Holiday Parade

The 1st of December was celebrated by our small town’s annual Holiday Parade.

One of the best things about living in a small town is a small town parade.

And I love how many people come out and watch the parade.

Do you need another reason to like small town parades?

Goats in costumes!

I think this goat shopped in the “sexy” costume section.

Not that I found the goat sexy…

There were even goats that were too lazy to march and were pulled by other goats.

And let’s not forget the sheep…

Of course they are too dignified to wear costumes and just sported tasteful decorations.

There were also horses.

And horses carrying Rodeo Queens.

But honestly we were there for the people…

Starting with our high school football team. Perhaps you have seen stories about them winning the State Championship for their division. Or more importantly because this is a team made up of great young men that protected a young special needs girl from bullying.

Even as awesome as the football team is, they weren’t why we were there…

We were there for the marching band.

More importantly one of the bass drum players in the marching band.

But that wasn’t all…

There was another band we were excited to see.

The jr high school symphonic band (even if they haven’t mastered walking and playing at the same time).

Einstein looks so serious.

And most importantly…

Santa

and the Firemen, but mostly Santa.

There was a little controversy in Casa de Chaos after the parade winners were announced…

The judges gave 1st place to the jr high band and 2nd place to the high school marching band.

I kind of think it was a tie…if you don’t count that one band can actually play and march at the same time.

Not many guys I know can pull off a purple plume and still look manly, but I think the Man-Child rocks the purple plume look.

My Boyz…

And you wouldn’t think it wouldn’t be hard to get a picture of them standing next to each other…

And you would be wrong.

Change is Good?!?

This week our summer comes to an end as we get ready for school to start.

I usually have mixed emotions as we get ready for the school. This year there is only one emotion…an overwhelming sense of “What the What?!?”

I’m not sure how it happened, but my kidlets are growing up. It really hits home when a new school year starts and I realize how old they are getting.

This year Ham says goodbye to his pre-school.

I’m so sad to be leaving this school. LaLa started going there 4 years ago and Ham has gone there the last 2 1/2 years. We have had the most amazing teachers that have made a huge impact on our family. Thank you Miss Nancy, Miss Molly and Miss Kim!

Now Ham is headed to Kindergarten…I know?!? It’s crazy. (gotta love the squinty face picture)

He will now be going to the elementary school where all the other kidlets have gone.

And LaLa is going to finally be the big kid at the school.

She is the only one that isn’t changing schools this year.

And Roo is saying goodbye to the elementary school…and the only school she has ever gone to…

And moving up to the middle school.

We had a meeting at the middle school the other night and the principal and a couple of teachers were excited to find out there was a Chaos Girly after having the Man-Child and Einstein the last few years.

There have been a few exciting changes happening at the middle school and I think she will have a pretty amazing year.

Einstein has been a little jealous when he heard about some of the changes that he will be missing since he is saying goodbye to the middle school…

And heading to the jr. high.

He has his schedule and has been studying a map of the campus so he won’t get lost changing classes. He was also pretty excited to see that he was placed in the Symphonic Band this year since that is usually only for the 8th graders.

The Man-Child has ensured him that having all those teachers isn’t as hard as it seems at first.

And he should know since he is saying goodbye to the jr. high…

And moving to the high school.

Holy Hell…I now have a child in high school.

He has spent the last couple of weeks at marching band practice and has met new friends and is ready for the school year to get started.

~~~~~

Again I have 5 kiddos in 4 different schools. Crazy!

Our district has a pretty unique set up. We have 4 elementary schools that are kindergarten through 4th grade, the middle school for 5th and 6th grade, the jr. high is 7th and 8th grade and the high school is 9th through 12th grades.

It’s nice because once you start 5th grade in our district you are with the same group of kids for the rest of your time in school.

The only negative thing is since the middle school and jr. high are only for 2 years my kidlets never have siblings going to the same school for those 4 years. And in the Man-Child’s case he won’t have a sibling at the same school until he is a junior.

~~~~~

Yes we start school in July. Our school district is on a modified-year-round schedule. We have a 2 month summer break and then in 8 weeks we have a 2 week fall break, 8 weeks of school and a 2 week Christmas break, another 8 weeks of school and spring break, and a final 8 weeks of school.

We Love, Love, Love our schedule.

~~~~~

Yes, the pictures are blurry on the right side. After running around taking all of these pictures I realized that I had a huge smudge on my camera lens. So frustrating! Everyone was very cooperative taking the pictures the first time and I didn't think that would last if I said we had to go do them all over again. I tried a little creative editing to make it look like it’s on purpose. So just pretend you didn’t notice the blurry and just thought it was creative editing…m’kay?

~~~~~

And on a final note you can see the names of the schools where the kidlets go…please don’t stalk us.

~~~~~

I Love a Parade

I love, love, love our little town. And today was just another example of why. It was our Annual Christmas Festival and Parade. Both Boyz were going to be in the parade so there was no way we were going to miss it…not even if it was cold and rainy.

We dropped the Boyz off early so they could get with their groups and went to find a place to watch the parade.

We found our little spot to sit and LaLa noticed this little asphalt patch shaped like a heart right in front of us.

How perfect.

We had almost an hour to wait until the parade got started and the streets were already lined with people.

Very cold people.

It was freakishly cold and rainy for us desert dwellers.

Not exactly parade weather.

Soon the perfect small town parade started.

We had groups of dancing girls…that had to be freezing.

And marching bands.

But unlike big time parades we also had marching sheep

and goats. There was also a chicken, but I didn’t get a picture of it.

And our own little covered wagon.

And soon we had some unwelcome visitors in the shape of drops.

But that didn’t stop our rodeo queens.

You might have thought the weather was planned by this guy.

Good thing we had this guy to spread Christmas Cheer by singing loud for all to hear. (Okay he wasn’t singing, but he should have been!)

Einstein was happy to wave at us.

The jr. high band doesn’t march.

But they did sound great. Big J is in the back in the Santa hat.

Whoever did their float did a great job on the decorations.

And Macy’s has nothing on us.

We also had Santa to wrap up the parade.

And as we were walking back to the suburban I realized I didn’t get a picture of us.

Duh.

I knew how to fix that.