Preschool Harvest Party

We hosted a Preschool Harvest Party this morning in our backyard. There were 21 kids here today!!! I'm so thankful the rain didn't start until after everyone had left. Some of the moms contributed to this morning's event, which was a HUGE help to me! Here are the activities we had planned for the kids:

Pumpkin Seed Toss and Bean Bag Toss (I just realized I didn't get a picture of our Bean Bag Toss).

Go, Gracie! We lifted off the top of the pumpkin for the babies.

We had story time and music time together on the quilt.

We played Guess How Many.

Gracie won this game. Here's how she won: Jared guessed 100, and Caleb guessed 200. Not wanting to be outdone, she looked at both of her brothers and said, with much conviction, "THREE hundred." Lily shyly said, "Three." There were 286 in the jar.

Here's Gracie with her prize.

We also decorated cupcakes.

One of the moms brought this cute pumpkin craft.

And one of the moms brought these fun mummy treats for the kids. There were Teddy Grahams inside each tube!

Pumpkin Carving

This evening we read The Pumpkin Patch Parable and carved our pumpkins.

Gracie was the only one brave enough to stick her hand in and dig out the gooey pulp. She didn't enjoy it, but she did it!

Jared wanted a "shape face," Caleb wanted his pumpkin to have a curvy mouth, Gracie wanted her pumpkin to look like a kitty and Lily wanted a princess pumpkin.

Meet Princess Pumpkin.

We stood outside for awhile and admired them by candlelight.

Pumpkin Pizza

Friday is Phil's long day, so we decided to do most of our Halloween stuff tonight. Gracie helped with dinner. Doesn't she look cute in her little apron?

We made pumpkin pizzas tonight. Jared helped make orange lemonade by adding a little red food coloring to our pitcher of lemonade.

All Play and No Work!

We needed to clean up the backyard and rake the pine needles and leaves for our Preschool Harvest Party tomorrow. The kids talked me into raking one of my piles over to the bottom of the slide.

Lily and her Purse

Since Lily loves the color purple and has this new thing for purses, I was thinking of getting her this book for her birthday. I'll have to go to Barnes and Noble to check it out.

Caramel Apples

The girls helped me make caramel apples today after nap time. Funny thing--as the caramel was melting, I thought it looked a little runny. Then I realized that I had added the correct amount of water, but I didn't take into account that not every piece of caramel I unwrapped would actually make it into the pan for the melting stage. Silly me! Next time I'll be sure to use less water.

Runny or not...this was gooooood stuff!

Here's sweet Lily's version of helping. But, then again, it's always nice to clean off the wax paper so it can be used again!

Yes, those are teeth marks!

Candy Corn Math

Now this is my kind of Math!

Yesterday in school, the boys had a great time doing a little Candy Corn Math.

First we estimated the number of candy in each bag, then we counted and tallied the actual amount.

Next, we made patterns. Here's the pattern that Jared created using his candy corn,

...and here's Caleb's pattern.

The last step was to eat the candy, of course!

Downtown

Phil didn't have to be at school until after lunch today, so we met some friends at the children's museum downtown. The kids were excited to see a few new costumes in the dress-up area.

Caleb wanted to be Clifford the Big Red Dog.

Gracie chose the angel costume.

While the kids were excited to see the new costumes, I was excited to see the new Air exhibit! There were at least 12 different experiments for the kids to try out. Guess what we just happen to be studying in Science this week? That's right...air! In fact, we have several experiments of our own planned for this week.

I was finally able to get a picture of Lily with that purse of hers!

We had lunch at Red Robin with Flat Stanley,

...and then we did a little window shopping.

Out and About

We're enjoying the crisp, cool autumn weather. We ventured out this morning to run a few errands and admired the beautiful colors of the changing leaves up against a clear blue sky. Lovely.

So much has happened in one year. Last year when Phil started school, we were just getting settled into our new home, scouting out the area for good parks, searching for a new church and meeting new friends. The kids seem so big to me now! Last year most of our errands were of the drive-thru sort, but this year we're able to go to the grocery store, to the park or to the library with little or no drama. Refreshing.

A few surprises for us this morning:

:: a free Cinnamon Roll Latte from one of our favorite coffee spots ::

:: Dum Dum Lollipops from the friendly teller at the bank ::

One of our stops this morning was the Dollar Store. My Auntie Patty sent each of the kids a sweet card and $2 for Halloween. They each picked out two items. I wish I would have gotten a picture of Lily carrying her purse. She loves to go shopping with Mommy. Here's what the kids picked out from the Dollar Store:

Lily chose a Strawberry Shortcake sun catcher paint set and a purple Dora ball.

Caleb chose two race cars and a soccer ball.

Jared chose two mini circus play sets.

Gracie chose a Disney Princess foam puzzle and a foam bead necklace kit.

She worked so hard to make what she calls a "button string." Laura and Mary Ingalls made a button string for Baby Carrie in the book On the Banks of Plum Creek.

Lily loves to paint! She also loves the color purple. Notice the purple sweatshirt, purple paint, purple ball, and the purple Danimal.

Caleb is trying out his cars and one of Jared's circus toys.

And before I forget-- a recent blessing for our family:

:: Phil scored a 91% on his first Pathology exam last week ::

Double the Fun!

Aunt Wendy, Chelsea and Mallory arrived last night! We've spent our morning visiting, drinking coffee, and playing with Play-Doh. Wendy and I had "a moment" when we noticed both sets of twins sitting at the the table together playing with Play-Doh...so sweet!

And Speaking of Spiders...

Look what just arrived at our house! Thank you, Gramma, Grampa and Aunt Corinne! In yesterday's post, I wrote about how we're studying spiders in school.

We're excited to have Aunt Wendy, Chelsea and Mallory come visit us this weekend. Phil will pick them up at the airport after school tonight. Wendy is a dear friend of mine. I taught her twin daughters, Chelsea and Mallory, in the Second Grade 7 years ago! We have big plans for the weekend...eating at Sonic, playing on the big red wagon slide, and going wherever else the wind blows us.

Amazed

I'm really enjoying teaching the boys at home this year--more than I thought I would. We've gotten into a groove, and things have been running smoothly for us. I decided to do school in the afternoon, because we have a 3 hour window of time while the girls are napping. That leaves our mornings free for outings, reading books, doing crafts, and most of all, watching PBS Kids.

I've been amazed at how many teachable moments we have throughout the day, and how many school subjects have overlapped naturally, making it possible for me to teach holistically. For instance, we studied Leif Erikson last month. We're also reading The Little House Series. Last month, as I was reading in the car (don't worry, Phil was driving), Pa and Ma Ingalls purchased a dugout to live in from a Mr. Hanson from Norway. Jared said, "Leif Erikson went to Norway!" As we were discussing this, we passed The Sons of Norway Lodge, which has a huge viking ship in its parking lot. We finished our study on the vikings the first week of October. As I was preparing my unit on our next explorer, Christopher Columbus, I realized we would start that unit on Christopher Columbus Day!

In Science, we've been studying spiders. Jared received his Clubhouse Jr. Magazine in the mail this week, and guess what the Science feature of the month is? Spiders! He also has a little workbook to practice his cutting skills everyday. The day after we studied spiders, his cutting activity involved a spider's web.

In Bible, we've been studying Noah. Today we read about God's covenant with man and how He placed a rainbow in the sky. That exact Bible passage came up in our family Bible time after dinner! The moms in our preschool co-op decided to make weather our theme for this week. I was just looking at the picture book I'll be reading tomorrow morning, and sure enough, there's a page on rain and rainbows!

Truly amazing, don't you think? And I can't thank God enough!

Strike Two

Well, it happened again! Last night we replaced Lord Licorice with a new goldfish, Spot. Phil and Jared found him "floating" after dinner tonight. Not as many tears were shed over this little guy.

MOPS Outing

This morning we packed a picnic lunch and headed up to Green Bluff for a pumpkin patch field trip with our MOPS group. Green Bluff is a farming community north of Spokane. Cousin Lindsay sent Flat Stanley to us for a school project. Some of you may remember that Morgan sent him to us last year, too. The kids are thrilled to have him stay with us, and they can't wait to show him around Spokane again.

Since we already picked our pumpkins this year, we spent almost the entire time in the hay bale maze. This is a mom's dream come true! I could see the tops of their heads at all times.

Hmm...which way should I go?

Nevermind...I'll just roll over on top of this bale and catch up with my brother!

Jared found a little tunnel.

This one's for you, Grampa!

The weather was beautiful. The leaves are just starting to change colors here in Spokane. It seems we're about a month behind the rest of you, due to our very long winter (we had snow until April).