After lots of travel in November and getting over a stomach bug I had the last few days, I finally got around to blogging about what we were up to in the last few weeks of October. Better late than never!
Hunter sorted his spelling word cards, made article-adjective-noun phrases and then wrote them in cursive in his workbook. Fun stuff!!
Levi insists on coloring at the table whenever he sees his big brother doing his schoolwork there. He wants so badly to be a big boy and is insulted when he isn't treated like one.
The boys had a great time putting together their Christmas boxes this year. They'll be sent to three little boys living somewhere across the world for
Operation Christmas Child.
During second quarter of Classical Conversations the students learned how to play the tin whistle! Hunter LOVED it!
Hunter had the privilege of taking a Lego engineering class for six weeks during the month of October and November. He had a blast building and learning about gears, simple machines and engines.
And speaking of Legos, we still love our beloved Trio blocks. The boys have played with these for years and they still break them out frequently like Nathanael did in this picture. But, the big boys are anxious to get some real legos into our toy mix. Maybe for Christmas?
The boys and I watched "Oz the Great and Powerful" one Friday night when Daddy had to work. Just a little bit freaked out by it here.....haha!
Shock of shockers, I brought home this box of Captain Crunch for the family to enjoy as a peace offering after Daddy and I had a disagreement about having sardine salad for dinner. :) See?? I'm not totally stubborn and crazy when it comes to the food I feed my family! I CAN be flexible. Even though I died a little inside. Ha! Seriously....
We spent a bit more time prepping the soil for our garden this fall as opposed to last fall. Last year we just dumped some "organic", composted soil from a local nursery in there and figured out about eight weeks in that we should add some fertilizer. It was a little too late and we had a very poor yield.
We have high hopes as we've mixed up a nice concoction of fermented fish guts and cow manure this year! We'll see how it goes!
The last football game of the season happened the in the end of October. While we were all prayed up and thought it would be an easy win...
we lost 13 to zip and fell to last place in the finals. **sigh**
We still had a great time playing together and the boys loved having their daddy as their coach all season long.
Losing the game didn't affect the blanket time king, however! I'm so proud that Levi always did such a great job staying on his blanket playing with his toys so that I could take video of the games this season. Way to go, Levi!
It was red ribbon week in the end of October at our school and all the students went out on the bus loop (aka - our front yard) to make a pledge to stay off drugs. It was quite a view! Pretty cool.
Nathanael had a fun homework assignment for Halloween. He had to find a picture of himself dressed up in a costume, hide it behind the door of a paper pumpkin, and then write three clues about who he was dressed up as in the picture.
The clues he wrote were:
1. I use a whistle.
2. I use a radio.
3. I put bad guys in jail.
Can you guess what he was?
There are so many perks of living at an elementary school. One of our favorites is easily participating in the fun school activities and fundraisers that happen in our front yard. The Friday night before Halloween the PTO hosted a Trunk and Treat on the bus loop. We have done the same set-up two times now for this event: a simple deer blind and a mommy dressed in camo hanging out inside.
This year I was the "Healthy Hunter" and didn't have any sugary treats, but instead handed out little toy trinkets. Plastic fangs, jeweled spider rings, and sparkly pencils were in our bowl. :)
Nathanael dressed up like an army guy.
Levi got stuck wearing the same costume his big brothers wore when they were toddlers:
A homemade version of Oscar the Grouch.
The Trunk and Treat was a great dress rehearsal for him in preparation the real deal on Halloween.
When the actual day of Halloween arrived we went to story time at the library as scheduled. Levi pretty much had the only mom that made him dress up in his Halloween costume. Luckily he was too young to be humiliated by it. It kinda reminded me of another mom who dressed up her daughter as a muddy hobo a week too early for Sparkies Hobo Night at church and sent her in to a room full of regularly-clothed 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders. But, that's a whole other blog post and a couple of therapy sessions...
Levi was, however, quite shy about having his photo taken with Ms. Karen after story time was over.
So the two hardest things about pulling off this Oscar costume with a toddler are getting him to keep his hat on and getting him to leave the eyebrows alone. By the time Halloween story time at the library was over, the kid forgot all about those eyebrows on his face! So, guess who took a nap with said eyebrows later that day and spent some time reading books in the playroom with his eyebrows on?
Here we are all set and ready for the real deal Halloween Trunk and Treat at our church. Hunter was a viking with a homemade battle ax, and of course there's Oscar, and Nathanael made a last minute switch to being a somewhat disheveled police officer.
It's so funny to me to realize how much I've changed in regards to their
Halloween costumes. I used to go to great lengths to make sure
every single detail was just right. Now I just let them do whatever
makes them happy and whatever is EASY! Whatever works, fellas!
And for your comparison pleasure, here is a side-by-side of all three of the boys in this costume when they were toddlers. Levi got jipped on the furry feet this year. The old ones had fallen apart and I lost my steam after I revamped the hair under the wig. And I didn't kill myself trying to find a perfectly green t-shirt and pair of pants either.
Nathanael got jipped on the cute eyebrows factor AND the lollipop! Poor kid. Haha!
Some of our favorite trunks this year at church were a game where kids used a water gun to squirt shaving cream off of the Duck Dynasty guys beards
and a super cool Pacman game in the trunk of our friends Hallie and Leah's minivan!
Too cool for school, BABY!
I've come up with what I think is a fantastic ritual in handling Halloween candy. In the past we've used it as a sorting/math lesson and made candy bar graphs. A couple years we used it for decorating gingerbread houses at Christmas. This year I told the boys that if they sold me their Halloween candy for $5 that I would take them to a community garage sale the Saturday after Halloween. They reluctantly agreed. And just to be clear, they both had several pieces of their candy on the night of Halloween AND on the school's trunk and treat night.
So, we headed out to a bunch of garage sales all in one neighborhood on Saturday morning and just look at the haul the boys each got with their $5!!!! Nathanael scored a big box of legos, a nerf gun, a firetruck, some smaller trucks, a light saber, an ambulance, and a remote control Grave Digger monster truck! Hunter scored a telescope, a baseball glove, a frisbee, a nerf gun, a light saber, and a couple little trucks and a ball for Levi!
Needless to say, the boys were thrilled that they sold me their candy for $5 after those awesome deals and all was well with the world. :)
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