Fall Family Fun

I finally had some free time this afternoon to sort through some of our recent photos, and I know my mom will be happy to see that I'm finally posting a few here! I thought about trying to give them all their own tidy little post, but that just takes too much work. ;)

So, here we have our annual trip to the pumpkin patch on the beautiful weekend before Halloween. We had so much fun! I love watching my kids in the pumpkin patch. Even Kristen was toddling all over the place picking up tiny pumpkins, and even cuter, the big kids were doing the same thing--to give to her! Of course, no visit is complete without cotton candy and ice cold lemonade, both of which we had in abundance. :)

On Halloween day, we carved our pumpkins and celebrated the first birthday of our own little black kitty! She was just a tiny little stray fluff of a kitten when our neighbors rescued her last year, and, figuring she was about six weeks old at that time, we counted back on the calendar and estimated that she must have been born right around Halloween! So that has become her birthday; appropriate, I think! :)

Trick-or-treating was so much fun this year. So many of our neighbors were set up in their driveways handing out candy and visiting with everybody who came by, and it just felt so friendly! Some people really went to great lengths to provide fun for the kids; one family down our street was even passing out bags of warm, fresh popcorn from a big theater style popper they had set up in their garage! Kristen and I came home after a while to pass out our own candy, but the big kids enjoyed staying out with Daddy to visit more of the neighborhood!

This past weekend we were happy to attend the annual Renaissance Faire at the park. Some things had changed; my brother wasn't performing this year, and Clan Tynker was noticeably absent. (Although there was the new addition of a wine garden! Except we didn't have a chance to visit. Next year, for sure!) Still, we had a great time browsing the vendor's booths, playing in the children's realm, eating yummy food, feeding the ducks, and, of course, ending with a canoe ride! This year was Darren's turn; I've ridden with the children the past two years and figured he was finally due for a little fun of his own. :) After about four hours, though, we (meaning "me" more than the others) were finally ready to head home!

I feel like time is swiftly marching forward, now. School is going well with the kids, extracurricular activities are keeping us plenty busy, Darren and I have some home organization projects under way, and my mom will be visiting the first two weeks of December! I can't wait to see her again! In the meantime, mom, I hope you enjoy the photos. ;)

Along the Alphabet Path: Weeks "E" and "F"

We're still enjoying our journey along the alphabet path, but I have to admit that I've gotten lazy about photo-documenting every activity we do! And, as my pregnancy progresses, it's also true that much of what we do is simply piling together on the couch in the living room with appropriate books to read aloud. We're learning so much this way, though, and it really is fun. And I love that we're finally putting to good use all the wonderful books we've accumulated over the past few years!

We'll be starting "G" week on Monday, so I wanted to post a quick update about our "E" and "F" weeks so I'll at least feel a little more caught up! ;)

Let's see...it's been a while now, but "E" week was for Eyebright and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, planet Earth, and Explorers. Books we used included Science 2 for Young Catholics, Science 2 for Little Folks, The Magic School Bus Inside the Earth, and Around the World in a Hundred Years. OH! And would you believe that one day that week it actually snowed here?! So we took the opportunity to read about Eskimos in Mama, Do You Love Me?, The Three Snow Bears, and The Eye of the Needle (which had us all in stitches...no pun intended!).

Tea time included Elephant story books, Elephant Ears from a little gem of a book called Alpha-Bakery Children's Cookbook, and Eggnog! I also helped the children with a cute little elephant craft, which we all really enjoyed!

This week was "F" week, for Fuschia and St. Francis, Flowers, Fish, and Food chains. Books we read included Flowers, The Flower Alphabet Book, Miss Rumphius, My Visit to the Aquarium, A Fish Hatches, The Freshwater Alphabet Book, Who Eats What?, and The Magic School Bus Gets Eaten. We greatly enjoyed revisiting the flowers that Darren helped the children preserve on our camping trip back in September, and we did a couple of fun little crafts including foil fish and a family tree!

And, I almost forgot: tea time! "F" week's treat was delicious Fudge Brownies (from the above mentioned cookbook) and Fountain Classics! Yum! I think that tea time treats may be my very favorite part of our alphabet path. :)

Monday, Monday

I feel like such a slacker. Here it is, the start of another week, and I'm still in my pajamas savoring my first cup of coffee at nearly 8:00. This is not acceptable! I was doing so good about getting up every morning between 5 and 5:30, but lately I am just exhausted. Last week was "D" week, and as you can clearly see, I have no post prepared to showcase our work. Sorry. There wouldn't be much to see anyway, though, because I didn't take many pictures, but also because it seems we didn't do more of what I had planned than we did do. Didn't quite get to all of our read alouds, for example, nor did we ever make the cool dinosaur diorama I had envisioned, and I completely abandoned the density experiment due to insufficient supplies and lack of time. The donation box I started earlier in the week is sitting, not nearly full enough for my liking, in the garage that was also supposed to be cleaned this weekend and wasn't. But! It's all good. We enjoyed the things we did do, including a fun desert walk on Darren's day off (and can't forget those donuts from Daddy!) and we finally, at long last and after much pleading on Dylan's part, got our Halloween decorations up.

Also accomplished this weekend: a visit to the pumpkin patch (So fun! Post coming soon!), front flower bed cleaned completely, and a superfluous trip to Hobby Lobby, after which I now have the most gorgeous yarn and crochet needles, never minding the fact that I don't know how to crochet, replenished scrapbook supplies for our geography lessons, and the most beautiful new art supplies including oil pastels and watercolors, both of which I rely upon heavily, especially since I so love this website, which also employs the use of those same mediums in so many projects. Whew! That was a long sentence. Which probably means it wasn't grammatically correct, but I hope you'll forgive me. Anyway. Off now to find some breakfast. Chocolate Chip Malt-O-Meal, anyone? Fine then. More for me. :)

Yummy.

Caitybug's ladybug birthday!

Caitlyn turned six last Thursday and she had such a fun birthday! She had requested french toast for breakfast so I made a delicious french toast casserole that I'd made once for Kristen's baptism. (I'd link to it, but the blog on which I'd found it seems to have been deleted!) It was so yummy! We had eggnog, too, one of our favorite treats this time of year! After breakfast she wanted to open presents, and was so happy with the gifts received from her brother and sisters! Darren and I didn't have a gift for her to unwrap from us, because we had something special planned for later!

After getting dressed, we headed up to the mall, because her only other request was to have lunch at Chuck E. Cheese's! I just love watching my kids play there. It really is a special place "where a kid can be a kid"! I had printed some special coupons from their website before we left, so we had a LOT of tokens for them to use...one hundred and forty, Dylan just reminded me! What a blast!

It was before lunch, however, when Caitlyn received her special surprise gift from us:

A trip to the jewelery store to have her ears pierced! She has been wanting for so long to have earrings, and Darren and I decided that her sixth birthday would be the perfect time to do it! We were so proud of what a a brave girl she was! She is so happy to finally have her ears pierced; she keeps looking in the mirror to see them and says how much she loves them! My sweet, beautiful baby is becoming such a big girl!

The big kids had gymnastics that afternoon, so we saved the cake and ice cream until after dinner. (In fact, Darren took them by himself so that I could stay home with the little girls to decorate the cake!) She loved it! Happy sixth birthday to my sweet, sweet girl!

Happy Birthday to the sweetest six year old in the world!