Junie B. Jones

Aaron and Claire have a new obsession with Junie B. Jones.  She's a kindergartener/1st grader who is the star of the book series written by Barbara Park.  Aaron has been enjoying reading the books for a while (they are chapter books and he can fly through one in less than half an hour!).  Claire has enjoyed them a little, but when we took a road trip over fall break to visit Poppy, I checked out Junie B. Jones on audio.  Claire absolutely LOVED it!  Her favorite one was Junie B. First Grader, Boo! (and I mean it!).

I have a love/hate with Junie B.  She can talk disrespectfully and she uses words like "dumb" and "stupid" which my kids know I don't want them to say.  But her stories are very cute and the kids relate to them well.  I love how she encourages not only reading, but also writing since Junie B. keeps a journal. 

The reason I had checked out the audio books is because I was chosen as one of two chaperones for Aaron's field trip the following week.  We were going to see a Junie B. Jones play at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts.  I love going on field trips with Aaron's class!  This was our first one of the year.  I had found out which three books the play was based upon, and those three books were on the audio I chose. 

Here's Aaron, excited to see me when his class arrived at the Cannon Center.




We had some time to kill once we got seated, waiting for the show to start. The auditorium was full of elementary school classes from all kinds of schools!




The other chaperone was Danielle, Sophia's mom. She and I have become friends this year!


Aaron's classmates wanted to take goofy pictures while we waited. LOVE this age!








We had a great time! Aaron was disappointed when I didn't check him out after the field trip, but they still had half a day of school left and I had work to do at home. The funny thing was that I had taken another mom in my van...we had met that morning at the school and I offered to let her ride with me, and we enjoyed chatting and getting to know each other. Then she checked her boy out and he rode home in Aaron's seat. I never told him though--he would have been so jealous!

Dress Up Days

I love how Claire loves her friends.  Their favorite thing to do when they come over is play dress-up.  We had recently gotten a stash of clothes hand-me-down from my cousin, and in it were a few new princess costumes, so Claire was anxious to have some friends over to play!

So one day we had Emma Kate over while her mom ran some errands. 


They danced on the stage!


Hannah got to wear her first fairy costume, and she was not quite sure what to think!






A few days later, Allie Rae came over to play after school. The girls were so funny that day when I came to pick up in their classroom. They had talked about it beforehand, and immediately started begging when I walked in the door..."Please please please can Allie Rae come to our house to play?" I started to say no, because that's the default answer, but then I stopped and thought, why not? Her mom was okay with it so they came home and played and watched the new Tinkerbell movie. They both dressed up as Tinkerbells!




Allie Rae is about to move away, and I haven't told Claire yet. I'm just not sure how to tell her, and I don't know if she'll understand completely anyway. My heart is breaking for these sweet girls!

Big Scoop Ice Cream Festival

One Saturday in September, we had big plans to take our whole family with Granny to downtown Memphis for the Big Scoop Ice Cream Festival, which is a benefit for the Ronald McDonald House.  On the day before, Aaron came down with a fever virus, so Chris stayed home with him and Hannah, and Claire and I went with Granny and her boyfriend Don downtown.  We had a fun day!  I really hated Aaron had to miss it, but it was good to get more one-on-one time with Claire. 

She got to see DORA!

She really was excited, despite the somber look on her face. She knew it was just a lady dressed in a Dora costume, so she wasn't fooled.

We got to sample lots of ice cream!


Love her eyes in this picture!


Claire and Granny


Claire with some Boll Weevils. These guys were strange!




All 3 of us!


We also walked through the Peabody to see the ducks.


And over by the FedEx Forum, we visited the Rock 'n' Soul Museum, because it was Smithsonian day and we got in free!


Mom and Don


The Rock 'n' Soul museum wasn't very fun with a 4 year old who thinks museums are all like children's museums where you touch and climb on everything.  But I'm glad we went anyway!

Claire was wiped out once it was over. She ended up with the fever virus the next day! Oh well!

*Wink*

Hannah is so super sweet right now we could all just eat her up.  She learned how to "wink" and loves to do it, because she knows it makes us laugh and smile at her.

Hannah's dancing

I love plugging my video camera up and seeing what videos I've taken that I've never bothered to pull off much less put on my blog to share!

I found this one from late August when Hannah had just started walking.  We were listening to Ross King's song "Juicebox" (VERY cute CD!) and Hannah had started dancing.  (She could have sung "pants on the ground" with her saggy pants on!  LOL!) 

Proverbs 16:24

As a big kid, Aaron is now in the big kid choir at church.  They actually do longer productions during Sunday night church a few times a year.  Tonight was his first performance, and he actually had a line to say!  He had volunteered to say a verse, and his was Proverbs 16:24:  "Kind words are like honey; sweet to the soul and healthy for the body."  He told me he didn't volunteer to be in the skit because he didn't think his brain was quite big enough to learn all those words.  We told him his brain is plenty big but he certainly doesn't have to do a skit if he doesn't want to! 

I was proud of my wiggly boy when he said his verse tonight, and he was quite proud too!