Hunting with a 5 year old boy...

My kids have piano lessons every other Monday.

A friend my husband plays music with lives about 10 doors down from their piano teacher.

We occasionally take walks while waiting for my son or daughter to finish their lesson. Today was a walk day.

First I walked around the block with my 9 year old daughter while carrying my 9 1/2 month old niece (who was adorable! kicking and laughing the whole time!) We walked around the block in 15 minutes then sat outside doing things to make the baby laugh until it was time to trade kids.

Then it was the boy's turn.

"I gotta find Brendan. I know he lives this way. I'm gonna find his house."

"Oh yeah? Do you know which house is his?"

"No."

"How are you going to know which one is his?"

"..."

"Maybe you could look for his car."

"Oh! Yes! Oh! Wait! I see it! There's his car! That has to be his house. Wow. They have nice trees."

We then walk up to this house with nice trees and my son rings the doorbell. As he's waiting for someone to answer the door, he writes the house number down in his handy dandy notebook with his handy dandy pencil. Well, Brendan didn't answer the door. His dad did. This caused some confusion for the boy.

"Tell him who you're here to see. " I said.

"I'm lookin' for Brendan."

Brendan's dad - awesome guy! - shows Zao inside and points him to Brendan. The conversation between Zao and Brendan went a little bit like this.

"Hi."

"Hey Zao. Whatcha doing?

"Just came to find you and say hi. Bye."

Zao then turned around and walked out of their house!!!

Oh, man! This kid is FUNNY!!! Before we continued our walk, though... he wrote down Brendan's license plate number in his handy dandy notebook with his handy dandy pencil... just to make sure he can find him again!!

So today, I went on a Brendan hunt and was thoroughly entertained by my 5 1/2 year old son!

~Alicia

TIS THE SEASON TO BE THANKFUL

 As we're moving into the Thanksgiving season it's great to really take a moment, or many moments, to sit back and reflect on all that you truly have to be thankful for! If you are a fellow facebooker you might have noticed the latest status craze that is going around! There are a couple different versions, 25 days of Thanksgiving, or 30 days of Thankfulness, all of which users post daily one thing on their status that they are thankful for. I absolutely love this! It is so refreshing to log in to facebook and read the wave of thankfulness! It is so much more encouraging to read about how happy you are that you have a job, than to read about how unhappy you are with your boss/coworkers! We truly are blessed in so many ways, and it's great that people are taking time to realize it!:)

  Raspberry Cordial would love to hear what you are thankful for!?!?! Please feel free to share with us, we're all kindred spirits here! :)

Check out our facebook page to see what we're thankful for each day! http://www.facebook.com/raspberrycordialmusings

Laura Ingall's Who?!?

 Greetings Raspberry Cordial buddies! Did everyone have a great Halloween? I know we sure did! We went to the Halloween party at my daughter's Tae Kwon Do school (we go every year) and it was a blast! One of the things they do at this party every year is dance! They do the Macarena and (my daughter's favorite) The Cha Cha slide! It's so cute to see all the kids hop three times, especially when they're all in costume! Another highlight of the annual Tae Kwon Do Halloween party is to see what costume Layla's coach, Erjan, is going to be wearing! He is a total crack up and is in character all night for whatever costume he is wearing! In the past he has been Avatar (the person one, not the scary looking blue things! ha ha!), a caveman, and a cheerleader. This year he was one of those street performers you see in Vegas or at Venus Beach! The kids loved it!

  This year Layla dressed up as Laura Ingalls Wilder (Last year for school we did the Prairie Primer which focuses on the Little House on the Prairie series! Our love for the Little House books has only been made stronger after last year's experience on the prairie! I highly recommend this curriculum to anyone!) Before the party all of her friends kept asking who she was going to dress up as, she would tell them, and they would just look at her with an unknowing blank stare, ha ha! When they saw her actual costume though, they finally understood!
 We also participated in the event that was put on at our church! They put on a show for the kids called "A Diary of a Shrimpy Kid", and there was also other activities. There was one of those gigantic blow up slides, and my daughter, nieces and nephew were so excited to go on it! No shoes allowed on it though, and my nieces and nephew were all up and on it before Layla could even get her "Little House boots" off her feet! She stated that next year she does not care what she dresses up as, she is going to wear flip flops!

Halloween is now over and it's time to start brainstorming next year's costume... and time to figure out how to get rid of the rest of this year's candy!?!!