Red Ribbon Week

Last week was Red Ribbon week at Brentfield. On Monday the boys wore patriotic attire, on Tuesday was pajama day, Wednesday was camo, and then came Thursday!  Thursday was book character day for the Kindergarteners. Here is Tahl as Mr. Gilly.

As you can see, Mr. Gilly is a trash man from one of our favorite books, "Trashy Town."  It has been a favorite for each boy between the ages of 1.5 to 2.5.  Isaac is still in the middle of loving it, and it reminded his brothers how much they loved it too.  

This was all Tahl's concept.  He insisted on the overalls, gloves, and blue long sleeve shirt. 

As you can see, he matches the book character Mr. Gilly pretty well.

Here he is listening to a story with his class.  He is in the front row. 

On Thursday, the theme for the other grades was "Don't Let Drugs Tie You Down."  Zev wore tie dye and a tie! 

On Friday was the statue garden project that Zev has been working on for quite a while. 

The kids did research to pick who they wanted to represent in the garden, and Zev chose Martin Luther King Junior.  Then he read four or five books about MKL to learn what he wanted to say.  Here he is frozen before someone pushed his button.

Ready to give his speech.

Here is a video of Zev doing his speech.  I think he was nervous that I was recording him so he looked at his paper.  I've seen him give it several times without looking down.

He didn't want to break character to take a picture with me, but I made him.

Here he is with his whole class in their costumes.

At the end of the day on Friday, Tahl asked me "What are drugs anyway mom?" So between going out of my way to make crazy outfits, and my child asking me what drugs are when he previously didn't know the word, I'm not sure yet if I like red ribbon week.  I do love book character day though.

Our week

Here are the boys eating ice cream after dinner one night when they got a surprise trip to Braum's. 

We got to the zoo at 8:15 in the morning.  Isaac and his brothers were very excited to see the penguins swimming in the water.

 Ari was still in Hawaii, so my mom came to the zoo with us!  We rode the train because my mom had never ridden it before, and the boys are always asking to ride it.  

We had to go because the baby elephant in now out where we can see him!  He is the cutest thing ever.  I LOVE baby elephants. 

 Zev and I were excited to see the koala awake. 

Isaac, Tahl, and Mimi missed it because they were riding the carousel.  Zev and I saw it when we went off looking for Pokemon. 

Here we are later that night when Isaac decided to give his brothers hugs with no pants. 

He has renamed Tahl's "Baby Charlie" to be "Baby Beau" after Emily's youngest boy.  He loves this baby.  

He also loves to pretend to be Emily. He will tell me he is going to Costco or to pick up Holden from school.  Isaac loves to pretend all day long just like his big brothers. 

Here is Isaac trying his best to say the blessing that he learned from school.

Here is Isaac trying to tell me where his daddy is.  I love that he says "HawaiA."

Here he is counting.  I might be biased, but I think he is one smart two year old.

Last, here is a video of Isaac singing his alphabet.  He gets a few letters wrong, but it is pretty darn close.   

Maui!

Ari and I went to Maui for the weekend without the kids! We were so lucky to have my mom, my dad, and Stacy to watch the kids!  The boys were so excited that they were coming. Thanks guys! 

On our first day in town, we swam in the hotel pool, played on the pool slides, walked on the beach, and went out to dinner.  On our way home from dinner around 9:30, someone threw a glass bottle out of their car window which hit Ari in the leg.  We kept walking home and then realized that he was bleeding.  When we got back security looked at his leg, and said that we needed to go to the hospital because they could see the bone.  We went to the Maui hospital emergency room, and Ari had to get two stitches. Poor Ari was in a lot of pain, and then they told him that he was in Maui but he couldn't get in the water for the next two weeks. We didn't get back to our hotel until 1:30 in the morning which was 6:30 in the morning in Dallas.  We hadn't slept more than a 20 minute nap on the plane in 24 hours.  We were very tired.

The doctor said we could try hiking.

So, we went to hiking spot with lots of waterfalls along the Road to Hana. 

We walked to this area first.  It was a short walk.

We kept going in to the slightly more challenging part to see the bigger waterfall.

Ari had to be really careful not to get his leg wet.

He made it around the outside of the watery area on some rocks.

We couldn't swim in the waterfall pool, but at least we got to see it and take our picture there. 

On the way out the smoke monster from lost tried to eat me.

Here is a picture of one of my many fruity drinks.

Ari and I watched the sunset that night on the beach.

We went out to an awesome fancy restaurant where I had another fruity drink.

 The next day while Ari had a meeting I rented myself this bad boy to lay around and read on.

This was my view while I laid in the shade to listen to the ocean, drink a fruity drink, and read a book.  Does this sound like heaven to anyone else? 

 For my last day in town, we got up at three in the morning to go to the top of a volcano to see the sun rise.  Sounds awesome right?  Except all we saw was this...

It was freezing and rainy with no sunrise. Whoops.  At least we got a better view on the way down.

We tried to get a picture half way down the mountain.

 Ari spotted this rainbow halfway down the mountain.

I might have made him stop to take a picture of me under it. I mean who doesn't love a rainbow in Hawaii? 

Since we got up so early and didn't stay to hike, I had more time to read on the beach.

Maui was gorgeous and relaxing, and I wish I could have stayed longer than four days. 

I did finish four books in those four days, so I think I did pretty well. 

Now the boys and I are just waiting for Ari to get home from Maui this weekend after the rest of his conference.