Happy St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day from the Sooy Kids!

Hello Hello Again

Well, that was a busy month!  If I wasn't AT work or with the kids, then I was working - working in the morning, working at night, work work work yadda yadda yadda.  Boring!  Let's recap some holiday fun with the Sooy Babies.  One Friday night in December we went to see one of our favorite parades - the Collingswood Light Parade!

We bumped into Clare's teacher, Ms. Elyssa - Clare almost didn't recognize her outside of the classroom!  And it was yet another unusually warm evening in December - Clare shed her coat within minutes!

Sean grabbed the phone to take a picture:

Santa Claus closed out the parade, of course! 

Ship Bottom Christmas Parade

We went to the Ship Bottom Christmas Parade again!  This year, the weather was absolutely perfect - sunny and warm!

The kids collected a lot of candy canes, Swedish Fish, and salt water taffy

Sometimes there was a long lull between floats and candy...

There were no DeLoreans this year but there was a palomino horse:

And Santa closed out the parade, as usual!

Turkey Trot 2015

 On Thanksgiving morning, we ran our annual Turkey Trot at a nearby highvschool.  In past years, the mornings have been extremely cold and the course extremely muddy.  This year, however, we had a bright, mild morning and firm ground.

Seanybear, showing off his TWO lost teeth.

Warming up before the race.

Starting line selfie

And we're off!  Clare stayed on her feet for the whole mile-long race and Sean RAN the whole race - and then came back to escort Clare to the finish.

At the finish with their prizes, before celebrating with hot chocolate and bagels before heading to Thanksgiving dinner.

Halloween 2015

Halloween has come and gone and boy, did the Sooy Kids have a blast!  First, we went to the best Halloween parade around to debut the kids' costumes - Astrid and Toothless from "How to Train Your Dragon."

The parade was as wonderful as always with Mummers, amazing homemade floats, and the pink tractor Clare played on over the summer at our favorite farm!

The Exorcist:

Area marching bands:

Star Wars!

A giant shopping cart trailing bubbles behind it:

The Polar Express

An aquarium:

We met up with our neighbor and the kids helped her grab as much candy as they could get from the passing floats:

 Next order of Halloween business was Clare's morning parade at school:

After the parade, the school gathered in the courtyard to sing a few Halloween songs and recite a couple of poems:

After Clare's parade, I went home to finalize a few things for Sean's school Halloween party (hooray for Room Mom duties!):

Next up was Sean's school parade - he was so happy to flap his wings and shake his tail around the school.

After Sean's parade and his party (which went pretty well if I do say so myself), Sean and I went to see the afternoon parade at Clare's school.  (Yes, the school had a morning and an afternoon parade.)  Clare was so happy we came...

Sean was tired so he rested his head for a minute.  He really needed his rest because after this afternoon parade and some photos...

...we went back to Sean's school for Trunk or Treat!  We decorated our trunk with a "spooky spider"  theme and then got busy trick or treating at the other trunks in the parking lot!

After trick or treating, there were games and a dance party.  Sean and Clare participated in a mummy-making game.  The kids had 60 seconds to wrap their partner as best as possible.  When time was up, the emcee told the kids to put the toilet paper down which Clare took quite literally, putting the roll of toilet paper down plus ripping the toilet paper she had wrapped around Seany, leaving him a wrap-less mummy - oh well!

The next day the kids had a morning out on the soccer fields, then we finally picked a HUGE pumpkin ("like one of Hagrid's pumpkins!") to carve - Thom John and the kids did a great job!

After dinner, we went trick or treating with our neighbors and even went to a little party afterwards.

Tonight, we went through the mounds of candy the kids have gathered from all of these events and the kids each kept 22 pieces.  The rest we are donating to Operation Gratitude, which is collecting candy to send to U.S. Troops overseas.  Whew!