The Ghost Walk

Bruce Springsteen made an appearance at the annual Pembroke Hill Ghost Walk to celebrate Halloween. The walk was moved inside the early childhood building as we have been getting drenched with rain for the past 3 days. Anyway, it was a fun morning with the kids in the Plaza Room. I got to read Halloween stories to the groups of kids and they all enjoyed playing games and making spooky crafts. Here are some more pics from the walk and the party...

And this last picture is for my mom (and I know my cousin will appreciate it too!)... Look! I'm using the iron!

The 6th Annual Eakin Pumpkin Carving

Today was the 6th annual pumpkin carving at the Eakin's house. The carving was on hiatus last year due to the fact that Mia had just been born so this year was one of the best! The kids had a great time carving their spooky pumpkins and eating all kinds of sugar. Here are some pictures of the fun after the carving...

And after all the balloon fighting, Elliott was determined to take on Buzz Lightyear!

Happy Birthday Ari and Asher!

Tonight we went to a BIG first birthday party for Ari and Asher Beznovsky. These two little guys are Sam and Noah's little twin brothers and Chris adores them. The party had about 100 people at it and it was at a Chinese restaurant and about 75% of the people there were Russian (Debbie's husband's family is from Russia). There was even a Russian singer there which Chris loved. Even though Ari and Asher only stayed for a little bit, all the other kids had a blast for a long time! Chris and the other kids danced and ran all over the place for most of the night. Here are some of the pics of Chris getting his dance on...

Good times were had by all! If we didn't have a little man who was up 2 hours past his bedtime, we could have all stayed all night!

The Boss

Let it be known that for Halloween this year, Christopher chose to be none other than the Boss himself, Bruce Springsteen. And yes, this was his choice. Ever since Grammy and I went to a Bruce Springsteen concert last year, I have put his music on in the car and Christopher really likes it. He will often request "Born to Run" and "Born in the USA" as well as more recent songs from their latest album. So a couple of months ago when I asked Chris what he wanted to be for Halloween, he talked about being Simba from Lion King or maybe a witch but he never really committed. Then one night we were out to dinner and out of nowhere he said, "I know what I want to be for Halloween this year! BRUCE!" Needless to say, I am very proud of my boy... So yesterday was American Century's annual trick-or-treat event at the office and Chris thoroughly enjoyed getting a jump start on this year's candy collection...

I was even impressed when several people at the office correctly guessed which rock star Chris was dressed as! After collecting all kinds of sugary treats, we returned to Daddy's office where we all enjoyed a little candy.

Chris even found Daddy's favorite candy (Swedish Fish) and shared some with him. Anyway, this Jersey girl is very proud of her little Boss...

Birthday Time

Christopher and some friends from the hood got together yesterday to celebrate our neighbor John's 6th birthday! The party started off with an hour of jumping at Sky Zone and then ended up back at the Hall's house for some cake, ice cream and presents. They all had a blast. The little girl in the picture above (Maddie--who has been friends with John since they were babies) celebrated her birthday too so it was twice the fun! Here are a couple other pics including one of sweet Mary Jane, John's baby sister...

In other news, I'm not saying these two are BFFs, but this is how I found the two doggies when I finished up getting ready this morning. They are definitely getting closer!

Doggies

Trust me, it's not always this peaceful but every once in awhile, these two pups know how to curl up and relax together...

Weekend Pictures

Downtown Airport Field Trip

Christopher and his class took their first field trip of the year to the downtown airport in the heart of Kansas City. The airport has a great museum as well as a hangar full of airplanes that they could go and check out. We had a great tour guide who was a pilot himself and flew some of the older TWA planes back in the 1950s. The kids got to actually go inside two of the planes to see how people used to fly back in the day. Let me tell you, there was some fancy flying back then! They had a section where people could sleep and dine (with silver no less!) and the seats were huge! With no overhead storage, the interior of the plane seemed expansive. Here are some pictures from Hangar 10...

At one point, Ms. Rommel had the children sit down and draw what they saw. Christopher liked this one open engine he saw so that's what he worked on...

There was also a flight simulator that the kids sat in and pretended to fly. The tour guide even connected the radio to O'Hare's air traffic control station so they could listen in to a very busy airport!

Next we toured the airline history museum where they had a large model of a 747. One side of the model was a cross section that showed the seating arrangement in a 747. Now, if you've been around Chris in the past 8 months, you know about his little obsession with seating arrangements in airplanes (i.e.-"Mommy, does that plane have a 3-2 or a 3-3 or a 2-1 or a 2-3-2?" etc). Well this model showed exactly what was upstairs and downstairs and how many seats the plane was across.

Finally, the kids in our group got to watch a short movie about air travel and they watched it in style. First class seats! They were so big that Chris and Andy got to share a seat together...

It was a very fun field trip and it was my first trip as a parent rather than a teacher. It was nice to be responsible for just 2 kids rather than all 18! We will definitely go back to this museum with Daddy because there were still a few things Chris didn't get to do simply because there were too many kids.

Recent pics

Here are just a few recent pictures from the life of Christopher. First up is Chris very happily flying a cool Lego plane that Daddy built for him:

Next is Chris sporting his new coat from Grandma Jan (which we've had to wear quite often on this chilly week!):

Here he is dressed up as a "horse secret agent." And yes, he taped the mask to his face...

And finally, our two puppies were happily curled up this morning on their respective pillows...

Today is Christopher's class trip to the downtown airport so I'm sure we'll have some pictures from that later on today!