Well, you can already see pictures from Halloween HERE, as usually it was a fun time.

Neko-Chan and her Halloween prop

Echo’s wedding dress photos are HERE.

October was also Ken’s birthday… his 40th if you can believe it! We kept it low key, just as the birthday boy requested. He is not a big party animal. But he also was given an award for his hard work involved in getting his mental health under control and advocating for the association that helped him. We got to dress up and everything!

New outfit and all

It was a fun sort of duo season month with time to jump in leaves (and rake them up, slightly less fun)…

Gavin

And a bit of snow to toy with as well.

We even had TWO foreign visitors, Jeff flew down from Canada to hang out. Never a bad thing, friends and family flying down when we still can’t return ourselves.

With Jeff there is ALWAYS yummy curry.

And Karyn!!! A shorter visit than her normal yearly visit but we packed in the fun and hugs and … shopping of course!

UNO

So we may enable each other… just a little… and we like it that way!

We had our yearly pumpkin patch trip with our friend Trish and her two kids. Always fun and thankfully on a day when the weather mostly cooperated.

I am so grateful that Trish is willing to embrace our loud and crazy family.

Ken made pumpkin pie from scratch.

The twins took on acolyting at church.

We worked on all sorts of school stuff from crafts to book work and more.

We had the Novaks over for VR fun.

I continued my obsession with Neko-Chan pictures.

We had a bonfire with the Schwartz family and I got my cat fix.

I worked my buns off at the YMCA, with the family in tow, of course.

Emanuel and Trinity even got their YELLOW belts!!

And I crafted, my sanity is very closely tied to crafting it seems.

Seasonal!

Of course more images to enjoy. Fall really was pretty last year!

Face painting!

…asleep

November 28

HAPPY AMERICAN THANKSGIVING!

I am still getting the hang of having Thanksgiving so late in the year… this Thursday in November is still odd to me! First off, almost the middle of the week (not a Monday or Friday????) and then so much closer to Christmas! YIKES.

We had a full on turkey dinner with the fixings… homemade stuffing, gravy… mashed potatoes…

Smaller of 2 turkeys

Homemade peppermint fudge

As Joe and Faithe alternate their Thanksgiving with each of their families this year was their year with Faithe’s family. So we had our family, Nana and Baba and Aunty Judy with Uncle Jim and two of their kids (Robbie and Jessica). 13 in total made for a nice full table.

Of course there was time to play before and after dinner with pumpkin pie for desert.

Pumpkin pie

A full day ended with full kids. We decided not to go out to any of the Black Friday sales. Instead Ken and I planned on making a run out to Target the next day. I have a specific over 6 month long request from Miss  Trinity and can not risk missing the potential sale OR them selling out of those items. Well, and one on one time in a rather low key store (our area seems to not have a massive Target Black Friday rush as compared to Walmart or Kohl’s) with Ken is always a bonus.

Wore Jessica out!

It was definitely a day to be thankful!\

With our move to Minnesota we put a huge amount of distance from our playdates, friends and family… one of the trade offs to saying good bye to all those amazing people has been the opportunity to be a part of the regular life of Andy, Darcy and their 4 boys. After years with our god daughters Isabella and Anna I feel so blessed to have the chance to be close to our god son as well. 

Echo and her Anthony

One of Anthony’s passions has to be soccer and so we have tried to make as many of his games as we could this summer/early fall. He is almost done his season and won’t be back playing until the spring. Ken played soccer in his youth until an injury at the end of high school had him kicking for football to get scholarships so he is really enjoying the chance to be a part of Anthony’s soccer experience. Saturday morning there was a home game and we had a free day so we joined them to watch him play. Of course this time I forgot my camera! Which leaves me feeling absolutely naked, thank goodness Darcy had hers for us to use. 

Go Anthony go!

Throwing in

Sadly they did NOT win though they ran hard and played their best. As usual, the other kids ran to the park that was just across the green and played the whole time. That left the 3 adults (Andy was in Vegas driving truck) and Echo to watch the game. It actually ended up hotter than we thought it would be and I am rather sure that some of the kids and myself got a little too much sun! 

Pretzel Baby

After the game we ran to Goodwill to look around and do a little shopping. The kids were not able to find anything to spend their 2.00 on that we would be sure was in full working order, all parts intact so we still need to head to the Dollar Tree to do some looking for that ever elusive perfect item. BUT I found 3 books to add to our collection, one about dinosaurs, a picture book version of a part of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House in the Big Woods, and a Halloween themed book that is a little beyond the boys’ reading ability but will be fun to read for Halloween as a family. at 99 cents a book definitely a good find! I just wish I could hunt down OUR dinosaur book I am rather sure came with us on our big move. 

Echo and Snoopy

After a nice afternoon of visiting and the kids running wild outside dinner became the next concern. Darcy and I went to Target and shopped for the meal. We got a rather special  treat – CAKE! There wasn’t too many options but we picked out a very cute OWL cake. Boy were the kids excited about that! Of course that meant PHOTO OP! Andrew was gone to scout camp so we were actually down to 8 kids instead of the usual 9! 

Kids and cake

Cake eaten, more video games and a semi cranky baby it was time to head home to bed. So while we did NOT get to our pumpkin pie on Saturday… well no one was complaining! And we have tentative plans (IF the day IS a school holiday that is) to get together for Columbus day. Not so much to celebrate but to spend more time socializing the kids and enjoying adult company! 

I had a few completions Saturday with the crochet projects… BOTH of the Christmas dishcloths are done and ready to be used when season dictates. So my first reading of a crochet pattern was a success.  The next was a pattern suggested by a learned Facebook friend as a great and relatively simple hat! You can find the instructions HERE. I am so happy with the way the variegation turned out and how it fits. I want to buy more of the same soft yarn and make more. I will have to take pictures later to share!

Sunday marked the end of our weekend and the return of Nana and Baba from their camping trip. We spent our morning ending our homeschooling project of making pumpkin pie from scratch. Trinity and Emanuel were our chief supervisors charged with being sure Daddy put the lid on the blender BEFORE it went into the oven. All in all a DELICIOUS experiment as usual! Now Monday we start our pumpkin unit. I got an awesome combo of notebooking and lapbooking in the form of a Currclick file – you can find it HERE. 

Supervisors at work

And into the oven, I would have finished pictures but it was eaten up too quickly!!

They brought geodes with them, so we all got to enjoy the experience of cracking them open!

Uncle Joe at work

Some of the results

Later, while Ken was working on the stump removal we came upon ANOTHER toad! The kids thought it was well worth some excitement. 

Toad NOT in a hole

My big goal for the beginning of the week after school work and the same old same old is the completion of our Halloween costume to do list. The twins are so not cemented on what they want to be.

So proud of our godson!