NiklasAndZoe.com

NiklasAndZoe.com

Cuddles wants in on this wishbone game.

Niklas will tell Zoe the names of all of these buildings, even if he has to make them up.

2013-11-17: Well, I kind of trailed off there a bit. Anyway, Halloween was several weeks ago. Did we do stuff? Indeed! The kids and I collaborated on three jack-o-lanterns (possibly correctly noted as jacks-o-lantern) while Andrya was stuck at work. It turns out that the green pumpkin that Zoe picked out had walls about as thick as a reactor containment structure, so way to think about safety, Zoe!

The kids both had Halloween parties at school which were popular with them, as one would expect. The weather Halloween evening bounced around between awful and extremely awful, so in lieu of trecking through the rain (and occassionaly only being rewarded with pal gum, which is and always has been the worst Halloween candy), we bought some candy and put it behind all the doors inside the house along with an action figure or princess or something whose home that door was declared to be. Super clear, I know. For example, then (in lieu of actual clarity; please stop complaining), we put Zoe's Princess Ariel in the bathroom (because she's a mermaid and there's water in there) and she had a few pieces of candy for each kid. We also turned all the lights out and the kids went around with flashlights, so it was a good enough time despite the inclement weather.

Skipping ahead, Zoe spent last weekend (Thursday through Monday) down in Bloomington with Grandma and Papa Meeker. She helped rake some leaves, played with Andrya's old Cabbage Patch kids and went to the Bloomington Children's Museum (along with generally behaving herself, which was good to hear). Niklas, meanwhile, enjoyed not having somebody wake him up at six every morning and try to smash up all of his stuff.

This past week, Niklas got his first report card of the 1st grade. It met his usual high standards, so that was good. On a similar note, this minimal picture update meets my usual standard of slacking.

2013-11-24: So, last week was pretty laid back. Niklas schooled it up at the old school and Zoe got her first report card from Chalk. It was "lunch at McDonald's" good, so she's off to a good start there.

Niklas was invited to a couple of birthday parties over the weekend. Aaron's was Saturday at the Chuck E Cheese and Jared and Dana were nice enough to invite Zoe as well. In the past, I think I've described Chuck E Cheese as being stuck inside a slot machine for two hours, but with Zoe's hyper active go gettedness these days, it's more like two hours inside of a pinball machine. Anyway, both kids had a great time and Zoe was shockingly well behaved. She melted down terribly when we got home, but at least public perception of her is still positive.

Today, Niklas missed his swimming lesson to go to Signe's party, which worked out pretty well as it was a pool party. He had a very good time, especially when they let the kids go into the hot tub which is apparently hilarious. He also swam quite a bit, ate a bunch of cake and talked to that girl who clearly likes him despite his obliviousness to that fact. Meanwhile, Zoe continued to improve at her swimming lesson. Per Andrya, "when she does the soldier, monkey, airplane, she actually goes fast."