Luque Family Reunion

Paul's mom, Martha's maiden name is Luque, and just recently, their family had a reunion in Bisbee. I was working, big surprise, but Paul and Isaac were able to attend. This is a picture of those who attended. Paul's mom is in the red shirt in the middle. His father Alex is in front of her and to the right, wearing a jacket with a black collar. Isaac is in the bottom right wearing his black fleece jacket. Paul is just to the right and behind of his mom. To the left of Paul is his brother Brian, to his right his sister Lorrie and to her right his sister Veronica. The cousins are across the front. From right to left are Isaac, Ashly, Stephanie, Samantha, Daisy and Sarah.

Skeleton Face

Isaac's class earned a Halloween party yesterday. There was face painting, visits and pictures with their buddies, snacks, Halloween music, and fun art projects. All the other students got cute little pictures on their faces, but no, Isaac had to get his whole face! Luckily, it wasn't nearly as hard to get off as I anticipated. Whew! Ooooh such a scary face!

Lego Spaceship

Isaac received this set of Legos as a gift for his second birthday and now they have finally become an interest. He has been making spaceships, nearly daily. This is one of the more amazing ships he has built recently. Thought I'd just share with y'all!

Halloween: Wolverine Strikes!

The ever-looked-forward-to Halloween has come and gone. Isaac had a hard time deciding between Spiderman, Flash and Wolverine. He finally decided on Wolverine, and it turned out to be a good choice, we didn't see a single other Wolverine! As usual, we headed out to Heidi's house to do our trick-r-treating. As usual, I forgot Isaac's candy pumpkin, which is totally useless every single other day of the year. Gee perfect...But Heidi let us use a pillowcase, and Isaac didn't complain or whine a bit. Thanks Heidi! Didn't get any great pictures, it's hard to aim when your LCD screen only shows darkness! But did my best since I was the only one with a camera. Despite complaints regarding the flash I kept taking pictures--that's the dedicated scrapbooker that I am!
Kira was a beautiful fairy, strutting the newly lost tooth! Isaac is now talking of how his teeth are loose ;-) I'm all for the teeth coming out, we want to get on to the adult teeth! Plus, toothless grins are just adorable! Scrapbook opportunity! When we got back first thing we had to do was exchange all the chocolate for non-chocolate candy. For those of you who don't know, Isaac doesn't like chocolate AT ALL! We had lots of fun! Enjoy the pictures!

Pumpkin Carving

This is the first year that Isaac and I have actually carved a pumpkin. Last year he drew faces on his pumpkin, then wiped them off with a wet paper towel and drew a new one. This year I felt he was ready to give a real carving a try. On Friday his class went on a field trip to Buckalew Farms where he and his buddy Shenna (each student in his class has a buddy from the 8th grade) picked out a pumpkin. He came home dusty and excited. Yesterday we got to carving. He drew on the line around the top and I cut it out and emptied the gooey guts. Then he drew a face on with markers which he then poked into the skin with a plastic tool. We wiped off the marker and he got to carving. He did almost all the carving himself, but need my help to be sure it was cut enough that the piece would come out. I helped carve the teeth, too.
Here is the finished product. Looks pretty good to me! He is so proud and excited to have his pumpkin done! Of course we had to put a candle in it to test it out, that picture is below. Isaac is counting the days until he can dress up for his Halloween parade at school and then of course for trick-r-treating. Day after tomorrow! I will save pictures of him in his costume (it's a surprise) until after Halloween. Hope you all have a safe and fun Halloween!

More Isaac Art

Well, much to my dismay, I think a Pokemon stage may have arrived at the Soto residence. Isaac is in a K/1 class and the older boys are into Pokemon, and suddenly Pokemon-fever seems to have hit the whole class. I am truly unversed in Pokemon and have threatened to look for a Pokemon for Dummies book so I can figure out what the heck they're all about. Ever on the bright side, though, I am thrilled by some of the artwork that it seems to be producing. To the right you see the picture from the Pokemon book he bought at the Book Fair, below is his drawing of it. I was blown away by the drawing, and when I commented to Isaac how great it was, he was upset that it wasn't any good. I explained that I KNOW I couldn't draw like that when I was five, but still he said "It doesn't look anything like the picture." I contend that it does look remarkably like the picture, but then again, I am just a silly mom.

Isaac is thriving in is class, his teachers Jo and Rafael are amazing. He is coming home with homework and is excited to do it. His reading is advancing quickly and he is enjoying all the amazing science projects they are doing at school. I am in constant awe at all that he knows, that I didn't know he knows. He's only five and I already can't keep up with his learning! The newest love is having chapter books read to him. The current favorite is a series called The Magic Tree House, starring a brother and sister duo of Jack and Annie. By means of a magic tree house they travel through time to different places to help Morgan le Fay, a magical librarian from the realm of Camelot. They are so much fun, I love reading them to him!
On a separate note, Paul measures Isaac on his bedroom door jam and I noticed the other day that Isaac has grown and inch and half since July! Zowie!

Mmmm, yummy.

Okay, y'all here's my last post of our trip to the Sierras...Paul took a bunch of these pictures of Isaac and I on our last day before heading home. I was beginning to feel the heaviness of having to leave, return home and face chaos. Isaac just wanted to snuggle with his mom (I'm loving it while he's still interested in snuggling with me). I think Isaac was starting to feel bummed about having to leave the Lake and Pineridge, too. Once you've been to these special places, leaving them feels a little like leaving home every summer. Our family is so blessed to be able to visit these places, but somehow intuitively we try not to take them for granted and do try to soak up every minute and be thankful. This picture show so much of what I have to be thankful for.