Wordless Wednesday: Annual Pumpkin Carving

Our annual tradition:)

All drama:) Anything to get a laugh from his siblings!

And this year was soo awesome with the kids doing ALL the work...

and I did the clean up that was pretty simple since we worked outside!!

The girls worked for almost 2 hours on their pumpkin! They finally rested on their tummies.

TIny Talk Tuesday: Intestines and Waiting at the Door

As I was bathing the girls, I reminded Lydia to wash her whole body.

It was then that Anna had to add in her mothering, " And don't forget to wash your intestines!"

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After attending two church fall socials this weekend, we decided to have a "home" night on Halloween Night. It was cold, wet and Daddy was working late... sounded like a good idea to stay at home;)

So we got to pass out candy!

The kids were very excited about that.... I stopped counting all the squabbles I had to break up about who was going to pass out the candy, I didn't want to scare off the trick-or-treaters:) The kids reminded me of the part on Cars when the tourists happened upon Radiator Springs and all the townspeople crowded them offering their services:)

Anyway, they asked to eat dinner at the door, so they could see people stopping at our house;) A little scary...

But this was the scariest thing I saw all evening... the shirtless creature;) LOL!!

Weekly Wrap-Up: Jumpers with No Coordination, Pumpkins

We had a fun week :) Lots of outside time earlier in the week, soccer practice/games and some fun events at the end of the week:)

Bible
We are continuing to work through 1 Corinthians 13! I love that my kids can memorize verses soo much more quickly than I. It makes me want to invest the time to learn them as well!!

This week for prayer time as we've been praying for family and friends we've been discussing the manner of prayer. How God knows what we are asking even when we don't have the right words and what our attitudes/actions should be like during times of prayer. Crazy what conversations come up during our prayer times :)

Language Arts
We had a normal week here.... just keeping up with Grammar, spelling, reading practice, some writing (Anna doing cursive and Chris and Lydia doing copywork).

Anna is doing Spelling Power this year. I like the format. I like that I'm a part of her spelling work daily. But she's been rushing through her spelling words :( It caught up with her this week... she had trouble with a Review Test with words she had already worked on. So well stalled on spelling in order to practice those words more thoroughly. I'm glad it happened because it pointed out to her how "rushing through" work will catch up to her. Lets just say though, that I'm glad that the following lesson was a little easier for her ;)

Any wisdom on how to encourage them to slow down when using the 10 Study Steps on Spelling Power?

Math
We only completed 3 lessons a piece since we had two abnormal days! So that was good;)

The most notable thing in math was Chris starting fractions!!

History
This week we finished reading our Pocahontas books and then started on the exploration of Canada. We specifically studied Henry Hudson and Samuel Champlain. We read, narrated, colored and mapped it out. We read a book on Henry Hudson that was a little more personal.... when we read that the sailors sent Hudson, his son and some sick crew members afloat in a small raft to die in the Hudson Bay from our reader the kids kind of shrugged (nothing like the beheadings at the Tower of London!). But when reading the biography with pictures, they definitely showed more sympathy ... shows the importance of books to add to our lessons.

One afternoon we decided to play some of the Inuit games, like

 * jumping  the length of our bodies

* jumping while holding onto your toes (try it... it's hard)

 * the juggling really caused issues... my kids just aren't coordinated :/

where did the ball go???

Waiting again:)

Chris actually did well with the juggling of one ball... he never did try two;)

Science
 Anna wrote up an experiment and finished up old definitions as well as new ones for the new experiment. We never did get to the actual experiment though :/ So that will be Monday;)

We did some "science" with pumpkins on Friday. We had friends come over and did the "pumpkin thing"...



we measured, weighed, described, tasted (the brave ones), read a book that quickly went over how they are grown and then cut them open:) Of course the final conversations revolved around the "gooky" stuff and seeds:)

Cool results though;)

Friday and Saturday nights we attended church fall festivals/parties;) The kids had a blast! This was my favorite pic:

Nate (the giraffe) Raiding the Candy

Overall a good week.... schooling, at the park with friends, great finds at a local Once A Upon a Child, kitten catching, friends over to "do" pumpkins and then all the fun parties;)

Linking up to Weekly Wrap-Up:)

www.thehomeschoolchick.com

Feeling Fall, Eating Apples

ohhh, I can feel it in the air..... a another change of season:)

The weather has been gorgeous the last few days...

cooler mornings, and almost "hot" afternoons....

and yes, I have even seen some colored leaves in the trees;)

My 3rd favorite thing about fall though is APPLES:)

We are apple eaters...

and I love that apples are harvested in the fall so they are cheaper at the store, not quite yet....

but soon!!

"Every season of life has both limitations and joys that are present only in that season."    Kay Warren  
Found here and thanks to my sweet librarian and friend Heather for sharing it:)

Simply Dressed

When I asked the kids what they wanted to dress like they were eager to choose their own outfits. WHich was more than fine with me..... so we ended up going with very simple and easy costumes.

Anna loves a ballet outfit that was given to her. So she was quick to choose that!! Aunt Bea bought some cute clips the other day and matched very well... we were disappointed that she had to wear her tennis shoes because one of her ballet slips was MIA!!

Chris orginially wanted to be Diego... we had it all but the vest... we searched but didn't find one. We did find an ARMY shirt for $1.50 and he LOVES it... I think he'll wearing it LONG after Halloween is over.

Lydia is definitely my non-conformist!! She had NO desire to dress up although I thought she'd make an adorable BABY or Carrie from Little House on the Prairie... nope, she wanted to be "nothing". So that is what she dressed as and told people who asked her what she was dressed like... "Nothing!"

I also dressed up... more to have an outfit for Awana. But I also decided to wear my outfit to our church's Fall Festival:) Yes... I was a Dr Pepper can. It's actually my brother's outfit... why not get more use out of it:)

Pumpkin Morning & Allergy Fears

Well I did use some of the "pumpkin math" ideas.... but for our Halloween morning we had a Pumpkin Morning!!! We drew pictures of our pumpkins, they described(felt, colors,etc) them and I wrote their words. We then weighed and measured the pumpkins and ordered them from largest to smallest:)We also played a Pumpkin Face shape match game in the kids' Highlights Magazine and read a book that talked about how pumpkins grow and end up at the pumpkin patch... very, very informative and definitely counted as some science:)

Then I brought the kids into the kitchen to carve them..... I made a video of how they entertained themselves as I got our supplies and kitchen ready for the mess (it was too chilly to go outside) !!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Sorry I don't have picture of them carved out... I just haven't done it yet:) Friday was a busy day:) But we will get to it... think I should carve a turkey or a Christmas tree on them.... ahhahaa

The other thing about the pumpkins and the carving is that I'm not sure how much contact Christopher should have with the pumpkin juices and insides...ewww:) Since he has had trouble with a squash allergy, he might also have a problem with pumpkins...so I kept a close eye as he made a couple scoops and I kept the stool near the sink so he could wash his hands whenever he needed to (regardless of what I was doing or had on my hands).

But no reactions, although I haven't given him a roasted pumpkin seed to try yet... not sure if I will even try it... I'm actually thinking giving him a piece of a baked pumpkin muffin might be a better trial since it would have been processed and baked at least once.... we'll see....

Quick Stop at the Pumpkin Patch

This evening we headed out to a local farm to enjoy their fall celebrations:) We met Andrea and her crew out at the farm just for a quick visit since we were trying to beat the rain:)

We had the kids dress up into their Halloween costumes!! I'm glad they did because usually they get to wear them once (maybe twice) out of the house. Although on Wednesday Anna wore her outfit for a good portion of the day:) This year Anna is a ballerina (with a few extra clothes on a cool evening)! Christopher will be dressing like a skunk... it's a very cute little outfit from Old Navy (I figured he'll wear it this year and Lydia will wear it next year)!!! I have hopes that Lydia will wear our giraffe costume this year....hmmm, might not happen, she's pretty picky about her attire:)

Christopher loved the petting zoo and animals!! He is such an animal lover:) He was very gentle with the baby goats and later told me that he wanted a goat!!! He's not scared of any of the animals.... on the way out he stuck his fingers into a chicken coup and said the chicken bit him! Then he tried to feed the donkey and wasn't fearful at all when it looked like half his hand was in the donkey's mouth:)

Here are a few more pictures of our adventures:)




Andrea posted some pictures she took... on her blog and her flickr :)

Fall leaves

Do you remember you parents raking up a huge pile of leaves and then wanting to jump in it...or jumping in it!! I do...I'm not sure how many times my parents let us do it, but I remember jumping in leaves hoping there wasn't any poison ivy.....

Last week during our unseasonably warm days, I went out and raked and then let the kids jump in the piles....I was thinking, "Surely they can't spread the pile out too much." Boy was I wrong, I basically had to re-rake where I had just raked :) But it was soo much fun watching them have fun!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Happy 1st day of winter!!!

"There is a season for everything. And there is a time for every event [even leave pile jumping] under heaven." Eccl 3:1