Today

This week is going to be all sorts of crazy everyday.  I thought it would be fun just to see what it will take to get us out the door on Monday morning: (Note, I've only included the kids, but assume Brent and I have to get presentable and organized too).

B:

1. Backpack
2. Lunch
3. Full Water bottle
4. Jacket
5. Daily Folder
6. Friday Folder
7. Signed report card envelope
8. Signed weekly behavior sheet 
9. Food for the food drive (5 items)
10. Hat - it is Red Ribbon week and today is hat day
11. "patterned" socks or shirt
12. Jacket --- which we'll all hope he doesn't lose this week.
13. DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) book

As you can see above, he has written a note to himself about the clothing pieces and taped the hat/patterned socks to his bed.  Totally loved discovering this.  He does need many of these items every day, but this particular day is close to double the normal volume of "stuff."

M:

1. $2.50 for Pizza 
2. Backpack
3. Full water bottle
4. Jacket
5. Costume -- she is probably going with the cat costume again
6. Treat bucket
7. Clothes to wear when she tires of the costume

E:

1. $2.50 for Pizza
2. Backpack
3. Full water bottle
4. Jacket
5. Costume - Monkey again
6. Treat bucket
7. Clothes to wear the rest of the day (maybe under his costume other than the shoes)
8. 4 diapers with his name on them
9. Back up clothes
10. Enjoy pieces of cheese for his entire class to enjoy during the party (No, I do not know how many are in his class...obviously).

I suppose the good news is I'm only making one lunch, which is rare.  And possibly this can serve as my note when I start forgetting something shortly after 8. Also, M&E will need those exact same things on Tuesday (minus the cheese, I think).  B's list will still be long, but different, of course, because we can't do the same thing two days in a row, right?

I do not think Halloween week was this crazy when I was a kid or at least I was totally oblivious. As you've probably noticed over the years, I let the kids wear as many costumes during this season as they like rather than get them to commit to one as there are so many opportunities and it should be fun.  The boys rarely switch, but M often does.  So far this year, her planned costumes have been:

1. Fairy Princess--- It looks like she won't wearing this anywhere at all, despite both making and acquiring from the Dairy Godmother a special wand.  It is my favorite... as you can tell.

2.  Bat Girl - She work this to the fall festival at Angie Debo and randomly decided she wanted to keep wearing it.  On Friday, I suggested that if this was going to be her main costume it needed some fancying up to make it more hers and less B's so we made this cool bat girl "skirt." It was fast, fun, and I loved it. (UPDATE: She actually decided to go to school as Batgirl afterall, but subbed in sparkly black tights and black shorts for the pants we'd originally planned)

3. Cat - On Saturday, the shirt to the bat girl costume was strangely MIA (she said it was in the wash, but it was actually lost among stuffed animals).  So, we brainstormed going back to her cat costume from when she was 2 as it was the easiest thing we had readily available that wasn't a princess. (I blame these sudden anti-princess sentiments on Olivia--- I hope it dims a  bit as we have so many cool costumes not getting worn just now). 

(I should note, we didn't buy her all these costumes for halloween.  We only bought the stuff to make the bag girl skirt and a wand to go with her fairy princess costume.  Everything else is from our "stash" of fun stuff).

Likely to be continued... as who knows how many more costumes may emerge this week.