Celebrations all around!

A week or two ago, a squirrel decided life was no longer worth living and dived into a transformer effectively ending not only his life, but also the power for half the city! On this same evening, we were heading into town to spend the evening with Dean's parents and Dan and Tina to celebrate the birthdays of Earl (14th), Audrey (17th) and Tina (17th). As we live outside of town, we were not affected by the power outage, so we weren't aware that it had happened until we drove past the point where the outage boundary was. We arrived at Dean's parents' house and decided to bring the party back to our house since Dan and Tina were also without power. So explains the pictures below. Drew helps Audrey put the candles on the cake. The little girl beside Drew is Ana, the daughter of Tina's sister, Vicky.



Not sure where Max was for this moment, but the girls gathered around to blow out the candles on the cake.

Grandma is famous for giving gifts to the kids on her own birthday and this year, they each received a handmade hat, scarf and mittens set knitted by Grandma! Drew models her pink set. Luci got a sage green set, but was too busy playing the piano to pose for a picture.

What a ham! Both girls love their sets!

Ana, Max and Sonja playing a trio. If you look closely, you can see Max's rainbow hat and scarf. He looked just like a Rasta mon!

Last week, Drew and Luci's school held their first student recognition assembly. All the students attend to watch a select group of students receive awards for excellence in certain fields. Luci notices us right away and waves wildly.

Drew goes up to receive an award for excellence in writing. She loves to write!

Drew with her writing award and Grace (my cousin Heather's daughter) with her Language Arts award. Drew is in a multi-age class of first and second graders. The first graders receive mentoring from the second graders, and the second graders tend to boost their self-esteem by being helpful to the first graders. Drew and Grace are in this class together, and though you'd never guess it by the picture, Drew is the 2nd grader and Grace is the first grader!!

Meema gives Drew a congratulatory hug for her award! Good job kiddo!

Both me and the girls are looking forward to daylight savings as this is currently how dark it is while they wait for the bus! But the sunrises are pretty!

This past Saturday, Dean and I were invited to a Halloween party. We dressed as a Renaissance couple. Here, Dean and Julie, dressed as a dance hall girl, pose for a shot.

Sorry for the crude pose, but it was the less crude shot of the only two pictures I actually have showing my costume! What can I say, it was an adult party! L to R, Kathy (hippie), Julie (dance hall girl), me and Sue (bride of Frankenstein). It was lots of fun!

Speaking of Halloween, Drew's dance class held their Halloween party on Monday evening. Here is what my little China doll decided to be this year...a China doll! The long jacket we got in China on our adoption trip to get Drew and the hat is handmade by me. It was originally a Mickey Mouse ears hat from Disney. It worked perfectly for this costume!

Gorgeous!

Here she is waiting for her class to go in, posing with a favorite friend from Kindergarten class, Connor. Connor's mom told me that he was just asking her the other night if he was ever going to see Drew again! (He's in a different classroom this year). Too funny!!

Luci catches a ride on an obliging witch's broom as they fly around the waiting room at dance class. She had baton class this night, but her regular tap/ballet class is on Wednesday, so she'll dress up then. I'll post pics of her in her costume, too.

Drew's tap/jazz class.

Today after school, Meema brought the girls a couple of chocolate cookie haunted houses to decorate for Halloween.

Luci needed a little help holding the bag.

Luci growls behind her finished creation.

And now for a little sample! Yummy!

At this rate, she'll have it all eaten by the time Halloween arrives!

Drew poses with her masterpiece.

And for her scary pose...she didn't know Papa was behind her! She laughed when she saw the picture!

I'm hoping to post some pictures of our brand new master bathroom in the next week or two. It's nearly finished, but not quite! I need to tile the countertop, grout it and then trim the edge, we need to add the baseboard molding, add shelves above the countertop and do some touch-up grouting on the floor. Other than that, we're done! Hopefully we can get those few jobs done and then I'll post some pictures of it. I love it already, but you'll have to wait just a little while longer! We're pushing ourselves to get the two empty bedrooms in the new addition finished as we have reason to believe that one or both may be needed next year!! :-)

Today's quote:

"You're fat and ugly" said the pot to the kettle. Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones!