Skeleton Costume!

Paige needed to wear a costume for her last day of soccer but it was too chilly and muddy to wear her Halloween costume.  We busted out Owen's old skeleton costume to do the job! It worked perfectly and it even gave me the chance to do a comparison picture of 4 year old Owen and Paige now. 

Pumpkin Carving

We bought two pumpkins this year so Owen and Paige got to design their own jack-o-lanterns. They drew the faces on and then Pat and I carved them. Pat wants me to note here that it was "spooktacular."

Down on a Third Farm

No, I did not plan three farm-based posts in a row. This is what happens when I do everything out of order. Owen's class went on a field trip a couple weeks ago and Paige and I were able to go along. The trip was to a historical farm/village to see what life was like in the 1860s. I'm going to go ahead and say some of the reenactors were better than others. Also, some of the reenactors were more patient with the kids than others. The class favorite seems to be the one-room schoolhouse (which was actually housed in the church while we were there because the bridge to the schoolhouse was out!). The actor did a great job of getting information across while keeping the kids entertained. The most ridiculous/hilarious speaker was the girl making pottery. She started out her talk by saying she didn't make any of the pottery there. Then the kids basically proceeded to ask her piece by piece if she had made it. The teacher put a stop to it eventually but I maintain if she had offered up some more interesting information the questions would have been better!

This was the first stop and it was missing its speaker! Owen's teacher took over and told the kids about transportation.

Perusing the blacksmith's shop

Owen got called up to help at the schoolhouse

Owen got in "trouble" for drawing a picture of the schoolteacher and had to stand on this stool as punishment. 

Mr. Willet's rules.

This speaker was explaining how to make apple butter. The kids all got a sample but they didn't offer the adults any...sigh...

Down on Another Farm

The kids didn't have school today and Pat was able to get the day off of work so we headed to a local apple farm. Nothing apple-related happened while we were there but the kids did eat apples during the car ride over and Pat and I shared an apple fritter on the car ride home. Instead we spent our time in a corn maze, in the play areas and taking a ride in the moo-lar express. The kids got extremely muddy and had a generous amount of junk food so I'm counting today as a win!

Down on the Farm

Paige is in Pre-K this year so her class is old enough to go on a field trip! Parents had to accompany their kids so we all met up at a local farm for a couple hours of fun. The first activity was a hayride where we got to see a ton of scarecrows the farm had set up. Then the kids got to play in corn kernels (the fall version of a sandbox?) and go through a hay maze. At the end they got to pick their own pumpkins and also went home with a piece of candy, popcorn and an apple.

If this picture had one more girl in it you would be looking at all the girls in her class. That's right, 4 girls, 16 boys.

I was going to sit by Paige for the hayride but seats went fast:) It did allow me to get a picture of the back of her head and one of the creepier scarecrows in the background though!

Corn kernels! Yay!

All of the pumpkins looked pretty nice but I sort of think Paige got the best one anyway.

The Library

We go to the library often enough that we're pretty comfortable with the space and the people there but Owen likes to take it to a whole new level. Spreading out, book in hand, shoes off.

Outdoor Adventure!

This was on a day that started out chilly and icky so when a friend invited us to the park after school I wasn't sure how it would go. By the end of the school day, however, the day was gorgeous and it was perfect for exploring. We let the kids dangerously perch by the lake and then braved the poison ivy laden trails to see where they would take us (well, we already knew but it sounds better that way).

Farfalle with Sausage and Butternut Squash

New recipe! I have a pile of squash on my counter I need to use so I found this recipe to help me out. Farfalle with Sausage and Butternut Squash seemed like a bit of a risk because squash has not impressed the kids in the past but it seems they will eat most anything with pasta and I made the pieces pretty small too. I also let them sprinkle some parmesan and parsley on top themselves which made it a bit more fun. All four of us liked it, it's a keeper! Next time I'll probably see if I can get away with adding some spinach too.

Over Already!

 How many more soccer posts can I possibly do? Well, this is the wrap-up for Owen's season (before he starts indoor in two weeks...so stay tuned for posts about that! Just kidding! Maybe! No promises!). The boys had a great season and finished with a 7-1 record. We didn't keep track of how many goals or assists Owen had but he did very well in all the games. More importantly, he looked forward to each and every practice and game and really bonded with his teammates. The boys were even harder to contain at practices this year because of how comfortable they've gotten with each other! Pat had a lot of fun being assistant coach too. See that official t-shirt?

Group picture

Funny group picture

Pizza party to celebrate the season!

Update

Our adorable terrariums are...no longer with us. I think there a few things that might have gone wrong. 

1. The directions we used said you could add a layer of activated charcoal if you wanted. That should have been required. It's supposed to act as a water filter and keep things clean and a couple of ours with bigger plants got a moldy look to them.

2. I think you're supposed to mist them but I was lazy and just stuck them under the faucet every so often.

3. I took for granted that terrariums were "easy" to care for and expected them to do,their own thing. 

This picture was posed and is not an accurate depiction of emotion based on the loss of terrariums.

Eww...Yum!

It's been awhile since I posted any new recipes because we've getting by on old favorites around here. We had some produce that was our of our comfort zone the last few months, thanks to our CSA, but I pretty much just used the same recipes I found for them last summer. Baking and cooking always seem to pick up with the colder weather though and here are a couple things we've tried recently. The pictures look gross but I promise they were both big hits!

Broccoli-Quinoa Casserole with Chicken and Cheddar-Looking at this picture sort of makes me want to never make this again but I have to keep reminding myself how good it was! You can feel free to click on the link and see a more attractive picture. I decided to make this before I had actually read the ingredient list so I was really thrown off when I saw it had mayonnaise in it. That kind of grosses me out so I put half the amount in. Next time I will definitely put more broccoli in!

German Peach Pie with Butter and Walnuts-We brought this pie to a friend's house and it didn't have a lot of takers but the people that did get a chance to try it loved it (me included!). We were able to bring home a little bit and Owen liked it so much that he chose it over cookies for his dessert the next day. I did hit a snag while making it however...you have to blanch the peaches to be able to peel the skin but this make it impossible to halve them as the recipe states. I ended up with peach slices/chunks instead.

4.5!

Paige is officially 4 1/2! As per tradition she woke up to half a birthday card and some sprinkle pancakes. The rest of the day was filled with activities-storytime at the library, preschool and dance class. She chose a special dress to wear and made sure I told everyone how old she was:)

Soccer (Paige)

Here it is! The long-awaited Paige Soccer post! We've dealt with some bad weather on Paige's soccer days but the day I took these pictures was beautiful! We got lucky too because Paige had been asked to escort a senior out to the field for the varsity game that afternoon. We were at the field for about four hours between Paige's practice and the varsity game. Initially Paige didn't want to do it but I had already committed her so...I sweetened the deal by promising ice cream after:) She ended up loving the whole thing anyway! They gave her a jersey and of course the seniors were extremely nice to Paige and the other three girls who helped. They got to have their names announced and stand on the field with the team for the national anthem. Afterwards she said she wanted to do it all again next year and that she was going to wear her jersey to all of Owen's soccer games too.

Math Monsters!

I can't even list all of the things about this project that Paige enjoyed because there are so many of them. But I'll try anyway. Glue! Googly eyes! Markers! Sequins! Dice rolling! Etc.! I cut out monster shapes for us (because I knew I would want to do one too) and got all the supplies. Then the idea was to roll the dice, count up your number and put on that many googly eyes or sequins. Then cross out the number on the number strip so we only did each one once. We took turns and Paige loved it. She eventually put her own spin on it by turning her one number into a combination of marker lines/sequins/eyes. 

 I saw this idea on the blog, No Time For Flashcards