Dempsey Family

Turkeys.  Yep, turkeys.  My friend tipped me off on a cute little idea to help kids learn gratitude.  It is a "thankful jar" which is filled with slips of paper.  Each one has something to be grateful for on it as well as an activity to help reinforce the idea.  Yesterday we were grateful for nature and took a nature walk.  Today we focused on turkeys, and the girls made some of their own.  They looked ridiculous in their turkey masks.  Tomorrow we are going to be grateful for our eyes and watch a fun movie together.  Hmmm...what will we watch?

After changing her mind day after day, Alice finally settled on dressing up as Alice in Wonderland for Halloween.  Roxie was left using whatever fit her in the Halloween costume box.  Luckily the bee costume looked pretty cute on her.  We had a good time at the ward harvest party.  The kids played games, won prizes/treats, went on a hayride, ate chili, and trunk-or-treated.  After that, we came back to our neighborhood to trick-or-treat.  Roxie thought this was very cool.  She fought her way past the big kids to the front door while shouting, "Tri-tree!  Tri-tree!"  More often than not, the person at the door would let the kids choose their own candy.  At first, Roxie would take one and move on to the next house--that is, until people started telling the kids to take a few.  Roxie would shove them in her candy bag as fast as she could--making sure she said, "Tanks" after each one.  After going around the block, we dropped her off back at home--she was a little too greedy.  Alice and her cousins went around the rest of the neighborhood.  When they had acquired enough candy (well, can you ever really have "enough"?), we all went over to Ben and Shannon's.  Ben had prepared a bunch of spooky treats for us to munch on.  We hung out with friends and family until we could barely stay awake (9pm) and headed home.  Thank goodness for the extra hour of sleep!

This morning I was getting ready for church while everyone else was still sleeping.  I find it much easier to get ready when that is the case--less distractions.  Alice wondered in.  She started looking around the bathroom for things to "get into"/play with.  I asked her to go find something else to do, mainly because I didn't want her getting into trouble.  She has had a really hard time with that lately.  Off she went and I shut the door to the bathroom.  When I was nearly finished, I heard clanking downstairs in the kitchen.  A little worried about this, I woke Jake up and asked him to go check what Alice was doing.  He stumbled downstairs and wasn't sure what to do.  She was standing on a chair in the kitchen in an apron, a couple eggs were cracked and in a bowl, the frying pan was out, and she was whipping the eggs around with a wooden spoon.  Jake was very patient and let her get them ready to put in the pan--then he took over cooking the scrambled eggs while she made toast.  She has made sandwiches before, but eggs are an entirely different ballgame--a stove is involved, with flames.  I probably would not have reacted the way Jake did.  It's a good thing he went downstairs instead of me.  I need to let Alice do a little more for herself instead of doing things for her to avoid messes and taking more time.  We aren't sure how we feel about Alice being nearly able to use the stove.  It just means she is growing up, and needs us for one less thing.  Bittersweet.  And I guess I need to be a little more specific when I ask her to go and "find something to do".

On Friday, my mom invited us to go with her to Issaquah and check out the salmon.  We went to the fish hatchery there.  The girls loved seeing the fish close up in the viewing tanks--fish ladders.  The life cycle of salmon is incredible.  They are born in a stream (or hatchery), head out to sea, and return to their birthplace before dying.  How they know to do this is amazing!  Seeing the dying fish was kind of sad though--icky.  They get pretty battered up trying to get back upstream.  And there were lots of dead fish.  ANYhow...

 

After that we headed over to Boehm's Candy.  I don't remember the last time I had been there.  We got to see them hand-dipping chocolates on the self-guided tour--mmmm.  We went into the store and picked up a few goodies before heading back to Grandma's for lunch.  It was a fun little outing!

Alice had her first official dance class today and LOVED it.  She is doing a tap/ballet combination class (2 birds, 1 stone).  The nice thing is that she only has two other girls in her class so far.  After class, I asked Alice which she liked better: the tap or ballet portion of the class.  She finally decided on ballet, but she can't get enough of the tap shoes.  What kid doesn't like making noise with their feet?

Alice survived her first day of kindergarten--and so did I!  Despite having to wait over 30 minutes for the bus (both ways), it was great.  I got a little teary as I watched her drive away on the bus.  I was quickly pulled back to reality by Roxie.  She was completely out of sorts today--and missed Alice.  We came home, played, attempted to clean and gave up, then looked at some pictures of Alice on the computer.  That was Rox's happiest moment of the day.  We all survived.  Alice could not have been more cool with things.  This taste of independence was sweet for her.  The main thing that I love about it all is that she only has 13 kids in her class.  She has already made lots of friends and can't wait to go back for another day. 

Recently Alice was able to have sleepovers with each of her grandparents.  First she stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Hodson (and cousins Jack, Piper, and Will).  They packed some serious fun into 24 hours.  The festivities included crafts, visiting the Jim Henson exhibit at the EMP, roasting hot dogs, watching movies, and painting her very own toy boat that she sailed down a stream.  She had an amazing time--didn't want to leave!  Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures...

 

A few days later, we all went up to Mt. Vernon for a family reunion.  Grandma Dempsey spent some quality time with Alice and her cousins Zack (I found out is Zachery, but goes by Zack), Gwen, and Tasha.  They stayed overnight in a cabin, walked by the river, swam in the pool, headed to Birch Bay for camping the next night, played chubby bunny, and combed the beach.  She loved it!  We missed her a lot.  Well, at least Jake and I did.  Roxie had no problem getting all the attention for once.  Alice came home exhausted from trying to keep up with her older cousins.  Both sleepovers left her with some great memories that I'm sure she will not soon forget.