November Catch Up

Boy, I did not mean to take almost a month off from blogging.  But we headed to Utah for Thanksgiving and life was crazy leading up to it and since we've been back.  Being crazy busy is not my favorite, but sometimes there is no way to cut anything out.  Today I've found a moment of peace- the big kids are tucked away at school, the little kids are tucked into their beds, and the house is finally clean- so we'll see if I can play catch up a bit.

Before we left, Leah and her classmate and neighbor have started having "math club" on Mondays.  They get to practice their math facts, and her mom and I get to feel a little better about helping them succeed in class. 

 I voted.  So did Jason.  It was not easy to vote this year, and I think the whole nation is glad the election is finally over. 

 Emma and I enjoyed a round or two of Memory during nap time  She always beats me!

 These two... always being silly and always having fun. 

I think this game was called "hit me on the head while I run around wearing a mixing bowl."

 My life flashing before my eyes- 

Iowa continues to deliver beautiful sunsets- 

This one on date night in the city- 

Emma disguised her preschool turkey as Rapunzel- 

I had lunch with both of my big kids- 

 

and we snuggled by the fire after a long day at school- 

We had our annual Thanksgiving brunch with our neighbors.  We sat around the table and ate and talked until it was definitely not brunch time any more, but the food and the company were both so enjoyable!

And we worked to fill up our thankful tree with lots of leaves before we left.  Adam especially loved writing ALL the things he is thankful for, from Legos and school to all of his family and the entire world.  He has a very thankful heart. 

One thing I've been especially thankful for this year is good health.  After our recent romp through the woods I got another case of poison ivy, this time covering my left arm and a bit on my right.  It took four solid weeks to go through the itchy, oozing, blistering, scabbing, drying and peeling cycles, but I am nearly fully recovered now.   Boy, I love being in the woods with my family, but this was one painful price to pay for our bushwhacking adventure.

 As most months do, this one flew by, and before we knew it, it was time to head out to Utah!

Words Fail Me

"Why did you eat your brother's tooth?"

are words that I never thought I'd hear myself say.

Adam came home from school last week with a newly redesigned pumpkin smile.

He was SO excited to show me his classroom blog, which read

Today Adam lost a tooth. It was his 7th tooth. Adam pulled it out. It was bleeding really bad. He got a treasure chest to put his tooth in. 

Adam doesn't like to give his teeth to the Tooth Fairy.  He thinks he is going to miss them, and somehow the appeal of earning a dollar for doing absolutely nothing isn't enough for him to put most of his teeth under his pillow.  This is the third one that he has lost with no reward.  But that's his choice, and he told me he was going to keep this one too.  He set the little green treasure chest on the craft table and went on with his day.

Later that evening the three biggest kids were in the kitchen with me, talking and making a good bit of noise when we all heard, 

"Aaaa-daaam... I ate your tooth!!!"

Silence.  

Then we all hurried over to see if Noah was telling the truth.  The box was open, the tooth was nowhere to be found, and in his always-honest three-year-old way, Noah insisted that he had swallowed the tooth, "because I wanted to."

There was nothing left to do but wait to see if it came out the other end.

And a few days later, in a particularly full diaper, I found it.  A little darker in color, but mostly unchanged. 

For reasons I'll never understand, Jason volunteered to clean it- with bleach!- and Adam tucked it under his pillow for the night.  

Except when bedtime came, we couldn't find the darn tooth AGAIN!  

It wasn't under the pillow, on the bed, in the carpet, and please Lord, I can only hope Noah didn't swallow it again.  

I guess we'll never know. 

But this time around, Adam got his dollar.

I think Mom and Dad should have earned a dollar, too. 

Who's That?

These two were full of the sillies after bathtime!

One More Hike

I don't know if it will be the last one, but we had to squeeze in one more warm-weather walk through the woods last weekend.  And this one was so good.  

"FALL!!!"

There is just nothing quite like crossing streams, gathering sticks, braving fallen logs, tossing leaves, and racing down wooded paths.  It does our souls such good.

And when we were done crunching through the leaves and chasing the last bit of sunlight, we picked out a perfect spot to start a fire and cooked up some dinner.

Noah was so concerned that we didn't put up the tent!  We didn't put up the tent!

Jason got the fire going while the kids made themselves a nice, comfy leaf nest.  We have about 35 leaves in our yard from our five little trees, so this was a real fall treat. Leaves are such fun!

And then we stayed, mesmerized by the fire and chatting about everything and nothing- from death and heaven to whether or not werewolves really exist- until the light was gone and the stars were out, when we packed back up and headed home.  

Stinky like smoke and having eaten a few too marshmallows, but happy as we could be because we took the time to be together.

Brothers

"I wuv you Adam.  You my best big brother."

The Pumpkin Patch

Center Grove Orchard is one of our favorite fall traditions.  The donuts, the pig races, the baby goats, the corn pool, the hay maze... we love it all!  We didn't even wait until October to go this year, and I'm thinking we could have really enjoyed a season pass!  Maybe next year... 

Emma is in phase in which she is physically incapable of just smiling in a picture.  I believe in lots of things, and kids choosing how they look in pictures (so they can blame themselves later in life, rather than me) is one of them.

Ahhh, the relaxing corn pool. 

75% of my children were happy to oblige for a jumping-in-the-corn pic.

Nope.  Not gonna do it.

And we stayed until sunset.  As we always do. 

When Jason asked if anyone wanted to drive home with him, there was total silence and actual crickets were chirping in the background.  That made us all laugh.  No hard feelings, Black Licorice just isn't quite as roomy as Marshmallow.  Nor does it smell quite as nice.

And we had to go back a second time for pumpkins!

 I just love a good Iowa sunset view from a hay wagon.

 The pick of the patch!

 Oh these four- 

 They make everything so fun!

 I'm not saying anything about Emma's faces... that silly girl.

And this little pumpkin patch gets an honorable mention- we went there twice in one day.  It provided a great distraction after I took everyone to get flu shots.  What fun that was.  Naturally we had to follow up with ice cream and fun!

Five days into November and we're still enjoying temperatures in the 70s.  

This has been our best Iowa fall yet!

Halloween

Halloween traditions- we did them all!  This was an off year for costume purchasing, but we still ended up with two beautiful Cinderellas, a very scary Darth Vader, and an insistent dragon.

Trunk or treating

Carving pumpkins

and lighting them up.

Cookie decorating

Trick or treating

Meeting up with friends

  And enjoying the loot.

We didn't spend a ton of time gearing up for Halloween this year, but we still managed to watch Spookly the Square pumpkin enough times that Noah had high hopes for finding one in the pumpkin patch, we learned all 50 songs on our favorite Halloween CD, we made a few pumpkin-shaped meals, and I was just as happy as ever to see November 1st arrive!  Now to take care of the rest of the candy...