Every year the trees in the background are brilliant in the fall…

And then… they fall. So out come the rakes, the bags and the family. OH and the camera. So enjoy the pictures!!

Minions

She loves this hat!

I made this one myself (the hat)

Gavin

Zander in hat

Our hardest worker

Super proud of this image… when we got an 8X10 done Walgreens tagged it as a potential professional image!

Mr. Gavin

Zander is in his fav hat of course

Gotta make them work

She LOVES the leaf blower

All in a row

Gavin took this one for me !

It has happened… I am nearly TWO MONTHS behind on the blog… which begs the question… are we even INTERESTED in rehashing October? So I think, instead of a day by day reflection I will do an overview of some highlights. Let’s see…

We had a pretty amazing experience with working in pairs on the little guys’ Halloween lapbooks AND solo for the twins on their own. I have made up a resource page for our items. I apologize in advance for not linking up all the books but I am sure if you check your local library or bookstore most could be found! A library card is a wonderful thing is it not? Our Halloween resources can be found HERE.

We started up with the Pizza Hut Book It program once again as well. There is a new app to go with it that we are getting used to. There were a few hiccups. We had to just go by Johnson for their last name. No hyphenating. But the kids are so excited to be earning their pizzas once again. You can check out the program HERE.

Ken is also jumping in to help us finish our long enjoyed VOLCANO unit. He had a really creative way to show the creation of a volcano using wash cloths of all things!

This is another blogged resource page. You can find all of that HERE. We took longer than expected but enjoyed it all the same. Some years we bust through these major unit studies… others… not so much!

Of course in October we have Home Depot! November has TWO since they are not doing the normal one in December. Doubly difficult as we have our swimming lessons Saturday mornings so we have to rush from the pool to the store to make it there  before the program is over!

The weather is cooling and the kids are starting to bundle up. It is always a but of a shuffle to go through all the clothes and find out what fits, what leaks and what is worn to pieces.

our big excitement was having Andrew with younger brother Alex in to BABYSIT for us! Ken and I had one last chance to take burnable stuff over to Chris and Renee’s and wanted to really enjoy it. We brought Cousin Robbie along, had drinks and dinner and stayed out SUPER late. Andrew managed fine and is already agreeing to sit again for us!

The boys’ newest addiction along with playing Pokemon is to play Munchkin.. my boardgame! They are even attempting fair play with their siblings! NOT BAD!!!

To celebrate CANADIAN Thanksgiving we not only called Grandma to say hello but did up a poster of things we are grateful for.

Then to top it off we had dinner at KFC (a Reinsch family tradition). Nana and Baba came as well as they plan to be in Florida over the American one. HAPPY THANKSGIVING CANADIAN FRIENDS AND FAMILY (BELATEDLY).

We had some crafting fun…

A trip to Mall of America to thoroughly enjoy LegoLand and spend some of their Gammie treat money on a container of hand picked lego pieces! Not too bad of a family excursion. We also brought snacks which always smooths the road.

AND a homeschool special for the aquarium in the mall! Everything from jellyfish to sharks to a tide pool you could touch!

We snuck in a babysitting experience or two with the Schwartz boys. Jeffrey and his brothers are a family favouite.

Emanuel, Trinity, Ken and I went to a Scouts day camp that included siblings. Sadly we lost our rocket to the great unknown but did it every FLY!

Indoor games and colouring were the favourite with Trinity now in love with the idea of archery.

OH and a messy snack!

We got another dose of baby time…

Celebrated Daddy’s birthday with PIE!

Carved pumpkins… sort of… and sent the seeds to Future Uncle Ravyn for roasting! Aunty Shandai came over especially to share the good news! Mommy is now to be a part of an OCTOBER wedding! We are so pleased for them! CONGRATS YOU TWO!!!!!

We crafted it up…

You can enjoy our leaf experience in an additional blog entry HERE.

And see our Halloween AMAZING costumes HERE.

Yup basically October in a rather lengthy picture filled entry!

September 20-25

I have been playing with favourite patterns and thinner yarn or different needles.. these two Cthulhu came out of that play. BABIES!!! Using light Caron Simply Soft. You can find the pattern HERE… or purchase a completed (and slightly larger) version on my Etsy site HERE. I plan on putting some wee ones up eventually… after the Christmas present rush.

Over the weekend we took a little time and finally got our act together to assemble our Shark unit book… the duotang was almost too small! You can check out our resources used, etc on our resource entry on the blog HERE. It was quite the unit.

On Sunday (AFTER Sunday School of course) we had a lovely visit with the Novaks. We were supposed to leave around dinner time for a coffee date but it fell through so it was a relaxing afternoon with good friends.

Snoopy was a willing subject for the camera as usual.

And we came home with some new reading material! Thank you so much Aidan for letting these gems go!

On Monday we had princesses at school… in MITTENS (super garage sale find for a quarter I think).

Gavin created an amazing FALL tree we later entered in the Art for Kids (link on right) fall art contest. I love it when they just go without instructions and really work with the Lego! We actually have the 3 boys enrolled in a once monthly class online with Currclick that is free for Legos. They are really enjoying it. They have multiple free and for pay classes through their site now!

Tuesday was so lovely we drug our new desks outside for craft time before they get placed in the school area inside.

Nature came out to share with our crafty time as well! Though after the scare elsewhere in the country with a fuzzy caterpillar that caused burn like rashes we kept our hands well away!

With a new school year we have also pulled down our previous year’s posters… so it was time to create a new fall scene for our walls. Can you believe it is fall already? Where did the time go???

We have had a jump with our learning as well. Emanuel suddenly WANTS to try and write out his own words in his journal and in letters. So be prepared… I correct the spelling above but you will get to see his creative management of letters in his words!!

We have taken to doing work in areas… videos on the DVD player for volcanoes.

One of 3 desks inside for an independent learner.

The table for the avid crafter. It seems to be working!

We are most certainly keeping busy!