Pumpkin Day

I decided the evening before Halloween was the perfect night to have an all things pumpkin evening   I'd been meaning to do pumpkin things for weeks, but never seemed to get around to them. (Story of my life)  So on October 30th we had a pumpkin themed night.  It's best told in pictures so here we go.

We started by carving pumpkins.  The girls helped us cut the tops of them.

We quickly decided to take the pumpkins outside to keep the mess down.

The girls helped us gut the pumpkins.

Daniel enjoyed looking at the insides of the pumpkin, but didn't want to touch it.

After gutting the pumpkins it was time to move back inside and draw on them and carve them.

Gracie drawing a face on her pumpkin.

Hannah and her drawn on pumpkin, complete with a ghost on the side.

After the faces were drawn the carving began.  Using a skill saw is such a great way to carve a pumpkin.

We let Sarah Kate carve her own pumpkin this year.  She felt very grown up and did a pretty good job.

After carving pumpkins it was time for dinner.  Being that it was Pumpkin Day we had to have pumpkin pizza. 

The family eating their pumpkin pizza.

After eating dinner we had to make our orange pumpkin cupcakes.

Ben putting frosting on his cupcake.

Adam didn't care much about frosting his cupcake.  He just went straight for the cake.

Gracie frosting her cupcake.

Sarah and her finished masterpiece.

Dan and Adam enjoying their cupcakes.

Hannah decorating her cupcake.

Ben and the little girls decorating their cupcakes.

We finished out evening by getting in jammies and taking pictures with our pumpkins.  It was a very full, very fun evening.

The boys with their sailboat pumpkin.

Gracie showing off her pumpkin.

Hannah with her pumpkin.

Hannah also drew a ghost on the side of her pumpkin and insisted on having a picture taken with it.

Ben's pumpkin, drawn by him, carved by mom.

Sarah's pumpkin she did all by herself this year.  Pretty good job if you ask me.

Kenny's pumpkin. I bet you can't tell who we wanted to win the election this year.  (It says "OBAMA 2008 2012" and no we don't want him dead, just his presidency.) 

Sarah's Growing Up

Sarah has been bugging me FOREVER to let her get her hair cut, get bangs, and get contacts.  I've been putting it off for numerous reasons.  I love her with long hair and I didn't want her to cut it all off again.  I hate, let me repeat myself so you understand me correctly, I HATE bangs.  They are such a pain in the bum and I'd rather not have to deal with them.  And contacts!  What can I say about the contacts?  They're expensive, for starters.  She's only 10 and I didn't know if she could even get them in her eyes. And I knew they would make her look WAY too grown up.  All things I was not looking forward to.  I did, however, decide that my little Sarah Kate is 10 going on at least 15 and she is indeed growing up.  I knew I needed to start letting her grow up and make her own choices on things.  

So, October was a big month for Sarah.  She got her hair cut, to my happiness she didn't cut it really short just a trim and some layers, and she got bangs.  A week later she got new glasses and contacts.  She is indeed growing up.  I think she looks beautiful and the shock of my girl growing up has worn off and I'm glad I let her make her own choices. Her bangs are still a pain in the bum, just like I knew they would be, and we often pin them back so we don't have to bother with them, but I'm glad she has them and has the option to have them if she wants.  She has done really well with her contacts and learned very quickly how to put them in and take them out.  She has only ripped one contact and that was during the first week when they were covered by the eye doctors so we got a free replacement.  She was threatened with her life, or at least the real possibility of no longer having contacts, if she didn't keep her fingernails clipped.  She has done much better since then.  It's nice to be able to better see her beautiful eyes, even if she does look much too grown up.

 

Princess's

My little girls wanted to be princess's for Halloween this year and I knew there was no way I could ever make good princess dresses.  Luckily Grandma Newbry is an excellent sewer and was willing and happy to take on the task.  When she was here over potato harvest, when Kenny was in Texas for work, she let the girls go through her fabric and choose what they wanted their costumes to look like.  She then took it home and in a little over a week she had made a Rapunzel dress and a pink Jasmine costume   Grandpa brought them to the girls in mid October, when he came down for work, and we quickly took some (not very good) pictures to sent to Grandma Newbry.  Thanks Grandma for the costumes.  You made the girls so happy and took a lot of pressure off of me.

First Day of School

The kids right before their first day back to public school.

So, we've had a lot of not happy things going on this fall and we felt it was probably best to put our kids back into public school.  It was a very hard decision, but one we felt was the correct decision to make.  They started school on October 22nd, just in time for some Halloween fun.  Sarah's teacher, Mr. Baker is a fantastic 5th grade teacher. She was so happy to have another male teacher.  She has learned a lot about US History and even got 100% on her name all 50 states test that she took 3 days into the school year.  She's doing well in all her subjects and is making new friends quickly.

Ben's teacher, Mrs. Nichols is also a great teacher.  From what I've heard from all the neighbor kids, she's the best 3rd grade teacher.  Ben loves his class and has made a ton of friends already. He is a part of the SEM program, which is for the above average students and he likes being able to participate in that.  He's  struggled most with boredom because he was the furthest ahead.  He keeps telling me how lame it is that they aren't even going to start multiplication until after the new year.  He is, however, handling his boredom well and seems to be happy to be back in school.

Hannah has adjusted well to school.  I was most worried about her because she is so behind because of speech.  Her reading level is well below the others in her class, but she is improving daily and I'm proud of her.  She gets discouraged sometimes and has told me how she doesn't like being the only one in class who can't read which breaks my heart, but we're working on improving that.  She always has a ton of homework because we're trying to get her caught up and I think I spend almost as much time on her now as I did when she was home schooled.  She loves the new speech teacher and really likes her normal teacher Mrs. Wilcox.  I'm quite impressed with her teacher as well.  She has met with me to give me some tips on how to help Hannah and to let me know Hannah is advanced in math. We're keeping an eye on her and hope to keep her in school. She has made lots of friends and really enjoys the social part of school.

So, that's the new development in our lives   I miss my kids a lot when their at school and I'm not ruling out the possibility of homeschooling them again.  For now, however  they're where we believe they need to be and all is well.

Jazz Game

Fun at the Jazz Game.

 Our home school group had free tickets to 2 Jazz games in October.  We went to the first one on Saturday October 20th.  It was only a preseason game, but the kids didn't know that nor did they care.  We were just happy to have a free night out.  The Jazz won over the LA Clippers and our kids sat through the entire game.  I was so proud of them.  We got popcorn, cotton candy, and a few drinks.  It was a perfect evening for a group of kids.

Waiting for the game to begin.

Everyone was excited to be there.