Happy Halloween!

Halloween had a little extra creep this year. Kenzie was a ghost. Mason was a zombie that got stabbed in the head and run over by a car. For the first time Kenzie went out with her friends, not with us. Mason, Felix and I went to Liz and Casey's with Josh and Luke, searching for expensive houses that are no more than ten feet apart.

This sums it up

Mason had his final soccer game of the season last night. When giving his award, the coach said that Mason is the most aggressive player out there and shows off his dancing feet. I think he means that his bullish nature makes him effective, but maybe not the most graceful, as demonstrated in this 1 minute clip: he falls down twice and scores a goal. (Purple shirt, black socks.)

Class photo shoot

...or chance to snuggle the teacher?

New camera

Cindy's new car has a camera. Primary purpose is to make sure the coast is clear when backing up. Secondary purpose...

Mud ball

Karate

Mason got another belt, still loving karate.

Hall art

Big ears

Cindy and I were talking about our yard. Nothing to do with the kids. Mason yells from the other room, "You know I can hear every word that you're saying. And I do NOT need to work on my listening!!"

Sidelines

Grandpa came to Felix's game tonight. Mason brought the football.

Helmet head

Leavenweird

I think we all officially agree now that Leavenworth is a very strange place. Felix confirmed it today. There's not a lot of German in that "Bavarian Village" in Eastern Washington, but there is a lot of crazy. At least it was a nice day for a drive (in our new car). Had I not taken the very long route home, we would all be in better spirits tonight. But at least we got some pictures.

Stubborn streak

Kenzie has such a stubborn streak. We always say that some day it will be an amazing trait that will take her anywhere she wants to go....if we all live through it. Ninety nine percent of the time she is an charming, fabulous kid, but that one percent is something that stands on its own. Today we went shopping (at my work). She was tired and a minor incident turned into a battle of the wills, one that I was surely not going to lose to a nine year old.

She simply cannot, and will not, back down. We video-taped the incident for fodder for her later essay writing. We told her that we were doing it, but she still couldn't calm herself down or dig her heels out of the cement she was pouring.

So, when she finally did take a breath, we told her that she owed us a 600 word essay. (The first, several months ago, was 200 words. The second, a couple of months ago, was 400 words.) She accepted her punishment and when we got home, she went upstairs. Progress, we thought!

After about an hour and 246 words she came down to see if I would accept these heart-felt words as enough. I wouldn't read them until they reached 600. She again dug in her heels and increased the word count to 700. Still she didn't budge. Then she said, "fine, you don't like this?"...and tore up the paper. "Bummer," I said, "now you have 800 words with no head-start."

So, the afternoon was long, but she went back into her room. I eventually served her dinner in there as she wasn't up to her 800 words. At about 500, she asked if her 246 would count toward her goal, but I was sorry to report that those were torn up and wouldn't count. So, in the end she wrote 1,046 words, and came out very humble and sorry. The essay appeared very heart-felt and included words such as "flabbergasted" (sorry, just 1 point) and "alas." She says all the right things, but we will see if the behavior changes however.

I did let her know that next time it's 1,000 words and it will need to be typed. The good news is that typing will automatically count your words. The bad news is that she doesn't know how to type.

I'll stay still if I can play a little longer...