Hallowe'en keeps rolling

This afternoon I went down to the school to help in Ben's class with Fall centres-Centres are where the children learn through constructive play, they have them for 45 minutes everyday. Today was obviously themed and parents came in to help and generally have a good time helping the Kinders.
I had baked sugar cookies( getting in to the lingo) cut them in pumpkin shapes and took a load of frosting( know to us as butter icing) down in piping bags and sparkling gels , sprinkles etc, It was messy but the Kinders all loved it, I might add many of them could not finish the cookies they put so much icing on them, but that was what it was all about. The other activites were, pumpkin rolloing, decorating a pumpkin( the one they chose on Wednesday at the Pumpkin Patch), necklace making( all beads in Fall colours, face painting, spooky hands( see through plastic gloves with candy corn as the nails and popcorn as the main hand tied together at the wrist) bobbing for Apples. Then the kids went to there normal Friday joint sing-a-long with all the kinder classes( there are six of them). Bens teacher leads this as she can play the guitar and enjoys the 'over the top' actions and costums etc. It was great, i was called up to wear a hat along with six other parents, each hat was an animal and they children sang Old MacDonald, and we had to do our animal sound- I was act so that was just fine. They then sang The five days of hallowe'en, and five chioldren held up A3 posters with 1 owl in a dead tree, 2 trick and treaters, 3 skeletons, 4 pumpkins and 5 scary ghosts. They have been practicing very well. All sorts of songs had been adapted and it was great to see. I have included our crossing gaurd Karen, as she had a bowl of Candy for each child that crossed with her this afternoon and had dressed up. Everyone is saying'Happy Hallowe'en', it is contagious as I found myself saying the same in reply!

Weather gadgets

I have noticed my current weather conditions gadget has stopped working, so I have placed it at the bottom of my side bar and put another weather gadget in so you can at least look at our weather, but you need to scroll through the cities and put in Austin TX, yourself, as soon as I see the other one is back I will replace at the top for you. Allan has manged to correct the yearly weather over view so you can see all the year now, he reconfigured my page so it was wider- he is so clever!! my man.

'Tis the day of Hallowe'en

Alex and Ben's school are having a pyjama day today, and this includes all the teachers. The boys cycled to school in their PJ's and dressing gowns but since the temperature was 60F it was a bit warm, but they loved getting dressed from PJ's into PJ's. We have struggled to get them up in the mornings this week, Ben's birthday weekend had obviously worn them out, but not this morning! Ben was up before I went in to their room, all because it was pyjama day!! The school needs to hold of these they work wonders on motivating the children to get moving in the morning. even the principal, Linda Purvis was in PJ's so I took a picture of the boys with her and then bumped in to Ben's teacher, Mrs. Zapp and took a picture of her as well. It was quiet a sight this morning with everyone in pyjama's, some teachers even had rollers in there hair etc, the spirit of hallowe'en was definetly at Baranoff this morning.

Ben's first field trip

Ben went to Blondies Pumpkin patch yesterday and I was a helper, which was lots of fun. He went on the yellow school buses and all helpers followed in cars, it was a trip for all of the Kindergarten classes. Ben and Alex have both done there school bus training, so this was the first trip since the training. Ben was very excited about going and had to take a 'sack lunch' to school as well. The trip was not very long, but they learnt about a whole variety of pumpkins and gourds, how the dried ones can be used as vessels for storing water, washing yourself, spoons and lots of recipes, i just wish it was recorded as I can not remember them all today. there were no real mishaps on the trip and a good time was had by all.

yet more cake for them to eat!!

Yesterday was the end of my Gum paste and Fondant course, I wish I had had more time to prepare for the cake, but what with Ben's birthday and helping on school trips I seem to have run out of time, but will keep practicing. there were some amazing cakes made, with people bringing in already made fondant/gum paste items, from pumpkins to witches, i will try and find time next week to make a cake for Thanksgiving, i may try and do a hallowe'en one, but time is short before tomorrow, but hey ho, i will give it a go or maybe do cup cakes with toppers from fondant.

Still learning

I can see my last posting has not published all the weather data, but I am working on how to show you all of it. When Allan is home later we will sort it out( that is the royal we- I mean Allan). My computer skills are letting me down here again, worry not it will be sorted. I copied the data from wikipeadia, Austin, if you wish to see it before i have sorted the problem. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin#Climate.

A years over view

Weather averages for Camp Mabry, Austin, Texas, USA
Month	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Year
Record high °F (°C)	90 (32)	99 (37)	98 (37)	99 (37)	104 (40)	108 (42)	108 (42)	110 (43)	112 (44)	100 (38)	91 (33)	90 (32)	112 (44)
Average high °F (°C)	60 (16)	65 (18)	73 (23)	79 (26)	85 (29)	91 (33)	95 (35)	96 (36)	90 (32)	81 (27)	70 (21)	62 (17)	79 (26)
Average low °F (°C)	40 (4)	44 (7)	51 (11)	58 (14)	65 (18)	71 (22)	73 (23)	73 (23)	69 (21)	60 (16)	49 (9)	42 (6)	58 (14)
Record low °F (°C)	-2 (-19)	-1 (-18)	18 (-8)	30 (-1)	40 (4)	51 (11)	57 (14)	58 (14)	41 (5)	30 (-1)	20 (-7)	4 (-16)	-2 (-19)
Precipitation inches (mm)	1.89 (48)	1.99 (50.5)	2.14 (54.4)	2.51 (63.8)	5.03 (127.8)	3.81 (96.8)	1.97 (50)	2.31 (58.7)	2.91 (73.9)	3.97 (100.8)	2.68 (68.1)	2.44 (62)	33.6 (853.4)