Halloween! What are you gonna be?

My kids are constantly changing what they want to be for Halloween. Usually, I wait until the last minute and end up with some cheap costume. Last year I got lucky and my mom sewed Lilly's princess costume, and Jonah used a dinosaur costume that my mom had made for my older brother when he was Jonah's age,

and my sister bought a cute ladybug fairy costume for Jayne.

I love it when other people do all the work for me! But this year, I've decided that I'm going to be remarkably ambitious, for me that is. I am not really a crafty person. I did make my costume last year, which was "cloudy with a chance of showers",

but that consisted of tacking some cotton stuffing onto some fabric--doesn't exactly require much talent or effort.
Anyhoo, this year Jonah and Lilly have told me what they want to be and I'm totally sticking them to it. Jonah would like to be a robot and Lilly wants to be a bat, pink of course. I've got word that my grandma already bought a really cute little angel costume for Jayne for her birthday, so she's taken care of.

I've been looking for ideas on how to make the robot and bat costumes. Here is a picture of a robot one that I really like.

I love that its made out of a plastic container that won't be all beat up after a couple of times wearing it and I just think it's darn cute! I might just cover Jonah's bike helmet in some tin foil for the hat. I think he'd be more comfortable in that than with a pot on his head.

Then I found this fun bat costume made out of an umbrella.

I'm thinking I'll try to do something similar to it for Lilly. If I can't find a pink umbrella, we'll just do the pink feathery boa around the edges and make her ears pink. She's so funny. What she officially wants to be is a "pink princess bat" so we might have to put a tiara in the mix somewhere.

Wish me luck! I'm about to go down the road of "do-it-yourself" and there's a good chance I might not make it.

The Living Planet Aquarium

Nate had last Saturday off, which rarely happens. We've been really busy and under quite a bit of stress lately, so we decided to spend the day doing something fun together as a family. Jonah has been asking to go to the aquarium for about a month now, so we decided to make that our destination.
They've added a whole new rain forest exhibit and some penguins since the last time we were at the aquarium. They now have piranhas, electric eels, an anaconda, and more. The kids loved everything! They have some stingrays that you can touch. Nate, Jonah, and even Jayne gave it a whirl. Jayne's was more by accident. She was playing with her fingers in the water when one swam right under her hand. She didn't seem to mind it though.
We caught their little critter show about the rain forest. We got to see a hissing cockroach, tarantula, a scorpion that glows in the dark, toad, parrots, and macaws up close and personal. I think that was Jonah's favorite part. He loved seeing the animals and learning more about them. Lilly's favorite were the parrots and macaws in the show. She thought it was so funny that they could talk and do tricks. She wanted to take one home with us.

A New "Verizon"

For a very long time now, we have been searching and praying for a job or promotion for Nate. We weren't sure exactly what we were looking for, but we knew that it had to meet these requirements:

• Be not as physically demanding--Nate is one tough cookie, but at the end of the day he has hardly any energy left
  
• Provide for our financial needs
• Give Nate a better work environment, spiritually speaking--I'm sure you can all imagine the colorful conversations and sharing of media that occurs in the tire bays

We've been doing applications and job searches for months now and I'm happy to report that something has finally come to fruition! Nate has been offered a job with Verizon Wireless. He starts on the 27th of this month with a three week training in Denver, CO. Then he'll be a sales representative at one of their stores here. Some of the aspects of this job that we're looking forward to include:

• Full benefits on the first day of employment
• No more working out in the elements--It always broke my heart when he'd come home soaking wet and frozen all winter long.
• Discount cell phone service--Who wouldn't want that, right?
  
• Starting at the same income he earns now, with a real possibility of making more through commissions on his sales.
  

We're so grateful for this answer to our prayers. Patience is a virtue.

Foundation

I am currently on the hunt for a new foundation. No, I'm not talking about a building, or a spiritual/emotional/psychological foundation or anything like that. I'm talking makeup!
I've been using Mary Kay foundation for the last five years or so, but I'd like to find something new. I've liked my MK foundation, but it's not always easy to get my hands on. I'd love to find one that I can just run out to a store and buy because, let's face it, I'm not that great and planning ahead. My current tube of foundation is on its last drops. It may last me another day, maybe two.
So I was wondering if any of you out there in blog-land have a good suggestion. I have light ivory, dry skin. My usual problem with foundations has been that they dry out my skin even more, or they look cake-y or they're too orange or too pink and just don't look natural.
Anyhoo....if you have a foundation that you use and love, please let me in on the secret!

Frustrated

Lots of you commented on my last post about Jonah. Thanks so much for all your words of advice and encouragement. I've begun looking at options and I'm getting a bit frustrated. So I'm going to put it all out here in cyberspace to perhaps get a better perspective or be inspired or just plain feel better.

First, I checked for charter schools in our area and wasn't really too impressed. Then, on the suggestion of a friend who has a daughter Jonah's age that is quite gifted, I called the district's gifted education department. I told them that his teacher had said he passed off his first grade flash cards and is reading at a fifth grade level. She looked up his testing scores from last January and said that while he did well, he wasn't quite high enough to be placed in the district's magnet school. She said they would test him now, but that school is full. She suggested we look into grade acceleration, which is testing to skip a grade. I told her I felt that would be a good step for him, at least to do the test and see where he stands. So she said she'd contact his principal and have her call me.
So I spoke with the principal today. She had already talked to Jonah's teacher about what we'd like to do and the teacher says that he's not ready. She says that while he's advanced in his reading, he's slower in other areas. When I asked which ones, the principal said, "work completion." I'm not exactly sure what she means by that because every time I asked, she'd change the subject. I'm guessing that he sometimes starts his worksheet and then doesn't want to finish it. That doesn't surprise me, because if it's too easy for him, he's going to get bored with it and want to move on to something else, right?

Anyway, the principal basically told me that he's already being placed with the top learning group within his class and that should be good enough. But if that's enough, then why is he not excited about anything that he's learning in class?! The only things he seems excited to tell me about are the books that he checks out of the library and gets to read during reading time. So far he's been checking out the Zoo Books on snakes and sharks, he loves to learn about animals. I look at the worksheets he brings home and they just seem too simple for him.
The principal said I need to meet with his teacher and let her know my concerns. She pretty much passed it off to the teacher saying that his teacher has some gifted curriculum and it's her job to be teaching it to him. I agree. My problem is that, so far, granted it is early in the year, this gifted curriculum is still easy and boring for him. I don't get why they won't just do the test and see where he's at. I'm okay with it if he's not ready for second grade, but maybe they could send him to the second grade class just for reading time or spelling or something. Are you feeling my frustration yet?
I'll talk to his teacher on Tuesday and set up a time to get together. She's a great teacher and I hope she's not taking this personally, I just feel like he needs something more. I'm not saying my child's a genius or trying to push him or overstate his ability. He's not one of those kids who are doing physics in kindergarten or anything. I'm just trying to keep him happy and engaged in his education so that he doesn't grow complacent and go from being the top of his class, to becoming lazy and unmotivated.

I just hate the way they're trying to make me feel like I'm just some snotty parent who thinks my child is smarter than he really is. That's the tone I felt from talking to the principal.

Of course, that's the same tone I got last year when they put Jonah in a different kindergarten class and the teacher wasn't challenging him and he was so bored that he hated going to school and I had to fight to get him put back in the class with the teacher who recognized his ability and actually gave him more challenging material.
I thought educators were supposed to want the best for each individual student. I'm not really getting that feeling lately.