This week, I went on a field trip with Hannah's class to Agua Hedionda Lagoon to learn about Native Americans. The kids rotated through different stations to learn about the Luiseno tribe that used to live in that area.

The kids learned to basket weave,

make pictographs on rocks,

brand leather (like they would brand cows), identify medicinal uses for the native plants, and kill a (stuffed) rabbit with a rabbit stick. 

They even had a descendant of the Luiseno people come talk to the group. Hannah loves when I go on field trips with her class so we had a great day together!

Hannah and Ellie switched hairstyles for church one day. I curled Hannah's hair and straightened Ellie's hair.

I mentioned this summer that the girls found Art for Kids Hub on YouTube and spent hours drawing pictures. Well, Ellie has continued to add to her collection of cute little pictures. Now they are taking over her room! She draws almost every day! We have a budding artist on our hands...

It's fun to see her so into drawing!

Wow! I didn't realize how behind I am in my blogging, but I found this post that I started working on and never finished. So here's some random pictures from October!

My parents got a new kitten named Piper. She's so darling, and Ellie of course loves cuddling with her.

The day after Thanksgiving, Andy asked to see the Fancy Nancy Book that he had read to Ellie the day before called "Fancy Nancy: Ooh La La! It's a Beauty Day." In the book, Fancy Nancy sets up a spa for her mom in the backyard to pamper her for her birthday. Part of the description of the book on Amazon reads, "Complete with tips and recipes for creating a super-deluxe beauty day of your own. Fancy Nancy: Ooh La La! It's Beauty Day will inspire budding beauty experts to open up shop and join in the deluxe fanciness!"

 I'm going to warn you up front, I did NOT get good pictures from Thanksgiving week! Oh well, we still had a wonderful time!

Most of the week was pretty chill and relaxing. The girls played with all of their friends in the neighborhood, and Joey had a friend over on Tuesday.

Ellie was picked for "Leader of the Week" this week for her kindergarten class. It brought back memories of when Joey and Hannah were students of the week in kindergarten. Too. much. cuteness.

When Hannah was student of the week, she had Joey come in and read her favorite book to the class. This time Ellie had Hannah come in and read The Giant Jam Sandwich.

For her sharing days, she brought in Bananas, her favorite Beanie Boo, and her Elena of Avalor guitar that she got for her birthday. She was very, VERY excited about her special week!

For Halloween this year Hannah and Chloe wanted to match again so they chose to be pirates. Joey wasn't sure what he wanted to be, so when he found out that little Luke was going to be a skeleton he thought it would be fun to match with him. So cute! Ellie got this Elena of Avalor costume for her birthday, so she was easy!

Friday we went to the Halloween carnival, but it was also Joey's birthday! We got up extra early for donuts because I was subbing at the kids' school that day. (I actually subbed in Joey's class that day.) Yay for the big 1-1!

Friday night we had the annual Harvest Carnival at Emmanuel Faith Church. This year we had Elena of Avalor (with her hair sprayed dark brown!), a skeleton and a pirate.  

With all the Halloween craziness this coming weekend, we had Joey's birthday party a weekend early. For his birthday party this year he decided to invite all of his school buddies to a park to play their favorite games that they play at recess like Infection, Lava Monster and Lava Monster Infection! We ended up having thirteen boys there with a few siblings added as well.

This year it's been so different getting into our fall schedule for a few different reasons. One, it's the first time all three kids are in school. Two, it's the first time they're all playing soccer (which means soccer practices five days a week and three games on Saturday!), and I started subbing at the kids' school on Fridays. 

For the past couple of years I had started to think about what I wanted to do when the kids were all in school. One of Joey's substitutes in third grade was the mom of a girl in his class. I thought that would be a fun way to get back in the classroom on a very part-time basis. When I ran the idea by the kids, they were thrilled with the idea! I figured I would start subbing when Ellie was in first grade since she only has kindergarten for half a day, but the kids were SO enthusiastic about the idea, I asked my mom if she could pick up Ellie for me on Fridays and she agreed! Honestly, it was harder than I expected to be back in the classroom after ten years, especially as a substitute, but I'm getting into the swing of things and really starting to enjoy it. So far I've subbed at every grade level K-5th. The best part is how much the kids love when I'm at school subbing. I'm really not sure why they love it so much, but it's their favorite day of the week.

Other than that, here's what else is going on around here...

It's hard to believe, but we are in the fifth week of school. Here's what we've been up to since school started.

Well, this was actually before school started. Andy had another fun work trip with Google (Don't let his Yahoo sweatshirt fool you!). They went on a whale watching trip.

They didn't see any whales, but they saw a bunch of dolphins, so that counts as a win!

The day before school started, I cut Ellie's hair for the first time! I had cut off a couple of little straight pieces before, but this was the first time I cut it all across the bottom. I'm kicking myself for not getting a "before" picture, but I probably took four inches off. At first she just wanted me to barely trim it, but then she liked how it turned out. I can't believe she went 5 1/2 years without a haircut! 

This is the first season we have all three kids in soccer! Ellie is very excited to finally be on a soccer team!

This year we have the Tsunamis, the Night Terrors and the Golden Nuggets.

And what a cute Nugget she is! 

She's not always sure what to do, but she plays soccer very enthusiastically!

And she's such a studious kindergartener! 😉

I found her like this during nap time one day. She still goes down for a nap/quiet time every day, but it's very rare that she ever sleeps. It seems like she's officially grown out of naps (although nap time will continue for the rest of kindergarten).

One week at the end of August, Andy was gone for a few days for work. This was his view out of the San Francisco Google Cafe at lunch!

Meanwhile we happened to have a big heat wave come through. It was so hot that we had a "high heat advisory" so they cancelled all the soccer practices for the week. We ended up spending every evening after school at the pool. We even had dinner down there. It was glorious!

A couple of weeks ago, Andy's parents took Andy and Joey to the San Diego State/U.C. Davis game. Andy's parents both went to U.C. Davis.

We had dinner with my teacher friend that visits Carlsbad every year. This time we tried a new restaurant that my parents recommended. It was different and fun. The kids especially enjoyed the free cotton candy for dessert!

This past weekend, Ellie finally had her turn for a one-on-one date with Andy. 

She picked Chili's!

This cake was a highlight, of course! She said she tried to keep her face clean by taking "dainty bites." (Thanks, Fancy Nancy!)

Oh my goodness, the day is finally here. All three kids are in school! We have a kindergartener, third grader and fifth grader!

Our last week of summer was Camp Nana! I looked back on my blog, and this is our fifth year of Camp Nana. The older two kids went the first two years, and this is the third year Ellie has gone. The kids were already listing Camp Nana as one of their highlights of the summer before it even happened. This was the first time they didn't do the VBS in the mornings, so they had lots of time for activities. My mom jokingly called the week Art and Surf, but really it should be called Art, Surf and Animals...

 

My mom planned a few art projects during Camp Nana. When my siblings and I were younger, there was this popular local TV show called the Draw Squad that taught you how to draw fun, quirky drawings in 3D. Apparently my mom still had some of the old tapes, so the kids drew these pictures.