kids book review---Leo The Late Bloomer

So, I had almost stopped blogging in any way shape or form and now look at me! Two posts in a week. Granted one was just incredibly depressing, but this is life here folks.

Alright, so once upon a time I really thought that I would review some children's books here on my blog cause I love children's books and read tons of them and have some very strong opinions on many of them. BUT when you do read tons of children's books that usually means you are reading them and running with kids and not writing things online. Well, except for those people who seem to manage it all, but I am not one of those people.

I read a book from the Library the other day to my kids and we loved it. The three of us just sat there and read it three times in a row and with kids my kids ages we do not do that all that often anymore. Back in the day that was all I ever did, the same books over and over and over, but now they are good with reading different ones each time and their favorites over again just now and again.

This book they all loved. My daughter picked this out at the Library, although it reminded me the most of my Boy.

The title is Leo the Late Bloomer, by Robert Kraus, and it is a delightful book. It is about a Tiger cub named Leo, who shockingly is a Late Bloomer. I know... I know... strange since that is what the title says.

Leo's dad worries about him. Leo's mom is convinced that he will bloom. Leo's dad watches him constantly looking for signs of blooming and in the end Leo does what Leo's mom knew he would do. He blooms beautifully.

I read this book with it's sweet lyrical quality and nearly cried. Now, I know that I am on the emotional side right now, and I get that, but this had nothing to do with my daughter, this had everything to do with my Son.

My Boy has been a late bloomer. He didn't read when all his buddies started reading. He had ZERO interest in writing anything... including his name. He did not want to draw things, but loved using just colors and circles and things. I worried. I fretted. I pushed him with school. I put him in situations at church he just personally wasn't ready for. People told me that he just needed shoved off in that direction. They told me that sometimes it would be painful for kids but it was best for them. They questioned my parenting. I sat and watched and worried and prayed.

I started him a year late in cub scouts in a younger level. I relaxed. He found books he loved. He learned to love writing. He found his voice. He bloomed.

When we finished reading this book for the second time last night my little Leo just snuggled into me and you could almost hear my little lover of Tigers purr. This story was his and it does have a beautiful ending.

I highly recommend this book. It is good for your late bloomers to relate to and it is good for all children to see differences and to understand about that. We are different, but we all bloom at some time or another and each bloom though different is gorgeous and amazing in it's own blooming way.

camp

I have been a naughty blogger. I am going to try to catch up with life here just a little bit. BUT there are likely to be large gaps. First of all, this blog is really more of a random picture and writing blog and here I am sharing kid pictures. Sneaky though.

We attended our first cub scout camp this year and it was all they said it would be and SO much more.

Shooting Archery!

Shooting BB guns!

Fishing!

Fun campfires!

We took our Boy and one of his fellow cub scouts with us and had such a fun time. Every day there we would rotate through six different stations, which we hiked to around the camp. So, everyday we did BB guns, Archery, Fishing, Crafts (like making a worm home), Science (like making a bug catcher, with wood burning included!), and Games (like Tug of War). On the last day the boys in our group did a fun song together with our other scouts and we had such a fun time. Our boys were filthy and completely worn out everyday. I have tons of pictures and you should probably keep an eye out for them on our family blog page.

This was how we spent just a portion of our summer...

forgiveness and baseball

Today I have felt the need to beg for forgiveness like I haven't felt in a long time. I had really let someone down in my life and I felt horrible.

This little person that I really let down was my son.

The boy of mine is an amazing kid... well he is to me and really that is what matters.

He loves sports and one of his favorite sports is baseball and we are well into that season, but because of the amazing amount of rain that we have had here five of his games have been canceled. He has only been able to play one game. ONE.

Everyday that he has had a game scheduled it has rained that day, or it has rained hard the night before and the field is flooded. He sits disappointed day after day knowing that with each pitter-patter of rain drops the season for one of his all time favorite sports is quickly flying away.

Yesterday and today were glorious, gorgeous days. The sun was bright, the sky was clear. We even checked the weather radar and we were in the safe zone. The games would happen today! The weather had finally smiled down on the little boy and he would get to swing that bat and throw that ball around with his friends.

The Girl had her game first at 10am and we went to that and had such fun, then the boy's game was at 1pm.

John wasn't sure that his game was at 1pm. During the girl's game he had overheard someone from the Boy's team commenting that they had to be back in just a half hour... at 11:30. So I double checked the schedule and checked it against the large white board that I use for all of our activities on the fridge. It said One O'clock in that nifty little square that I studied once more.

I made some lunch... fixed water bottles... did some gardening.

Finally I made sure the Boy was ready and we headed out. He ran across the field ahead of me with his batting helmet and bat and glove. He was SO excited that he was finally going to be able to play a game again. He had honestly waited weeks to be able to play a game.

On my way over, as I lugged the water and the camera and the snacks, I noticed that his team members were on their way to the parking lot.

All of them.

I stopped one family and confirmed that yes, his game WAS OVER. I am sure my eyes about fell out of my head... and my heart dropped.

What really did me in though was seeing my little boy, just moments ago so excited, now running towards me with his face crumpled with tears.

He ran towards me and I hugged him tight. I was a bit indignant. How could this have happened?! I was SO careful. Was my schedule paper a misprint?! I started looking for his coach, a good friend of mine, to figure out what had happened.

I found her and she smiled and waved to me. I met up with her and told her that I had double checked the schedule and all of that... she was puzzled and sorry and she pulled out the schedule and I pointed to the neat square where it said 1pm on Saturday the 13th. The problem that she quickly pointed out was that today was the 6th.

THE SIXTH!!!

That was when I just looked at my son and he looked at me and I apologized about 100 times. I am not exaggerating. He had been waiting for weeks. I was looking at the wrong square everywhere. All day.

I brought him home and I apologized again and again and again. He seemed fine with it and really bounced back, but I felt horrible.

I offered to camp out and read as many books as he wanted. I offered to bake him cookies to take to his Sunday School class. I offered to paint him a picture of a Tiger for his room. I needed to do something for him to "earn" his forgiveness... which is silly, but I just felt so BLASTED GUILTY!

Finally I tossed them in swim suits and they played in water at the house, then I took them to the pool over on base where the water was freezing and they complained. It was not the best day here people... but we muddled through.

The good thing is that even when I mess things up that he has been yearning for, and I do mean yearning for, for this long... he was so quick and willing to forgive me.

There are many things that I would like to "fix" in my child's behavior, but frankly, I was proud of him today. I really missed the mark big time, but he got over it quickly and moved on quickly. Frankly, he moved on faster then I was able to move on.

He has four games this coming week. I told him that I would make sure that nothing else interfered with his games. I will hold back the clouds blast it!

granted reprieve

Yesterday evening I was tucking my little boy into bed and praying with him. For years he has said the beginning of his bedtime prayers as, "Jesus, Jesus day. Bless Momma, bless Daddy... etc... etc. Amen."

It may sound weird but that is how he prays and always has. He has prayed this way since he could talk. Since the day that he could lisp out the name Jesus, this is how my son started his prayers. I do know generally how this happened. You see when he was young I started off many a bed time prayer with, "Dear Jesus, Thank you for today."

He merely smooshed it so it was easy for his little mouth to say. He is now seven. Yes, seven years old and still saying, "Jesus, Jesus, day." Most of the time I do not even notice it. It has simply become part of praying with the Boy.

My problem is that yesterday evening that whole thought went up in smoke when he started by saying, "Jesus, Jesus, day..." and then he stopped. He paused and then said, "Dear God..." and he finished his prayer. When that happened I squeezed my eyes shut tight in shock and surprise. I know that my seven, almost eight year old, should not still be saying, "Jesus, Jesus Day..." BUT it is such a part of him. Such a part of his littleness. Such a part of the baby I used to snuggle and scoop up with such ease. It is such a part of so very many memories of us praying together, night, after night after night.

Nights when it took patience for me to even pray with him. Nights when I would pour out my heart to God in prayers that left me in tears. Nights when I would pray for help in leading this boy in the correct way and many nights spent praying with him for Daddy to be safe in Iraq. I have spent nights praying for sweet bunnies who have died and nights spent praying for aunts and uncles in China and then years later the same aunt in a hospital just hours away. I have spent nights hearing his sweet prayers open with, "Jesus, Jesus day... " and have heard him continue on to pray for young friends suffering with leukemia, and to hear him thank God for the trees and the flowers and the bushes and the bugs. All the innocent childhood prayers for years and years were encompassed with that opening phrase.

My momma heart felt slightly torn as I knew that he was realizing that his opening for prayer wasn't "right." That there was a better way. A more acceptable way... in his young mind.

It was hard for me that night to give him a soft kiss on his still soft cheek and to just walk away from his bed. There was actually a part of me that wanted to curl right up there with him and beg him to stop growing up. That would be a weird parenting tactic, but I can't deny that the urge was there.

I felt wistful looking back in on him later that night. I made sure he was covered up well and all was well in his room and kissed his cheek again knowing that, "Jesus, Jesus day..." would probably not be heard again.

Tonight, I prayed with him and I talked with him and in the process he actually licked me right across the nose, which was disgusting and wet and just plain gross and was so very little boy like. Then we prayed and he opened the prayer with, "Jesus, Jesus day..." and never paused and never seemed to think about it twice.

I however did pause and I did think twice and I did hug him close and know that I was granted a reprieve. It will not be long I am sure but I will treasure every time I hear, "Jesus, Jesus day..."

one sunday in november

One Sunday in November I took a day's worth of pictures. I didn't plan anything special this day, it just sorta happened. It was a busy day looking back on it, but I have a feeling that everyday would seem busy if I actually took pictures and documented everything we do. I didn't start taking pictures until mid-morning, so I will describe that morning until that point.

I awoke to The Girl playing multiple instruments on my bedroom floor. We are talking drums and tambourines and singing... it was great. Really. We did breakfast, which I think was pancakes and then we settled in to cleaning up the house and living the standard Sunday morning. We attend church on Saturday night so we do not have the typical Sunday morning church routine.

As I was cleaning the kitchen, the kids started pulling out projects and things to do.

The Boy pulled out a kit to make window clings and decided on a turtle. First he needed to outline it all in black and wait a few hours and then color it all in.



On the other end of the table, The Girl started this project. These little guys are like packing peanuts and are actually just like the biodegradable ones that some companies use. They sell these at expensive kid stores for crafts. I got mine for free from someone who was getting rid of their stash. You simply wet them slightly and they stick together. She was making a wall here.



This is the caterpillar that The Boy made.



After a bit the Aquadoodle was pulled out. I love this thing! Art with painless water filled markers! Who ever thought this up deserves a gold medal. We practice spelling words on this too, but that is another post.


Back to the kitchen and a bit later, this is the outline done on the turtle. It is now drying.


In the meantime, I am checking out this magazine. Look at those cookies! Yum! I love the detail of that one with the snowman and the boy and I actually got on ebay and checked out the molds that are used to make cookies like that. I was just so impressed with the look of it.



Yet another item was pulled out of the laundry room. This is another favorite. I found this toy at a yard sale on base at our last station. It is from Germany and that becomes obvious as you look at what this toy does. You get to use a little hammer and real tacks. You see in Germany they can sell fun toys like these because people are not as sue happy there. They know that if a kid swallows a tack that they as a parent are to fault, not the company for making a toy. My kids love this and I think I paid a dollar for it. Great fun!!!



This is the overall look of the table as all of this was going on at virtually the same time. My table nearly always looks like this though.

I tell people we just have the privilege of eating in a classroom.


The finished hammering project. Nice standard little picture there... now we can all collectively sigh at the happy little domestic scene.


Time for music!!! Singing and making up songs about virtually nothing! Can it get any better?


The instruments were put away and they collaborated forces to build a fort to fight the bad Tigers. No kidding.


The cushions are off my sofa again.



They made arrows and spears out of K'nex. They had to fight off the bad guys from their fort. Guess who had the privilege of playing the bad tiger? Yup... that would be me! See what getting half your college education in Drama gets you?!


After some grand battles we stopped for lunch. That consisted of amazing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Yum. We had a few other things with that but I can't really remember what right now. Probably some clementine oranges. We love those guys!


After lunch the turtle was finished and it currently resides on the window of The Boy's bedroom.
The colored portions become more clear as they dry and look like a sun catcher type thing. It will stick right on the glass until the sun will slowly over the time of about a year disintegrate the material and you get to scrape it off the glass with a razor.


I checked on the bedrooms and what was going on up there. It looks like the dollhouse people are having a picnic. Notice the composed dad and the family dog. Now, look at the mom's wild and disheveled hair. Should I be fixing my hair more often?! What is she trying to tell me?!

The kids are playing here having great fun in the tree house and enjoying the picnic.


Ah, now next door in The Boy's room we have the K'nex mess. This mess shows up way too often around here. He loves these things though. They can be so many different things and he does use them to build things with the kit instructions but he also builds tons of different things. Like arrows. Spears. Guns. Such things that are so worthy of a little boy's time.


It was right about then that we went outside and The Boys started doing this.


The girls started doing this. It was time for the garden to get winterized. Mushy pumpkins were getting buried so they could make yummy dirt to plant things in when spring hits us.


The boys continued doing a bit of this...


The girls did a bit of this...


Then it was time to get ready for kid's choir practice. I washed up the kids and got them into appropriate clothing and ran to the commissary because I forgot that it was The Girl's turn to bring in snacks for her class. We picked up some of these guys for the kids. They are safe. No milk, no peanuts, just issues for those with wheat allergies and she has none of that going on in her class. She has developed a dairy allergy, but that is a whole 'nother post. I have found it is just easier to bring in snacks for her myself more often then not. If I don't bring snacks then they end up trying to serve them goldfish, or ritz crackers and she can't have either of those things so then I have to run next door to the store and grab her a different snack.


I stayed to help out some in her class cause there are tons of kids and we got all the juice boxes ready. I pulled up the "wings" so that the kids could grab those and not grab the box and squirt juice everywhere. They still did squirt some juice around. God bless janitors everywhere. They need it.


I took a fuzzy picture of her class on purpose. I do not post pictures of kids on my public blog at all, but I wanted you to get the overall impression of her class. Lots of kids, lots of fun. She is the one in the red dress on the right side of the picture.

The Boy's class was practicing for the musical they did for Christmas. Another fuzzy picture for you to enjoy. He was up there on the left side somewhere. I made this one too fuzzy for me to even tell where he was exactly.

For dinner we had tortilla soup. I made up those little yummy tortilla strips in the skillet too. Yum. I did take a picture of the soup, but the lighting was not working for me, so I will subject you to my fuzzy kid pictures but not to bad lighting pictures. I have my standards.


Yummy ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery. It is a tradition. We do not always go out for ice cream, more often then not we have sorbet here at home, but we always do Sundaes on Sundays. It is something that we picked up on from some of my dearest friends at our last duty station.

The Boy broke the norm and had mint ice cream. He ALWAYS has sorbet so this was something new for him. He ate half of it then he dumped out the ice cream and ate the cone. He just isn't an ice cream lover.

That was our day. I am sure that somethings were left out, like how I fell over once the kids were in bed, but you get the gist of it. I will have to do this again sometime in the future as well. It was fun to see our day from later looking back. It made me realize how much we actually do in a given day and most of our time was spent at home just messing around.

I hope you have an amazing weekend and time with your family as we prepare to celebrate this amazing season!

until they found a little house covered in candy...

There is nothing like Neccos for the roofing of gingerbread houses. I wonder if even the witch in Hansel and Gretel used Necco wafers?

The Boy made this little wreath for the back of the house. I thought it turned out quite well done.

I don't know that I would have been able to resist the sight of the sun shining through gumdrops either. The witch would have had me too!

The Boy working fervently on gluing on as much candy as possible. Can there ever be enough glued on?

Somehow I doubt the witches table was as messy as mine, but she was getting ready to eat kids, not letting kids consume copious amounts of sugar.

The Girl's finished house.

The Boy's finished house.

We did use a basic Wilton house kit. I don't really like to admit that, it is sorta like using a mix to make cookies. The deal is, I have decided that I will use the box because then I will have time to get it done. If I had to make the dough and bake it and cut it just right I am not sure we would have made the houses at all and I am so glad that we did make the houses. I will also add that I knew that Wilton put a pathetic amount of candy in the box and I bought plenty of my own to finish them off. The box didn't contain Neccos for example and I was set on having Neccos.

I did help with the roofs but they did them... and I did give suggestions on a few things, but they created. I did teach them how to make the icicles hang on the side of the roof, but those weren't really all that exciting for the kids to make. That took too much patience for them.

Maybe someday I will take the time to make my very own gingerbread house and will make it beautiful and exactly how I want it. Sometimes it is hard for me to not say a word as they make their own house the way they want their own house to be. Sometimes it is hard, but I am always so grateful when I keep my mouth shut. They come up with amazing things on their own that way. For example, I love the way The Girl put the little candy balls all over the roof. She loved playing with them and dropping them all over the floor and I loved the way they ended up looking.

The Boy created that sweet wreath and lined the edges of his area with those gum drops and I love the way that turned out.

The Girl said that so far this was her favorite part of the Christmas Season. That made it worth my keeping my mouth shut and made it worth the huge mess that was my kitchen and made it worth the tons of sugar I let them inhale.

get the lead outta yer...

Toys. Yup, Lead in toys, we have all heard about it. Many of us have sent toys in to be replaced... I know I did. I remember being SO mad that toys that my son had played with everyday for three years, toys that were quite pricey had lead on them.


Actually his favorite engine had lead on it. The paint was flaking off of this engine because it was so well loved but what do you do? Whinging about it fixes nothing so you move on and pray a little harder for your kids.

Tonight this article caught my eye on CNN.

After reading this article and cringing, I went to the site they referenced in the article and found out some very interesting things.

So, on this site, you can look up specific toys, you can look up the worst toys and you can look up the best toys and you can spend your time with your chin hitting the key board in shock.

Now... is this accurate? Who knows. I certainly don't and there isn't tons I can do about it. I suppose I can run out and buy a lead testing kit to test my toys myself for lead, but what about Mercury? Chlorine? Arsenic?

This toy has high levels of Mercury in it according to Healthy Toys.org and though I do not have this toy I have considered purchasing this toy before.

On the site it does contain this:

IMPORTANT NOTE

The information on HealthyToys.org is meant to provide general information to the public on whether or not certain chemicals were detected in tested children's products. HealthyToys.org did NOT conduct studies to determine if the chemicals of concern will migrate or come out of the product, causing a direct exposure. Therefore, HealthyToys.org can not determine whether the presence of these chemicals in a product results in human exposure, nor can HealthyToys.org estimate the health risk posed by any product. Studies intended to examine whether or not chemicals of concern do come out of products under various conditions can be done. Some manufacturers report having done studies of this kind. Please contact manufacturers directly if you are interested in that information.

The test results shown on the site apply only to the specific toys tested. Earlier or later versions of the same toys may contain different chemical formulations.

So, that makes me feel barely, slightly better.

This holiday, I plan on giving my kids twigs grown in my organic garden and some sweet mohair blankets spun and woven myself from the goats I personally sheared out on the farm. No really... they will love these gifts I am sure.

This summer past we built a sandbox for the kids in the backyard and I built it out of the most basic pine boards I could find. The guy at the lumber yard tried telling me that I needed to use pressure treated lumber and I told him he was crazy because of the levels of arsenic in it. He told me that my sandbox would only last a couple of years. I then informed him that we didn't really plan to be in this area that long anyways because of this whole military thing and that if I really needed to, I would willingly rebuild my sandbox in a few years.

In a later conversation with my dad he asked me what I used to build the sandbox and seemed quite pleased when I told him. He then apologized for using Pressure Treated lumber on our outside gym and on the sandbox we had growing up. I was more then willing to forgive him; he made the best choices he could for his kids at the time he made them.

As parents we can only make decisions on the best information we have at the time. We should not be paranoid and panicky, but we should be cautious and wary.

I think that is the best advice I can give on this.

simply bear

This story starts actually four years ago with a Momma who was desperately trying to potty train a two year old boy, who was frankly not ready to potty train. You may guess that she had never had a little boy before this one and she was a bit caught up in that whole momma mess where we are judged by what our children do developmentally. This young momma promised this little boy many things if he would just go potty ON the potty. He was doing pretty good with peeing on the potty, it was that other large annoyance he was having problems with. Finally his sweet little momma promised him that she would buy him a Thomas The Tank Engine train if he would do his big job on the potty.

One unforgettable day the little boy did this! The world cheered and the sun shone and the birds twittered, (not so unlike how bloggers twitter now). The young momma instantly decided that they needed to run out immediately and purchase this train, so she quickly strapped in the little two year old boy and the little seven month old girl and she headed for the village limit. THEN she had a thought... what if the small gift store that is actually located in this minuscule town carries Thomas stuff? She pulled her car right into a front parking spot at this small store and saw the Thomas sign in the front window. She strapped the baby girl in her stroller to contain her and she led the little super excited boy into the store full of collectibles and breakable things.

They headed right around the corner to where the Thomas stuff was and the little boy set right to playing with all the trains on the table. The baby girl was getting bored so the silly, young momma picked up a nice little bear that was handy and tossed it into the stroller for the baby girl to play with while the Momma searched for the coveted train.

The train was found! The boy was thrilled but he still continued to play with the trains on the store's train table. The momma turned to check on the quiet baby girl to find her with the tag of the bear in her mouth. The Momma's eyes got big and she carefully took the bear from the little girl's grip. The tag was completely mauled and unfortunately was one of those tags that people actually care about. The small red heart shaped tags that we are all so familiar with.

The young Momma's budget was tight and she wasn't planning on buying a bear and a train, but buy it she must and buy it she did. She planned on putting the bear in the baby's Christmas stocking because the baby would never know the difference and on Christmas morning the baby didn't.


As the years passed the bear was slowly toted around more and more. He was taken out to the yard where he had the pleasure of eating sand.

He was left on the floor to be tumbled about.

He was dressed up as a knight with his friends in the Girl's room.

He was snuggled in bed until he was quite smooshed. (look right down by her feet)

He was loved and loved and he was always called Bear. Simply Bear. Nothing fancy, nothing too haughty... just Bear.

Then the dreaded day came when Bear couldn't be found. He was missing. The Momma's head spun as she tried to think of where Bear could be. She tried thinking back to where Bear could have been taken and left and she couldn't remember where Bear had been last.

The, now five year old, girl and her now seven year old, brother and the, not as young, Momma asked everywhere they frequented if Bear was lurking in the lost and found bin. The Librarians were quite excited when they thought they had found the owner of a bear they had hiding in their bin, but it turned out to be someone else's bear waiting for their own owner. The other bins? They turned up Bearless.

The girl made Missing posters for Bear. She drew his picture on them and drew on his sweet green plaid bow and his sweet fluffy fur and she cried. Tears slid down her face and the Momma looked on worried. Anytime Bear was mentioned the Girl's eyes got large and started to well up with tears.

Finally, after Bear was not turning up by asking around lost and found boxes, the Momma took to the computer and started looking for Bear. Perhaps he was hanging out on that ebay place. Perhaps someone had located a long lost twin brother of bear somewhere else.

This Momma looked and looked and asked questions and searched. Finally one night, with several of the Momma's friends also looking, a sweet helper sent a link with a picture and the Momma's eyes lit up with such joy that she nearly fell out of her desk chair! She studied the face, she studied the body and she studied the price for flying Bear home and she pushed the little Buy It Now button.

Momma is now awaiting the arrival of bear and if it is indeed the one and the only Bear, then this sweet Bear will once again grace a stocking hanging carefully waiting for a little girl to find him and give him those hugs that only a little bear-struck girl can give.

eagles and tigers and biologists OH MY!

I do not normally post pictures of my kids on my public blog, but since they have so much on them as far as paint, I decided to go ahead.

Last blog I did post about getting these costumes done just in time. They were done, just in time and I did keep them fairly simple. The Girl has gone as a Bald Eagle, with tags on for K10 and K26, our favorite nest to watch on the web cams. K10 is the dad and K26 is the mom, and she couldn't decide which bird she wanted to be, so she had different tags on her different wings.

She only said that she wanted to be a princess once that night, when she saw a princess that she found particularly attractive. Poor girl her mom talked her into a Bald Eagle.

I made her a white hood that snaps under the chin and brown wings with a white tail attached. I made her talons to just tie on and lay over her feet. I painted her face up with white and yellow. I had wanted to get her a little beak that stays on with elastic, which would have looked neat, BUT I know it would have been uncomfortable and she wouldn't have kept it on, so really it would have just been for pictures.



The Boy was a white tiger and I basically just used a pajama pattern to make the top and bottom. I made the tail to just stick in the back of his pants and I whipped up the hat without a pattern... it was pretty simple, but The Boy didn't really like it. I think he didn't really like the way the stripes were running, but I just didn't have tons of fabric left to make choices of for the hat. Ah well... It was so easy I am tempted to make hats like these for kid Christmas presents. Overall he really liked it and has been wearing them for PJs constantly and doesn't want to change. The only thing I wish I had done was feet covers for his feet with the claw on them, but there is just so much time in a day.

I also painted up his face and he loved that. They were the only ones there with their faces painted and although the paint didn't stay on because of small eagles and tiger drinking from water fountians and then wiping their faces on their costumes, they loved the paint and the fun that it was.

My little eagle did get tired of her wings and she did take them off part way through, but she really liked it and I can see much pretend play coming from these costume.

One guy did mistake this tiger costume for a zebra costume and I was slightly miffed, BUT no one else mistook it at all. It was the way he said it though that really annoyed me and he said it that way in front of The Boy and that bugged me too. If he didn't "get" the costume fine, but don't use grown up sarcasm about my son's costume in front of my son. He loved it... except for the hat and I have a feeling he will be wearing this costume out before he out grows it.

Oh! I did go as a wildlife biologist... my costume was simple. I wore jeans and my green corduroy shirt with a name tag stuck in the pocket. On the name tag I simply wrote wildlife biologist. I figured this was pretty right on for the night as I kept up with my tiger and my bald eagle. Periodically I had to catch them and check to see what they were eating and check for contaminants in their food (candy)... heheh...

Next year I would like to keep the costumes even more simple... as I was slightly stressed over getting them done on time. I think we will go as scary unsocialized homeschoolers. ;)