtime the previous evening. Each night, Boogs reads one book to me and I read a book or a chapter of a book to him. I usually post his lunches once a week. Click on the "lunches" label at the end of this post to see lunches from previous weeks. We like to pack our lunches in ELBs and Laptop Lunchboxes.

Captain Arsenio: Inventions and (Mis) Adventures in Flight by Pablo Bernasconi

Boogs and I both loved this book! It is a clever, fun, and hilarious "biography" about a made up inventor from the 1700s. Captain Arsenio was an inventor who was obsessed with being able to fly. This book tells the story of his determination to invent the perfect flying machine. His attempts were humorous and always had disastrous results. He almost always needed medical attention after his machines failed. Boogs really liked Captain Arsenio's Motocanaray - woolen lines were tied to a flock of canaries to achieve flight. Boogs laughed the most while reading about the Hamstertronic - a hamster-in-a-wheel powered flight machine. The hamster parachuted to safety while Captain Arsenio was overcome by gravity. The Captain never gave up, his journal was filled with many plans and designs of flying machines. We read this book several times during the past couple of weeks. Boogs, Daddy, and I have been having our own interest in flying lately. I went tandem skydiving a few weeks ago and Boogs & Daddy went indoor skydiving last week. We all understand how Captain Arsenio became obsessed with flying.

In the Laptop lunchbox: pb&j Captain Arsenio flying with the Motocanary machine, cheese canaries, Zbar tree trunk which the Captain ran into, hamster parachuting from the Hamsteronic drawn on marshmallows, salad with red & yellow pepper flames for the fires caused by the Captain's inventions, applesauce, and yogurt.

If I Built A House by Chris Van Dusen

When Boogs saw this book on his Scholastic book order form, he knew he wanted to own it. One of Boogs' favorite books of all time is Chris Van Dusen's If I Built A Car. This book was just as much fun. As the book begins, Jack is sitting outside drawing sketches of houses. He then announces to his mother what he would build if he could design his own house. Jack has a wildly inventive imagination and uses it to include a fully automatic kitchen, a living room with trampolines & ball pit, a 200 ft tall tower bedroom, a super-duper art room, a flying (anti-gravity) room, an underwater room, and many other fantastic room ideas. Boogs and I decided that we should design our own houses with unusual rooms. So we got out some paper and started drawing. Boogs included a place to play laser tag, indoor skydiving chamber, underground creature room, and tunnels. He has not quite finished drawing his plans. I can't wait to see what else he adds to his house plan.

In the ELB lunchbox: ham & cheese house sandwich, Cheetos, celery with cream cheese, strawberries, veggies, and yogurt.


Mr. Putney's Quacking Dog by Jon Agee

Mr. Putney has very unusual animal friends. This book invites you to see if you can guess each friend's named based on a simple question. For example: Who wakes Mr. Putney up in the morning? Answer: an alarmadillo. There are 20 different animals with unusually descriptive names. Boogs favorites were the alarmadillo and the socktopus. Boogs and I had fun tying to guess what each animal's name would be. After we finished reading this book, I asked Boogs if he could make up any unusual animal names. Boogs came up with a hamstair to answer his question, "What do you climb up to the treehouse on?"

In the lunchbox: bologna & cheese socktopus sandwich, alarmadillo drawn on marshmallow, green licorice boa constructor with BOA crackers, blueberries, and salad.

This week, Boogs had to stay home from school one day due to strep throat and his school had their Thanksgiving Feast lunch on Friday. So, we only had three story themed lunches this week.

 
Be sure to check out the wonderful sites I link to on my sidebar! If you want to see more book inspired lunches, click on the "lunches" label at the end of this post or go to My Story Themed Lunches board on Pinterest. I would love for you to leave a comment to let me know you stopped by.

Week of November 11th Lunches

Boogs' lunches are inspired by the books we read at bedtime the previous evening. Each night, Boogs reads one book to me and I read a book or a chapter of a book to him. I usually post his lunches once a week. Click on the "lunches" label at the end of this post to see lunches from previous weeks. We like to pack our lunches in ELBs and Laptop Lunchboxes.

Earth to Clunk by Pam Smallcomb

This is such a cute book. In school, a boy is told he has to write to his new pen pal, Clunk from the planet Quazar. The boy is not very happy about writing any letters until he decides to send his bossy sister to Quazar as a gift to his new pen pal. Then the boy and Clunk send each other several disgusting/filthy presents back and forth. The boy's mother demands he get his sister back from Clunk. Eventually, his sister is returned and Clunk comes for a visit. Boogs thought this story was hilarious. He liked seeing what disgusting things the boy would choose to send to Clunk. Reading this book made Boogs want a pen pal of his own, unfortunately I don't have the address of any friendly aliens in need of pen pals.

In the Laptop Lunchbox: pb&j Clunk sandwich, raisins, dried apricot, pretzels, CLUNK spelled out of cheese, and salad.

Lion's Lunch? by Fiona Tierney

 

Sarah was happily singing and strolling through the jungle when a mean lion roared at her. He criticized the way she walked and sang. He pointed out how all the other animals in the jungle walked and made noise and she was nothing like them. He wanted to eat her because she should not be in his jungle. Sarah asked, "If I can do something that nobody else in the jungle can do, will you let me stay?" Sarah drew a picture of the lion. The lion was furious with the picture she drew. He thought he was a handsome lion but Sarah had drawn a mean, red-faced, mad looking lion. The jungle animals agreed that the picture looked just like Lion. The lion became thoughtful and realized he did not like the way others saw him, he wanted to change. Sarah came back the next month and was able to draw a great big happy lion. Boogs and I discussed bullying after reading this book. Boogs pointed out that when people are being bullies it does not make anyone happy.

In the Laptop Lunchbox: almond butter & jelly lion sandwich with grape features & candy eyes, cheese jungle animals, pretzels, mango, broccoli and tomatoes.

Side By Side / Lado A Lado: The Story of Delores Huerta and Cesar Chavez by Monica Brown

Boogs and I were talking about where our food comes from, who grows it, and how it is taken care of. I found this book in the Spanish/English section of our library. It tells how Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez grew up and how they came together to team up to fight for farm workers rights. Boogs was shocked that farm owners used to spray poisonous insecticides on their fields WHILE workers were working in the fields. Huerta and Chavez cofounded the United Farm Workers Union in 1967. Their work brought about change for farm workers. They fought for health benefits, clinics, wages, pensions, and proper treatment. Boogs was interested in this story.

In the ELB: turkey & cheese sandwich with cheese cut out of Cesar & Dolores, U F W picks for United Farm Workers, graham crackers, small container of salad dressing, veggies, and three different kinds of organic grapes.



Just a lunch taken on a day when I had no inspiration. I make Boogs' lunches in the morning, usually between 6:15 and 6:40, while we are eating breakfast and having a bit of spelling practice. Some mornings I just can't get a good "picture" of how to interpret a story into food. This was one of those mornings.

In the Laptop Lunchbox: ham spirals, apricots, raisins, pistachios, fruit snacks, crescent roll, cheese stick, and salad.


The Obstinate Pen by Frank W. Dormer

Uncle Flood loves pens. He has pictures of pens framed on his living room walls. He was delighted to unwrap a new pen and begin writing. He began to write: The following story is all true. The pen did not cooperate, instead it wrote: You have a BIG nose. Uncle Flood tried several more times to write his sentence but the pen continued to mark insults onto the paper. Disgusted, Uncle Flood threw the pen out the window. The pen passed through several people's hands and insulted everyone until it finally found Horace, who knew the true purpose of this pen. Boogs laughed at all the insulting things the pen wrote. His favorite was when the pen wrote in the policeman's ticket book: Kiss her, banana head! We read this book a couple of times during the week we had it checked out. 

In the ELB lunchbox: almond butter & jelly sandwich with Horace drawing on many pages, cheesestick pen, crackers, dried papaya (under cheese stick), broccoli, and applesauce with insults written on top.



Be sure to check out the wonderful sites I link to on my sidebar! If you want to see more book inspired lunches, click on the "lunches" label at the end of this post or go to My Story Themed Lunches board on Pinterest. I would love for you to leave a comment to let me know you stopped by.

iFly for Boogs and Daddy

A couple of weeks ago, I went skydiving. I had so much fun and really want to do it again. Boogs said he does not EVER want to jump out of a plane but thought my skydive video looked pretty cool. Last year, iFly opened in Austin. It is an indoor skydiving facility where you can experience free fall without jumping out of a plane. I gave Daddy a gift card to iFly for his birthday last April, after my skydive he became more interested in going to iFly. Kids can fly too, so Boogs joined him.

(The lighting on the "flight deck" was not very good, so my pictures did not turn out very well. But, Grandmaman, I still thought you would like to see them.)

After classroom instruction time, my boys had to get suited up for their flight.

  Boogs showing how to position his body during flight.

I told them they looked like blue Minions.

 Boogs was looking a bit nervous before his flight.

Boogs did great! He said it was cool and he really had fun. Later he mentioned that iFly has a kids club.

 Daddy had fun, too.

 Here are their videos:




They both had a great time! They were all smiles after their flights. Check out those goggle lines!

My husband has gone skydiving and he said iFly was fun. It was more like an amusement park ride than a real jumping-out-of-a-plane experience.

Hollywood Nights School Event

Boogs' school had a fun dance this year. The theme was Hollywood Nights. There was dinner (pizza), dancing, karaoke, red carpet walk, a costume contest, and a movie in the library. Boogs really wanted to go, but could not decide what star to dress up as. When he was younger, people constantly told him he looked like Macaulay Culkin from the Home Alone movies. So, we decided that Boogs would rock a Macaulay Culkin red carpet look. But first, he had to practice his "aftershave scene look" at home before we went to school.

Boogs rocked the red carpet! He wore the jacket we bought for his Frankenstein Halloween costume in 2011. I knew there was a reason I kept that jacket around.

When we went into the school, Boogs wanted to dance. We made a quick stop at the photo booth and then he hit the dance floor. I did not feel like dressing up, so I went as Macaulay's personal paparazzi stalker.

I love to watch Boogs dance. He dances free and fearlessly. This year, he told me I could stand against the wall with the other parents so I would not embarrass him with my dancing. Awww! Last year he wanted me to dance with him.

 

 The balloons in the gym were a ton of fun for the kiddos to hit around the dance floor.

 After dancing for a bit, it was time for the costume contest. Boogs entered the contest in the Individual Red Carpet Look category. I did not get a very good picture of him. He walked up to the microphone, introduced himself as Macaulay, then did a hands-on-his-face pose. It was so cute! There was a lot of applause and laughing when he did "the look". Boogs was very sad that he did not win the Individual Red Carpet Look prize - $30 gift card to Alamo Draft House.

He was pretty tired at that point. He hung out on the dance floor for a couple more songs and then was ready to head home. I think he had a great time, except for the not winning part.

Flashback photos: 2012 School Sock Hop

We have so much fun with this silly and sweet boy!