We still have some more boxes to unpack and many projects to do, but we are sort of settled in and ready to have guests.  So yesterday, Stuart and I hosted a house party to invite all of our local friends to pay us a visit.  We started preparing food and drinks on Saturday.  The boys were quite excited to have their friends over to play, and they started naming the people they know. 

     On Sunday while Connor was napping, I did some more food preparation and Stuart picked up the entrees.  Our friends slowly started coming in after 3pm, and within an hour, our house was full of people.  Logan and Connor helped showing our house to some aunties initially, then they started playing when more friends arrived.  Logan spent majority of the time playing with Colton, Rohan and Riley, later with Brandon too.  They ran up and down the stairs between their bedrooms and the living room playing with the inflatable swords.  At one point, I think I saw 5-6 swords fighting but fortunately no injury at all.  Logan had a blast; he got so warm and flushed that he asked Michelle once to wipe the sweat off his head.  Connor played with the boys with sword fighting sometimes; he also spent sometime with the girls, Bar, Raz and Mia.  He later told me that they were playing “night-night, baby, mommy and daddy”.  Once I saw him following Bar, he happily told me that “Bar is my friend”.  Connor was running around a lot and rolling on the ground too.  One time I was checking on him while he was playing with Mia, he said to me quietly “Momma, go away”.  Sad!  Connor also took a couple of breaks for food; since I was busy hosting, Connor enjoyed getting help from Michelle and Revital.

      Both Logan and Connor’s gangs hung out most of the times in their bedrooms, but for the rest of the kids, the game room was the place to be.  They all played very nicely in there with some parents supervising.  The rest of adults were all scattered in the kitchen, family room and the living room.  Stuart and I tried our best to go around the house to check on our guests and chat with them.  Shortly before 6pm, most of our friends began to leave.  By then, Logan came up to tell me that he forgot to eat.  So Rohan, Logan and Connor sat down to have some food and Riley and Mia joined them too.  Stuart and I finally sat down to have our dinner as well.  We all had a great time and this was a nice way to totally feel settling in into our new home.

    I usually don’t like to receive calls from school, but today I received two OK ones.  During lunchtime, the administration called me to inform that Connor’s class is getting larger, therefore they had to re-structure it.  Connor, along with all the full time students, will be moving to another classroom next week and they will gain a couple of new classmates too.  One of his current teachers will move with them and they will get a new regular teacher.  This change should not be much of an impact to Connor, other than a march in the mornings from the drop off room to their actual classroom and an slightly new environment. 

    In the afternoon, a teacher of Logan called.  She stated that she is the drama teacher for Logan and she sees him twice a week for 30 minutes.  She wanted to make sure that we are available on 12/18 to watch a skit they are preparing.  We had no idea that Logan is in drama as Logan never mentioned anything about it.  I recalled filling out a paper for Logan back in September, and one of the questions was if we would like Logan to participate in drama in the after school program; of course I answered yes to expose Logan to different things.  It will be very interesting to watch how Logan will perform that day.

     After Connor and I woke up from nap yesterday, we went to Tyler and Tyson’s 4th birthday party briefly.  Connor was excited to attend a party, so he did not mind just jumping out of bed and straight to the car ride.  After we arrived, Connor hung out with me, and did not want to try the bouncy house or face painting.  We shared a few bites of food together and he played at the small slide in between.  When it was group photo time, Connor was willing to stay with the group only because Mckayla held his hand and with the motivation to have cake afterward.  Connor chose to have a chocolate cupcake and he enjoyed the entire mini one.  Afterward, it was the pinata time.  Connor was content just watching the other kids participating, but at the end, he changed his mind.  He went up to the pinata but he was too shy to hit it.  So I had to help him made his three swings.  When the candies came out later, he grabbed two candies for himself and one for Logan.  Connor had been crazy about candies since Halloween, so he was so fascinated to see candies again.  He even tried to take one away from the pile that Mckayla asked us to take home for Logan.  When the Kaos and the Tsaos were leaving, we decided to take off to go home too.

    Early this morning we attended Hunter’s 2nd birthday party.  Both boys were excited and sat down nicely to listen to the instruction before entering the bouncy area.  Logan started playing at the ball shooting with Stuart while Connor just hung with me as he did not want to try anything.  Finally Stuart convinced Connor to go into the basketball one with him, then both boys were finally warmed up.  They played at the basketball one, the boxing one, and the barricade one.  Logan even went on the super slide one a few times on his own too.  He did fall on his foot at the barricade bouncy one and hurt his toe.  Overall, the two boys liked hanging out with each other and had fun.  They built up a great appetite for pizza/snack afterward.  Connor of course loved the chocolate cake while Logan only wanted a couple of bites as he was filled with pizza.  They received balloons and their gift bags, then we left the party to go home.

    Both boys were so excited about Halloween because we had been talking about the school’s dress up days and trick or treating for days; and the fun day finally arrived.  Connor had two dress-up/parade days as the class tried to accommodate the part time students; so Connor was a doctor yesterday and a fireman today. 

    I was fortunate to get the day off today so we could make to both kids’ parades, in the morning and in the afternoon.  Before 10:30am, Stuart and I arrived Connor’s classroom.  Connor was excited to see us; he came over to give me a hug then returned to line up with his classmates.  Connor apparently had Logan’s previous signature arm stretch too, but he also added big smiles for us.  All the parents were sent to another classroom and watched a little skit by the teachers with the kids as their audience.  Then we proceeded back out to the courtyard and watched the parade of the kids.  Connor became so shy that he was the only kid who needed the teacher to walk across the stage with him.  Afterward the parents followed them back to their classroom which marked the end of their Halloween parade.  The parents were also given a nice handmade card with a great class photo with some pumpkins.  Right when the parents started saying byes to the kids, Connor looked sad and became clingy.  He was willing to follow the teacher to the courtyard after giving us a hug, but he was quietly tearing which was so sad.

    In the afternoon, I made a huge error; somehow I had the wrong time down for Logan’s parade.  We arrived 15 minutes before the time I had on our schedule, but obviously the show was going on already.  Logan’s class was singing in their classroom when we walked in.  We missed their parade in the courtyard.  I felt so horrible, but I could only jump in and enjoy the rest of the show.  Logan did not participate as much as his classmates did, but it was still fun watching them.  Afterward, Logan came over for a hug and we hung out a bit longer in the class to take some pictures and chat with other parents before picking up Connor too to go home.

   We had an early dinner to get ready for trick or treating.  The boys were excited to go out but the day light seemed to take longer to go away.  We finally decided to get out there before it turned completely dark.  Connor was a bit scared to go up to the houses initially, but Logan was bold this year.  We visited a few houses and met a couple of new neighbors.  We started seeing other trick-or-treaters, and Logan decided to walk along with them.  After just a few more houses, Logan declared that he had enough candies and wanted to go home.  So Connor and I dropped him off so he could give out candies with daddy instead.  Connor and I went on another block.  There were tons of kids out there, and Connor was so polite that we often waited for the kids to pass us before he got his candies.  After his bucket got slightly heavier, Connor wanted to go home to eat them and to see daddy.  The boys enjoyed a couple of candies of their choices, and had fun giving out candies the rest of the time.  This neighborhood had loads of trick-or-treaters that we ran out of all the candies and had to move on to granola bars from our pantry.  Fortunately shortly after 8pm, the door bell ceased ringing and we proceeded with our usual bedtime.

    Other than taking Logan out for a hair cut, we stayed home all day.  In the morning, we spent some time in the backyard.  I wanted to carve a pumpkin while letting the boys do some decorations.  I was not very prepared, so all they had were a marker and some heart stickers.  But both of them managed to decorate the small pumpkins and had fun.  Then they moved on to play with different things in the backyard while I carved a pumpkin for a work contest and Stuart did some yard work.  We also had Scottie out with us too, so the boys were given a job to keep an eye on him.  Later the boys started to fight with some toys, so it was a cue for us to wrap up and come inside for lunch.

    This afternoon Stuart hooked up the Wii and Logan got to see the old games he used to play.  It has been so long that Logan totally forgot about them.  Both Logan and Connor had fun playing the flying and the dueling games.  Connor did not really know what he was doing but had a great time just pretending.  I helped Connor out sometimes and finally won a few games, but Logan was being a sore loser that we finally wrapped up game playing with some moodiness.  Fortunately he turned the corner after dinner and we had fun building with Duplo Lego before bedtime.

   We all went out for Julie’s birthday last night, 19 of us.  While we were driving there, Logan said he wanted to sit with Daddy and Connor, while Connor wanted to sit next to Mckayla and Logan.  When we arrived, Logan said Happy Birthday to auntie Julie, then went to sit down next to Brandon.  According to Stuart, Logan was content doing some drawings on his own before the food arrived.  As usual while he was eating, he watched the Batman show on Stuart’s phone.  Connor was playful.  He spotted all the scarecrows in the dining room, talked with a few people, and enjoyed peeking out at the staircase behind us.  He enjoyed drawing and showing it to us too.  The ordering and delivery of the dinner took awhile but it allowed time for us to catch up with one another.  I was able to chat with Julie while watching the two well behaved twins in front of me.  I also talked with Theresa and Martin who were rested and tanned from the recent honeymoon.  After we all ate and before the kids got wild, we left the restaurant and said goodbyes to everyone.