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!

Our Halloween has come and gone and with it a day to remember. It started bright and early with the appearance of Cousin Veronika with chocolate scones in tow. The kids were VERY excited… there was art to give her and stories that just HAD TO be read. Echo has grown quite accustomed to her now as well so it was a welcome break for me off and on all day. Have I mentioned how spoiled I am getting being so close to such amazing family?

We made a run to the convenience store with the kids’ allowance. I do believe we thoroughly entertain the convenience store employees when I come (even with a helping hand) with all 5 kids in tow. What amazes me is how different each kid is with their money. Trinity doesn’t understand how much she has and just wants a slurpee (mommy DID foot the extra 9 cents), Zander took his time thinking and spent it ALL on a bag of chips, Gavin wanted a slurpee and had enough from the left overs from last time and Emanuel.. bought 5 nickel candies and still hasn’t TOUCHED this week’s allowance!! 

Time to go and spend allowance

I was VERY appreciative to have an extra set of hands helping me get all 5 kids ready (and myself for that matter). Ken had to work right until quarter to 4 and then hop into the shower so I would have been on my own otherwise. Since we had our resident make-up artist here there was some additions done to two of the costumes and yours truly got her pretty face on. I was amazed that Trinity not only let us put the make up on but was able to NOT rub at it until the very end of the night. Veronika used a water based make-up that was easy to clean off. 

Becoming Hello Kitty

Gotta have that black ring-tailed lemur nose

All 3 of the adults dressed up. Veronika was a zombie complete with fake blood. Ken did his impression of a rather hairy pirate and yours truly was told she was a princess this year by the kids. Gotta get as much use out of the dress as possible right? I forgot how heavy that thing is, but warm!! 

Here you can see our completed Kitty AND our zombie cousin

In costume and at the mall

We actually managed to stay on track time wise and were out the door before 4:30 to find… HAIL! Just temporary and not overly cold but right when I took the pictures of the kids out front of course. 

In the hail... so not the most organized photo

Then it was off to the first of the two malls in town. One started at 4pm and was closer to us anyway so we bundled everyone up into the van and Veronika’s vehicle (girls in one boys in the other) and off we went. Thankfully the stroller fits easily in the back of hers so we were good to go. Echo even did some trick or treating, but could only take Petite Sheepette. Fat Sheep was too… well you see where I am going with this! 

Little Bo Peep and her smaller sheep... and itty bitty candy bag

The mall was rather packed and lots of places were handing out candy, there was even some games! And some highly inappropriate employee (female) costumes, but nothing too extreme…

Playing one of the games

After doing the rounds at that mall it was time to pack back up and head to the next. This one is newer and further south but along our way to Fydo and Kristen’s. There we met up with Karyn, Lauralee and Victoria halfway through. Apparently though the mall had advertised their hours of trick or treating at 5-7 here people showed up at 3 which meant a lot of the places were already out of candy but the kids did not do too badly!

With the ladies

After we finished our second mall we had been out for around 2 hours already and it was time to head further south to Kristen and Fydo’s neighbourhood. So we said good-bye to the ladies and continued on, took a wrong turn but made our destination. Kristen had already left for her work out but we were able to have our pee break and a brief visit with Fydo before doing one of their closes and half of another street. I think it was another hour later of what the kids term “real trick or treating” before we called it quits. Trinity was tired but once she realized she got to RING DOORBELLS! Well she was off! When we got home she wanted to do one more house so we went next door with 3 of the 4 (Gavin said his feet hurt and he was DONE) and then undressed and relaxed for the night. 

Fydo and crowd... didn't have time to make the camera like it being night as everyone was done. But notice, our Little Bo Peep started the night as a girl and turned into a pumpkin!

There was a mountain of candy to go through and 4 VERY worn out and happy kids… so after some defrosted fruit in bowls and a candy each and a  thorough tooth brushing it was BEDTIME. What a great day! And they did relatively well listening to directions. YAY. 

CANDY

Last one to fall asleep... fell asleep book in hand

This morning we woke up to excited and slightly out of sorts kids but with careful maintaining of NOT gorging on sweets and not pushing too much organized learning we made it through somewhat unscathed… well until Echo got into the chocolates bag where I forgot there was a couple chocolates you could TWIST OPEN… which she DID and popped in her mouth. So Echo has had her first chocolate… well most of it as we took it away and gave her some bits… now to wait until tomorrow to see if it upset her any. I know what SHE thought about it… she is her mother’s daughter! 

Chocy face

We did finish up our Halloween worksheets. I had some from last year that were stationary paper with a Halloween theme. So the twins each wrote out a sentence stating what their favourite part of Halloween this year was. The other was a printout from education.com. The Creative Writing page. They had to read each partial sentence themselves and then we talked about an answer which I wrote out for them on scrap paper to write out themselves. For the younger two I wrote their answers for them, but it was a great way to end our interest in Halloween (that and packing up all the decorations). 

Worksheet

In the afternoon it was relatively warm so 3 of the kids went out to enjoy the sunshine. We are definitely going to have to start working on mittens and hats, pack up the sandals and either get Trinity into pants or buy her some tights. 

Note the hail/frost stuff still there even in the late afternoon with the shade

We had a visitor in our yard as well – a rather pretty grey cat that the kids thought was the most amazing thing around. 

KITTY

Being as today was Tuesday and Karyn was able to get here before 6:30 we took Trinity and Emanuel to their weekly pj storytime at the library. It was all about feet and they danced the hokey pokey… sort of. Trinity thought it was the funniest thing ever. The craft was colouring bodies and feet of animals and gluing the right ones together.

Library Hokey Pokey

We had one casualty of Halloween, apparently when the ladies got to our house to start handing out candy they found our jack’o’lantern, in pieces! Someone smashed it! Poor poor pumpkin. 

So our Halloween did not go according to the original plan BUT we made the best of the back up plan. Family, friends, trick or treating, costumes… we had it all! And while I still want to get our family to my mom’s very soon we do have to wait until the van really is reliable! In the meantime… anyone interested in visiting? Well come on over! 

Two teeth and a little bread in the side of her mouth

Best Zander and Echo picture yet! And he got her up there and down again safely all by himself!

GASP, a SINGLE day post! What ever has occurred? Well… that dishwasher is running, the boys avid outside sandbox players and my girls enjoying their retro dollhouse courtesy of Karyn freeing up a wee bit of time over the day to allow me to rearrange things, sort a bit AND blog in a timely manner!! The freedom! Only a sink full of dishes to hand wash and they were done! 

Fun with the dollhouse

Boys in the box

Last night I made some major inroads on our penguin… just stitching on that white front bib portion has made it much more birdy… the next portion for tonight is the tail and then I focus on the beak (dealing with the brim of a baseball cap and the eyes. I was a little worried about how penguin like it would be but I think we will do just fine! 

Beginnings of a penguin

We started some wonderful Halloween print outs and crafting… the best time filler this afternoon was giving them each a wooden Halloween shape and then spilling out the craft bits. The mess is always daunting once they get well into it, but with every craft event we try and get even more organized, more baggies and containers and filling specific drawers. 

Decorating their Halloween folders

Crafts!

Emanuel was really enthusiastic about workbook time – he was the only one really. We worked on letter sounds together and he was absolutely amazing at it!

Busy bee

When Emanuel and Trinity were having their short quiet time I snuck Echo out with the boys and we took some Halloween inspired photos. Can you believe that is a 3-6 months outfit! Ok, so not a big surprise – but a big thank you to Holly who sent it to us! 

A pumpkin patch

Put candy here!

Shadows on our pumpkin

That also had us out putting up our paper chains  to decorate our tree out front! They did it all themselves including the stapler! (I just finished off the papers they had left over when they ran out of time last night). 

Our decorated tree

Trinity and Emanuel made mini books from our favourite UK site… there are a few options and you can find them here. Note the severe loving of the pink! 

Completed book on her Halloween folder

Just a heads up – Currclick is having a freebie treasure hunt! Quite a few of the files are American but they all look interesting. Be sure to check them out on Facebook to find out where the harder files are hiding! 

We had our now weekly pj storytime at the downtown library with Trinity, Emanuel and Karyn… today’s subject – trucks! Our craft was making a tow truck using paper and brads. Not bad! And now I need to get a TAL cardso when I go to my mom’s for the weekend before Halloween I can take the kids to the library there and take some books out! 

Library!

All in all a pretty good day! I worked on finishing the girls’ Halloween themed hair things, continued my pre-crafting party tidying and of course… laundry laundry laundry tonight. 

Hair things

I am hoping to see a positive attitude tomorrow all round, we are going to have our time with our NEW library books as well as some more crafting time… maybe a Halloween themed something or other! As long as we work together and learn SOMETHING the day will be a success! 

One more cuz it is just too darn cute!