Trunk or Treat

Here's Stace's annual entry to the Trunk or Treat festivities: Dracucar!

Stace went all out and repainted the cornhole board, to go with the car.

It's fun that Ellie is now old enough to enjoy Trunk or Treat, and Melanie was able to bring her. Here, she's getting candy from Pirate Colleen after walking the plank. 

We thought the Gravity Falls-themed trunk was fun.

 

Final Pioneer Club!

Another younger kid thing comes to an end for our family...

Violet had her final Pioneer Clubs/KidZone awards ceremony, and, as a sixth grader, she's now completed her time in the program.

Here, she's coming up the church stage to accept her certificate from her teachers.

All the Trailblazers this year... This has been a great program, combining faith and fun for the children. It also made a nice way for Violet and Liana to see each other each week.

Violet was featured as one of the graduates who has been in the program since she was in the youngest age group, Skippers. Look at her in her adorable red t-shirt! 

Miss Kim, Liana, Miss Colleen, Violet, Coach Greg and Ryan in front.
 

The church has just redone their playground from the ground up, and it was reopened for the children to play on. Even Cora, who we forced to attend, had fun playing on the new equipment.

Thank you, VUMC, for 12 years of fun for our girls!

Week in Review

On Sunday evening, I enjoyed a fabulous few hours with these beauties. I'm blessed with some awesome friends.

This was the girls' last week of school before Christmas break.

The photo here makes me happy and sad at the same time. It represents the first Christmas celebration at school that I wasn't able to help with or even attend, for elementary school, and it was Violet's last one.

I love her teacher, but she didn't want parent helpers at the class party. And she doesn't send photos of classroom activities, as most of Violet's teachers have done. 

Here, Vi is exchanging gifts with her kindergarten "buddy." I lucked out that another mom and I were chatting, and her daughter is IN the kindergarten class that Violet's class is buddied with. She graciously took this photo for me, so I can use it in Violet's 6th grade yearbook.

We gave Violet's buddy beyblades (a toy), and he gave her a very nice art kit. She was very appreciative!

Signs of the season - the trees on my favorite Summit walk are again decorated for Christmas!

On Wednesday night, Violet's KidZone/Pioneer Club group had a bake sale to raise money for charity. These two cuties sold a lot of cookies!

On Thursday, Violet's class performed their hip hop routine, as the end of their hip hop unit. A special teacher had come in weekly for the last few months to teach them.

The kids seem to either love or hate this experience. Both of mine hated it.

But Violet was lucky - her group did one routine all together as a class, and then her group of four kids did another short routine on their own. 

When Cora did it, the whole performance was MUCH longer, and the kids were called up individually in a sort of "dance off" fashion. 

Trunk or Treat

On Wednesday, it was time for our annual tradition of Trunk or Treat at KidZone/Pioneer Club.

This year, Stace and Violet created a Sleepy Hollow/Headless Horseman theme for our trunk.

Violet kind of dressed in character, with a beautiful old-fashioned Renaissance look. She painted her corset herself.
 

Colleen and Rigo looked awesome as sheriffs, with poor Hula their jailbird in the back of the Bronco jail!

My friend Tiffany and her baby came - haven't seen her for a while but it's Dodger playoff season, so we've been doing a lot of in-game texting!

Here's Liana, playing cornhole at our trunk for her chance to win candy.

Cami, Melanie and Cora came, too. 

Crazy how all the girls are about the same height now!

Thankful for this tradition...and still having kids young enough to enjoy it...barely!

Week in Review

We celebrated my mom's birthday with a family meal out Tuesday, at family favorite Stone Fire. 

Not sure why Violet is hiding behind me in the photo of the birthday Grandma and her girls...

Cora is enjoying interacting with Ellie more now that she's getting older.

On Wednesday, Violet went to her first Pioneer Club/Kid Zone meeting of the year. After missing last year due to Covid, I was pleased Vi wanted to take part, in what will be her last year since she's in 6th grade.

Here, she and Liana are having fun with those balloons attached to big rubber bands.

 

Violet has been riding her bike to school most days - she might as well, as we're so close to her school, for this final year. 

We love our friendly crossing guard, Joe the Dodger Fan! Thankful for his watchful eye on this busy road.

Quarantine Life

Cora updated her calendar to reflect her current schedule.

We're blessed that Cora's sport/activity CAN be done from home, via computer instruction.

Her dojo is like a family, and she misses a lot of the in-person karate banter and sarcasm. But this is better than nothing, and many other athletes on team sports are just not able to get in any action.

Sadly, the girls' tennis outings are over for now. Just after we went to the courts over the weekend, the city closed them for the time being.

Basketball courts and playgrounds are also closed - padlocks on the tennis gates, wood planks secured to the hoops. I suppose kids can ignore the yellow tape to use the play structures, but they'd certainly get dirty looks from passersby.

Interestingly, the day after we went hiking at Rice Canyon, the agency in charge of many of the trails in SoCal, including Rice, Towsley and Mentryville, closed them all to prevent people congregating. So sad! We'd better be careful where we go, or else more places might be shut!

Stace has been working from home every other day, so that his office has fewer people in each day, and everyone can more easily keep their distance from each other.

On Wednesday, after his home-work day was done, he and I went for a walk, and he decided for us to take that walk on Creekside, our Auto Row. He really enjoyed having a look at the cars as we walked by, without any sales people bugging him. (Auto sales are not an essential business, so they aren't working now.)

We've been certainly watching more television lately, since we're home so much. We've watched movies, the girls have watched a lot of Horrible Histories, and we found a new show to binge. It's called The Chosen, and it's a series based on the Disciples. I had a few friends recommend it, and we're all really enjoying how it brings the Biblical era and characters to life in a new way.

Seb has enjoyed our TV time...

...very much.

So has Spencer.

Speaking of screens, Violet's connecting with her friends from KidZone every morning on Zoom. Liana takes part, and Melanie does sometimes, along with other children she normally sees every Wednesday evening. She looks forward to this time, and brings her Bible so she can take her turn to read a verse or discuss the topic of the day.

Super Saturday

 We had a big day out Saturday, starting at the Gene Autry Museum of Western Heritage before joining my parents at the Dodgers Fan Fest at the stadium.

Both outings were free! This particular weekend was a free museum day at dozens of locations around SoCal, and the Fan Fest is also free, a way to rouse interest in the coming season (with plenty of things available to purchase).

Here, Cora is getting a photo of her favorite piece at the Autry. She loves images of fire, and all things Native American.

 The museum is great - so many fascinating exhibits - with a nice garden area outside with native plants.

 Then, we headed around Griffith Park to the next big hill, to Blue Heaven on Earth. Here, you can see Cora, Grandpa, Violet and Stace heading to the main stage.

 A Dodger pitcher was being interviewed by the television guys who cover the team. It was an all-day event, so many players took the stage.

This event is normally within the stadium, but the Dodgers are doing major construction this off-season, so most of the festivities were in the parking lot. 

 A nice spot to relax.

Back in SClarita, we decided to go out to eat at Souplantation, a place we hadn't been in very long time - like, maybe since before Violet? The girls loved it, especially the tiny cones to end their night.

Then, we dropped Cora off at home and Stace and I took Violet to Valencia Methodist for the annual movie night. This year, they showed Toy Story 4, a film we hadn't seen, so it was nice to see it for free. What a fun day!

Trunk or Treat

 It's Trunk or Treat time!  Stace again signed up to bring his MG to Valencia Methodist for the annual Halloween fun.

Violet got her first ride in the car, sitting in the front seat!

This year, Violet wanted to dress up for Halloween as a Pokemon trainer. So, Stace went with the theme, and created some Pokemon elements. I think he did an excellent job!

Violet was happy to pal around with Melanie, who was dressed as a nerd.

Cora went around with Cami for a bit, before she had to go to karate. These girls just look too grown up!

Rigo and Colleen decked their truck out in '70s style. Groovy!

I helped out at one of the games. Another fun event in the books!