Hello November

We finished out October in true Pfeiffer fashion...by rushing around town.  Immediately after school, we had to rush home so I could get Kinsey ready for trick-or-treating and Kaitlyn ready for gymnastics.  I took both girls with me to gymnastics and Jason met me there as soon as he got off work.  He took Kinsey trick-or-treating while I stayed and watched Kaitlyn.  As soon as she was done, we rushed home and got her ready for the last hour of trick-or-treating.  We met up with Jason and Kinsey and finished out the night around the neighborhood.  By the time we stopped at a friend's house and ate dinner, we didn't get home until almost 10.  Needless to say, the girls were extremely tired and ready for bed as soon as we got home.  Here are some pictures from the night.

Kaitlyn ready for gymnastics

Kinsey's ready for trick-or-treating

Waiting on dad to pick her up so she can get some candy

"Here's my bucket!  I'm ready."

Kaitlyn finally making it out to trick-or-treat.

I hope you had a great Halloween!  So goodbye October...and hello November.

Pumpkin crafting

It is well known to those who know me that I do not like holiday decorations at my house.  Before you jump to conclusions, let me clarify, I do thoroughly enjoy holiday decorations at other peoples houses.  In fact, I even love to drive around and look at decorations that people put on the outside of their houses also.  But for me to put up decorations....not happening.  I put up a Christmas tree every year-even though we have never spent one Christmas at our own house because we are always out of town.  That is the extent of my decorating.  Decorations are just not my thing.  Period.  

In stark contrast to that, I love making holiday crafts with my children.  Usually, we give our crafts away as gifts (I know...those lucky people) but they are made with love by the girls.  Or we make them so we can hang them on our only decoration...the Christmas tree.  

I don't usually do Halloween crafts with the girls, mainly because we never have time since we are usually in school during this time.  Now that we are on fall break, we have had plenty of time to do some crafting.  Yesterday we decided to make clay pumpkins.  My only experience with this was in elementary school when I made a pumpkin that my teacher fired in a kiln.  I do not have a kiln so that was out of the question.  I found a recipe for salt dough (super easy...just salt, flour, and water).  In typical fashion, I added red and yellow food coloring,to make them orange, and pumpkin spice to the dough to make it a prettier color and better smelling.  

After mixing the dough together, it was really hard to work with.  We had to let it set for a little while to dry out before we could begin working with the dough.  We used different kitchen tools to shape and "carve" the pumpkins.  

After the girls got done with their pumpkins, I gave them a bit of a face lift.  Even pumpkins need to look their best.  We baked them in the oven at 170° varying the openness of the oven door for about three hours and then completely closed for the fourth hour.  

They are still not completely dry yet. But when they are, I have the perfect little shelf for our very first Halloween decorations.  

Thirty-one

Yesterday, I met up with my great friend, Emma, and she delivered my thirty-one stuff I ordered at her party.  This was my first thirty-one purchase so I'm excited to see how the merchandise holds up and if it's everything I'd hoped for.  

As a first timer, I was a bit overwhelmed at all the items.  I didn't go totally unprepared.  I had been looking at the online catalog for a while and had a good idea of what I wanted.  I knew I wanted personalized lunch bags for the girls.  I let each of them pick out their own patterns and font for their names on the front.  I knew I wanted something too, but I had no idea what.  I guess I was hoping that something would really pop out at me when I got to the party.  

The consultant had tons of stuff for us to look at.  I found the lunch bags that I was ordering for the girls and I have to say...I was very disappointed because they are h.u.g.e.  Like I could pack a whole weeks worth of lunches in them huge.  I think I asked eighteen different times if there was anything smaller.  Of course, the answer was no every time.  I even looked at the possibility of ordering something that was not an actual lunch bag and using it for that.  Unfortunately,  doing that meant that I couldn't get the girls the patterns they had picked out themselves.  

Ultimately, I decided to go ahead and get the humongous lunch bags that are about the size of the girls themselves.  Luckily, they use them for lots of things other than just lunch at school.  They will be perfect for snack bags in the summer at the pool and for long car rides on vacation.  

Since I spent over  well over $31, I was able to take advantage of a great deal.  I got a nice size utility tote for just $7.  This will be my new tote for all of my teaching materials that I lug back and forth to school.  It has lots of pockets on the outside and has lots of space inside for all of my stuff that I never really seem to use but have to have anyway.  

Here's a peek at what we got:

You can check out all of the thirty-one products for yourself here.  Enjoy!

New stuff

Nothing is better than setting a shopping goal and then actually achieving it.  Yesterday's goal was to find some reasonably priced cheap, but cute, shirts for Kinsey that would get her started for the fall season.  I wanted to purchase at least five shirts for about $30.  Sounds impossible, right?  Not so much.
I went to Old Navy and found some amazing deals!  Almost their entire inventory is on sale right now, so that made my goal even easier.  I was able to get three long sleeved shirts, two short sleeved shirts, and one zip up fleece.  A total of six items for just $32.  I even snagged two of those shirts for $1.39 each and got two shirts for Kaitlyn.  Here are the girls in their best catalog poses, each with one of their new shirts.

 

Last night we traveled North to Fort Wayne to visit our family.  This is an eventful weekend because while I'm here I got my hair cut (pictures below) finally.  It has been so long since I cut my hair so it was long over due...as evident by the pictures.   

And, yes, I have the same sweater on in different colors.  That was totally unintentional.  When I packed for the weekend, I didn't realize I grabbed the same thing in two different colors.  Actually, I didn't even know I bought the same sweater in different colors.  In my mind, they were two absolutely different sweaters.  When I got my hair cut, it made my neck itch so I changed...into the same sweater.    

Also, I get to meet up with my friend, Emma, and get all of my 31 stuff that I ordered last weekend. I will post pictures of my awesome new merchandise tomorrow when I get it!

It's time for the YMCA

Swimming seems to be the default fun activity that we do around here.  Anytime we have nothing to do, swimming is always the answer.  Our YMCA membership gets a great workout.  

Our swimming trip was pretty uneventful...even for us.  There weren't many children there because, again, all the schools around here are still in school.  There was one other parent there, who of course couldn't resist asking me why my children were not in school.  Only this time, she didn't think we were skipping; she asked if my children were home schooled.  I have learned quickly that people around here don't like it when children are not in school (even when you try to explain that you are on fall break for two weeks...it's like they don't even hear you) and they will certainly ask what the heck you are doing.
Geesh...I wonder how today will go since we are going out shopping.

The Tooth Fairy's mailing address

Jason and I try to be the best Tooth Fairies we can possibly be.  However, sometimes, it's a pretty tough job and last night was no exception.
It sounds like an easy gig, I know.  Sneak in to a dark bedroom, trip over the only toys in the room that always hurt your feet (or make obscenely loud noises), feel around under a pillow, replace a tooth with a gold dollar (well, that's what this tooth fairy uses), all while trying not to wake a sleeping child.  What could possible go wrong?
What could go wrong is that the child might not be the calmest sleeper in the world and somehow lose the little bag the tooth is in from the time you put her to bed to the time you go in and try to replace it with money.  Such was the case last night when I tried to do my tooth fairy duties.  I could not find that tooth anywhere!  I searched until she started to stir and then the heck out of there.  I even sent my back up fairy (Jason) in to try to find it.  We had no luck.  We left the gold dollar under her pillow and knew we would have some damage control in the morning.
When we woke up, Kinsey was as happy as could be with her gold dollar.  It was Kaitlyn, however, that was distraught by the fact that the tooth fairy did not take Kinsey's tooth.  In a very sleepy voice, rubbing her eyes with one little fist, she holds up the little tooth bag with the other and says, "Do you know how to mail this tooth to the Tooth Fairy?  She forgot it."

A successful day

Today is day two of our fall break and I already feel like I've gotten more accomplished than I have in the past nine weeks. Today's agenda included:

• Setting up a new life insurance policy for myself ü This is something that's been on my to-do list for about nine weeks now.  Good thing I'm still alive and kickin'.  
• Finalize & close all bank accounts at our old bank to complete the transfer to the new bank ü After standing in line behind one person for almost 20 minutes with two children in tow, I was not upset to bid this bank adieu.  I know it's not the bank's fault the person in front of me couldn't make up her mind, but it is frustrating when the line is almost out the door and there is only one teller anywhere to be found.
• Try a bubble painting project outside with the girls ü Although we did complete this project, it didn't turn out like I'd hoped.  I read some fun craft projects online for the girls to try during our time off, and this one sounded fun.  It also helped that all we needed were bubbles and food coloring (both things I happened to have).  I don't know if you've ever tried to blow bubbles and intentionally try to get them to land on a piece of paper, but it is almost impossible.  We ended up putting the paper on the ground and blowing the bubbles directly onto the paper while hovering about 5 inches above the darn thing.  Since it was breezy, of course the bubbles kept blowing away, thus not creating any kind of cool design on our papers.  I am also positive that our neighbor was not watching her dog do his business outside, but was instead staring at us to see what the heck we were trying to accomplish.  To which I answer, absolutely nothing, neighbor lady.  
• Let the girls make their own mini pizzas for lunch (the recipe is on my recipe page) ü This is always a success.  A delicious success.  If you have children that love to help in the kitchen, I highly suggest trying out the recipe with them.  It is super simple, quick, and fun!
• Take the girls to the park to play ü Man did I get eyeballed today!  Let me remind you that my children and I do not attend and teach in the same school district that we actually live in.  So when I was in public with a kindergartner and a second grader (who were not in school), I got some funny looks.  We were asked by four people...yes, FOUR...if we were skipping school to enjoy the beautiful day.  To which I laughed to myself and thought about how Kinsey cried last year when she had to leave school two hours early because she was deathly sick.  There is no way she would ever miss school intentionally and ruin a perfect attendance record that would jeopardize her end of the year awards.  Second, do I really look like or come off as the kind of parent who would let their kids skip school; to go to the park no less?  I kept looking around the park half expecting police to jump out from behind the benches and ambush me for truancy.  The other park parents probably feared for the safety of my children (and theirs) as I looked around very paranoid, like I shouldn't have been there or just broke the law and ran to the closest park I could find.   I should have pulled out my cell phone and started talking in code and then ended it with, "They'll never find us here."  I'm constantly amazed with how interested people can be in a total stranger's life. 

• Make cupcakes with the girls ü In my mind, this is always a good time.  What child, or adult for that matter, doesn't love frosting the perfect cupcake, putting on colorful sprinkles, and taking that first bite of a warm, gooey cupcake?  Exactly.

• Have the girls work on their homework packets from school ü Yep, this was about as fun as it sounds.  But...mission accomplished.  I guess all that fun has to be balanced out with something.  

Yesterday, Kaitlyn told Jason and I that she only falls asleep and takes a nap when she's "had a really busy day and worked really hard like at school and stuff."  

Judging by those standards, today was a very successful day :)