Halloween Recap

Posted on November 1, 2014 by Amy

Whew! Another Halloween is over. We had a fun week of parties, treats, and costumes.

Here’s a recap, mommy-blog style:

First of all, the issue of costumes almost became a big drama when we first started Halloween planning a few weeks ago. I told the girls that I was not going to buy them costumes for Halloween this year, because they each had gotten two new costumes for the Labor Day party in September. Why two costumes? I had already allowed them to pick a costume for the “Cartoon” theme of the party, and then my Mother-in-law requested that everyone in the family come as a Smurf, knowing that would make for an awesome family photo, so they got additional Smurf costumes.

I told them they could choose from the Smurf costumes, the other costumes they got for the party (Mulan, Ms. Frizzle, Sofia the First), or pick something out of our extensive dress up collection. Sis and Lass had no problem with this. Sis wanted to be Sofia again. Lass decided to wear her veterinarian dress up outfit. Miss, on the other hand, insisted that she wanted to be a witch. We don’t have witch dress up. We had a stand-off on the issue for a few days, until I found a witch hat in the Target dollar section. I conceded to buy her the hat, but told her we’d have to piece together the rest of the costume from things we already had. She agreed. And then Lass changed her mind and decided she had to be a witch too. Soooo, a different witch hat, also from Target, and plans for two witch outfits. Costumes decided, crisis averted.

The actual Halloween revelry started last Saturday when we were invited to a party by some lovely friends.

You might be wondering what happened to the witches and Sofia the First, yes? Well, I suggested to Miss that she might want to save her witch costume for her school party, since lots of the kids from her school would be at this family party. She agreed and grabbed her Elsa dress (which needed some last minute repairs). Then Lass decided to be Cinderella, but melted down because her Cinderella dress, which she got as a gift for her second birthday, is now too small for her. She did not want to wear Miss’s Cinderella dress from last Halloween, but Sis decided she’d love to be Cinderella instead of Sofia. Lass recovered from her devastation quickly upon catching a glimpse of her unicorn costume in the closet where it has been stuffed onto a shelf for the past year. So, no witches, no Sofia. Elsa, Cinderella, and a unicorn instead.

Are you still with me? Good.

The party was wonderful, with lots of games and pizza and treats. The girls had a blast.

^^ A last stretching leap to win her heat of the sack race. She’s not competitive or anything. . .

My Halloween torment began on Wednesday, when I had to roll up my sleeves and actually bake the treats I had envisioned after my Pinterest search last week. I think I mentioned that baking is not one of my talents. Cooking I can do. Baking? Not so much. And yet, I volunteered to bring the sweet treat for Miss’s school party. I’m sometimes not too smart, either.

So, what do you think? Did I nail it?

At least they tasted good. I helped out at Miss’s party, and most of the kids devoured them, and had no idea they had pumpkin in them.

Yeah, she decided to stick with the Elsa costume for the school party too.

Yesterday afternoon/evening was a whirlwind of carving pumpkins, getting costumes on, giving candy to early trick-or-treaters, and trying to find their pumpkin-shaped candy buckets.

^^ Last minute jack-o-lantern success.

We had to really bundle up, because it was extremely cold and windy here last night. Miss and Lass each wore one of my sweaters as a witch “dress.” We managed to fit costumes on over bulky coats, so no one’s outfit was hidden for the sake of being warm. I crimped the older girls’ hair to make it look “witchy.” That was my favorite part.

We never did find the pumpkin buckets.

Miss insisted on pulling her sisters in the wagon, and off we went.

“Trick or Treat!”

It was really, really cold and the witch hats wouldn’t stay on because of the wind. The houses in our neighborhood are kind of far apart, and there were many with no lights on. We only made it to four houses before calling it quits.

The girls didn’t care that we didn’t go to more houses, and we would have ended up with the perfect (small) amount of candy for the night. Except that it was so cold, very few trick-or-treaters came to our house to take our candy.

Right now our huge bowl of leftovers is “hidden” in our laundry room. Unfortunately I can’t hide them from myself. I’ll be donating all of it somewhere ASAP.

It was a fun Halloween. I hope you had a fun one too!

Cupcake Anxiety, a Singing Nun, and a Deer Head Dance (7QT)

Posted on October 24, 2014October 24, 2014 by Amy

Doing what I usually do on Fridays:

I’m in charge of making the sweet treat for Miss’s Halloween party at school next week. Right now I am both loving and hating Pinterest. I think I’m using a recipe for pumpkin cupcakes and adding chocolate chips. The frosting will be pumpkin cream cheese and I’ll put orange sprinkles on top. I’m hoping they’ll look something like this:

Of course, they’re not really going to end up looking anything like that. And I have spent waaaayyy too much time thinking about this. But the kids will have cupcakes.

The last time I tried to make something from scratch for a school party was when Miss was still in preschool outside the home, and I tried to make paleo brownies for her to take for her birthday. I baked them after putting the girls to bed, and thank goodness I tasted one before taking them to her school. They were disgusting. Truly. I threw them away and made an emergency late-night trip to the grocery store to get some pre-made cupcakes from the bakery.

This time I’ll bake the cupcakes early enough in the day that I can test one and have some time to consider decent replacement options if these are awful.

Baking isn’t one of my talents, so I must always prepare for the worst.

On Wednesday I got pulled over. I was going 69 MPH in a 55 MPH zone. the officer took my license, went back to his car, and came back a few minutes later saying, “You have a great record, so I’m giving you a warning.”

I barely managed to keep my jaw from dropping.

I don’t know whose driving record he was looking at, but if it was “great,” it wasn’t mine. Or maybe he could only see the past year or two. It has been over two years since my last ticket. . .

I’m kind of a lead foot.

Our house has walls. And rooms.

See that big window right in the front? That’s where my school room is going to be.

Can you picture it? Little desks and tons of books and art projects everywhere and storage, storage, storage. I can’t wait.

When I was a tween (though no one used that word then), I loved Madonna. My Mom wouldn’t buy me the tape of her music (I think she called M a “tart”), but I recorded the songs off the radio and sang and danced to them with abandon. Borderline, Material Girl, Crazy for You, Like a Virgin. . .

Okay, I still dance and sing to them with abandon.

Yesterday I came across a video. Some people might find it weird, but I just think it’s awesome. It’s a nun. Singing “Like a Virgin.” (I think it’s the nun who won some singing show in Italy).

Her performance is incredible, and it gives the song a whole new meaning. Don’t just listen. Watch her sing it.

It gave me chills. As someone who spent nearly a decade as an atheist, this video really struck a chord with me. I’ll never hear that song the same way again. And that’s not a bad thing.

Today was lovely. Days like this are why fall is my favorite season.

They were trying to catch leaves in their hats as they fell from the trees. They weren’t too successful, but it sure was fun to watch them try.

Each time she fell she’d look up and me and say, deadpan, “A little help here.”

Hunting season is upon us. After watching my husband practice shooting his bow, Miss asked to get hers out too (my Dad gave it to her).

She practiced for at least 30 minutes, and went from needing lots of assistance and correction to being able to nock, draw, aim, and shoot the arrow herself, often placing it in the target.

Lass took a short turn with the bow when Miss was done. Both the girls said they wanted to go out and hunt with my husband, to which he replied that they could (hunt = watch deer). This quickly resulted a dance and song that went something like this, “We’re gonna put a deer head on the waaaall,” over and over and over.

I hope you had a lovely Friday too.

Catch the rest of the Quick Takes at Conversion Diary.

All Things Pumpkin

Posted on October 27, 2013 by Amy

We have been a little pumpkin crazy here this weekend.

We did P is for Pumpkin in school last week and are continuing it through this next week. So over the weekend, we did a few fun pumpkin activities. Of course to start, the girls helped carve their jack-o-lanterns.

Naturally Daddy did most of the work, but they did help quite a bit, especially with creative direction.

Miss helped me season some pumpkin seeds for roasting. I’m actually not a fan of pumpkin seeds, but I thought it would be a fun thing for the girls to do. We made some with just salt and some with salt and brown sugar and cinnamon. They turned out okay.

I know Miss enjoyed helping me make them. And she said she liked eating them, though she didn’t eat more than one of each flavor. Lass wouldn’t even try them.

I’m not sure that the result was worth the time I spent cleaning off the darn seeds to get them ready to roast (is there some trick to this that I’m completely missing?). I think next time I’ll just have the girls clean the seeds themselves.

But that’s not all the pumpkin-y goodness we’ve got going on around here.

I am sometimes a fan of a pumpkin spice latte, so I decided to use this recipe to make my own crock pot pumpkin spice syrup today. It’s yummy and will be good in coffee and smoothies. I also soaked some pepitas to make spiced pepita milk.

A week or so ago, I did not know what a pepita is (a pumpkin seed without the shell, FYI). Then I saw the recipe and had to try it. I use almond milk in my coffee, and thought this would be a fun alternative for fall, so I made some tonight.

It’s so yummy I can’t wait to try it in my coffee.

I’m also planning to make pumpkin spice smoothies and paleo pumpkin pancakes for breakfast tomorrow.

We’re reading pumpkin books and doing pumpkin crafts and singing pumpkin songs. I was going to make some pumpkin pies, but I decided to wait until Thanksgiving for those.

Like I said, pumpkin crazy over here.

Miss asked to make pumpkin cookies to eat after trick-or-treating, but I drew the line at that. I’m pretty sure we won’t be needing cookies to eat after tromping through the neighborhood gathering a bucket-full of sugary treats on Thursday night.

Fall Fun and a Girls’ Road Trip (Gulp)

Posted on October 3, 2013 by Amy

Oh, how I love fall.

We’ve been making yummy stuff.

^^Check out my budding chef grating nutmeg on the microplane.

They were so proud of their creation.

I had a lot of fun making the caramel apples with them.

I unwrapped the little caramel cubes into a bowl and showed them to the girls. Immediately Miss knew we were going to make caramel apples.

I asked them if we should go ahead and dunk the apples in and they immediately said “Yes!”

So, we did. And naturally the “dunking” didn’t work out with the cold candies just sitting in the bowl.

I asked them what we should do. My favorite part of the process was this:

Miss’s eyes lit up and she said, “Mom! We could put. it. in. the microwave!”

Everyone got very excited, and there was some jumping and shouting about the brilliant solution. Miss was so proud of herself when we took it out and it had begun to melt. She kept saying, “Mom, I had a great idea, didn’t I?” Love.

Later today we are leaving for a seven-hour girls’ road trip. We’re going to my old Kentucky home, Louisville. I lived there for four years while in graduate school and it remains one of my favorite places in the world. I’m meeting some of my dear old friends from my years there for a reunion, and we’re going to the St. James Art Fair. Can’t wait.

I must admit I’m kind of nervous about the trip. My husband has to work and can’t come with (my mom is meeting us in Lou to help me with the girls). I’ve never done a road trip of any length with them by myself. For inspiration, I’m reminding myself of my husband’s Aunt J, who drove an RV, by herself, with her five daughters to every state in the continental US when they were kids. I can do this.

Look out Louisville, here we come!

60 Kids’ Activities for Fall and Winter – The List is Done!

Posted on September 30, 2013September 30, 2013 by Amy

Our Fall and Winter Fun List is done!

60 fun things we will be doing in the next six months:

Draw faces on leaves
Make an apple pie
Make fall leaves spice art
Go to local apple orchard
Make a leaf book
Play in a pile leaves
“Marble” painting using an apple
Drink hot cider
Leaf printing
Go to a pumpkin patch
Leaf rubbing
Make Thankful trees
Hay ride
Caramel apples
Melted crayon leaf sun catchers
Deer hunting (really just watching this year)
Hand print turkeys
Go trick or treating
Carve pumpkins
Roast pumpkin seeds and use them to make a pumpkin craft
Make an autumn sparkle tree
Children’s museum
Girls road trip
Donate food to the food pantry
Build a fort (in the house)
Treasure hunt
Have a pajama movie night with Super Friend and her family
Bake a cake
Go to open swim at the YMCA
Make a bucket craft to go with this book
Make muffins
Have a picnic in the living room
Go to story time at the library
Have a family slumber party
Make a pinecone garland
Write a letter to Santa
Buy Christmas gifts for needy children
Bake Christmas cookies
Drive through the park to see the Christmas lights and visit the reindeer
Set up nativity
Have a Christmas music dance party
Decorate the Christmas tree
Make salt dough ornaments
Visit Santa
Sing Christmas carols
Make hot glue and glitter snowflake ornaments
Catch snowflakes
Make snow angels
Go Skiing
Make paper snowflakes
Blow ice bubbles
Make a snow fort
Drink hot chocolate
Read books by the fire
Make a snowman
Have a snowball fight
Snowman ice cream sundaes
Make Valentine hearts with handprints (something like this, maybe even with glitter)
Make kid-friendly tiramisu
Make Valentine flower arrangements

Of course there is a lot more crafting and cooking on this list than there was on our summer list. Something about fall gets me in a super crafty mood. Leaves, apples, pumpkins, turkeys, Halloween… It’s all just so perfect making stuff. We already did marble painting with an apple (#7) and the girls loved it.

And don’t even get me started on Christmas crafts… I’m a little giddy thinking about it.

I decided to put more projects that involve glitter or other loathesome materials on the list so I will have to do them (for example see #3, #15, #21, #46 above). I really detest glitter, but the girls LOVE working with it. We made glittery firework art this summer (only because I put it on our list and we did it outside) and it was such a treat for them. So, it’s on there. Multiple times.

It will be fun.

I will meditate prior to doing crafts that involve glitter or other finely powdered substances (Spices? Sounds awesome for crafting. And a little bit horrible).

I didn’t make separate fall and winter lists because around here it’s usually hard to tell where one season ends and the other begins. Winter weather typically starts long before the solstice. Plus, plenty of the activities could be done in either the fall or winter, so I just combined them.

If you want to use some of this stuff for separate lists, the items are organized like this:

Fall #1-21
Either Fall or Winter #22-34
Winter/Christmas #35-46
Winter/General #47-57
Winter/Valentine’s Day #58-60

I can’t wait to get into the activities with my girls.

What fall and/or winter activities are you looking forward to?

Preschool Dropout

Posted on November 1, 2012November 1, 2012 by Amy

Yesterday was Miss’s last day of preschool.

Recently, my husband and I decided that we would take her out of preschool and just start our homeschooling journey with her now. It was a little hard to make the decision to take her out, but only because I really love her school. It’s such a wonderful little place and her teachers are fantastic. When my husband and I decided in May that we will be homeschooling our girls, I thought that I would want to keep Miss in Preschool until the time for her to start Kindergarten (and send Lass and Sis when they got old enough). My reasoning for this was that she enjoys school and could have some good experiences in a fun learning environment that is more under my control than regular school would be beyond the preschool years. I could choose to send her only two mornings a week. I could choose the days she goes (LOVE this about her school). I could take her out of school to travel whenever necessary.

Additionally, her school is small, with mixed age groups and a really wonderful environment. It’s a mix of Montessori and traditional preschool styles that I think is really great. And I know of at least one instance when the owner of the school, after trying really hard to help a disruptive child, decided that the child could no longer attend because of the disruptions to the other kids. It’s not that I loved the idea that a child was asked to leave her school, but I was super glad that it was an option for her teachers to remove a child who was causing problems, when attempts at correcting the issues were unsuccessful. That would never happen in many other school settings.

I have always felt comfortable with and confident about Miss’s preschool, and at the time it seemed like the right thing to send her back at the start of this school year.

Problem is, her school is about 25 minutes from our house, and this fall juggling the younger two girls while getting her to school just seemed like more than I wanted to do. Sis’s schedule tends to get screwed up on school days. I never had as much time to run errands and get things done while Miss was at school as I thought I would.

Plus, I just want her home with me.

So I decided she would be done with school at the end of October. I talked with her about this, and she was fine with it. Her last day was the school’s Halloween party. It was a fun way to close out her preschool experience. All of us girls were in attendance.

Miss was super excited to show Lass her school.

I love seeing how much their relationship has grown just since last school year. The last time I had Lass at Miss’s school she seemed so much younger than the kids there. This time she fit right in.

They are the best of friends. I can’t wait to see how they grow together now that we’ll be starting “preschool” at our house.

And speaking of growing, our littlest ballerina is getting ready to move.

I’m so not ready for mobility.

Her first Halloween was lots of fun. She snuggled right in to go Trick or Treating with her big sisters. Or as Lass says, “Trick or Tricking”

It was pretty chilly last night, so we kept asking them if they wanted their hoods up. Miss said, “Nope. I like to feel the breeze in my hair.”

They were a little bit shy at the first house we visited.

But after that they were such funny, outgoing little trick or treaters. They actually stepped right into the second house on our route!

We did a quick sweep of our little neighborhood and rushed home to get into jammies and hit the road.

We’re at the Farm for the next week and a half for deer hunting.

It will be our first week of home preschool, and we’re going freestyle.

Tonight we watched five deer out the window. We talked all about does vs. bucks and had a cool experience when Miss banged on the window and the buck on the lawn looked right up at her. She was excited when I explained that he had heard her and was trying to figure out what the noise was. We watched him run off a few minutes later.

I haven’t yet decided if I’m going to actually get a preschool curriculum or just go with some of the things that are easily available online, some of the stuff that Miss did at her school, and lots of playing. I’m leaning towards the latter. I’m a little bit nervous about “doing it right,” but I think we’ll be okay.

I’m excited about having my oldest girl home with me full time again.

Leaves

Posted on October 21, 2012October 21, 2012 by Amy

At home, we are well past the peak of fall color. Things are starting to look a bit brown. It’s getting cold and I can feel winter coming.

But this week we’re visiting my parents. They live 10 hours south of us, and still have lots of wonderful color and nearly-80-degree weather to enjoy.

It’s warm and beautiful. And we’re taking full advantage.

There’s lots of room to run at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. And I just can’t resist taking pictures of my gorgeous girls in these gorgeous leaves.

Of course, my girls love playing in the leaves. I got them searching for big, different, colorful leaves.

We collected a bunch of leaves and then the girls went to town playing in them.

I was really excited to have the girls do some leaf rubbings after their naps.

I helped each of them do a maple leaf, but they were much more interested in just coloring. I tried to talk to them about the differences in the leaves and the types of trees from which they came. We had collected maple, oak, dogwood, and something else. Hickory, I think. I was really excited to get into the leaves. I thought I was going to have one of those super-fun-and-totally-educational-awesome-mom experiences with them.

They just wanted to color. Oh well.

It was a fun afternoon. And we’re at Grandma and Grandpa’s. My girls are laughing like crazy and getting tons of love from my parents. Can’t beat that.

Weekend Family Fest

Posted on October 15, 2012 by Amy

It was cold and rainy here all weekend. But our house was full of warmth and sunshine.

We took full advantage of being home together for a full weekend. We played, and made music, and colored Halloween cookies.

Yes, that’s a tear on her cheek. She had been very upset about something just before climbing in her seat to color her cookies. Probably that I made her take off her sister’s Snow White dress for the activity…

I had shown her how I bit off my ghost’s arms. She laughed and showed me her ghost, “Mama, I bit off his butt!”

We hunkered down for some much needed home time. Lists and agendas went out the window as we spent time just enjoying each other. It. was. awesome.

We did puzzles and played games and watched football. The girls knew the appropriate teams to cheer for (mostly “GO BLUE!” of course, but a little bit of “Yay Hawkeyes!” in there as well so their Daddy wouldn’t feel bad).

We got out paints and went to town. My girls love to paint. I love seeing how they each have their own way of doing it.

Miss decided that finger painting was in order. When I told her I wasn’t going to get out the finger paints (not my fave activity), she improvised. Tricky girl.

So, they made some great handprint art. It was messy. I don’t love messy, but I went with it. It was fun and I survived and they loved it.

It was a lazy jammy weekend. The only reason any of us got dressed all weekend (other than hubby and me when we went on a date Saturday), was that the girls got paint all over their jammies from the finger painting.

Of course we couldn’t get through this weekend family fest without carving our pumpkins. The older girls each had a pumpkin to draw a face on.

Daddy carved them while the girls looked on excitedly.

I forgot to buy one of those little pumpkin carving sets, so he was working hard and having a bit of trouble with my relatively large knives. Then he got smart.

The girls chose to do Mad (Miss’s), Scared (Lass’s), and Sad (Miss’s choice for Sis) faces on their pumpkins. I love how they turned out. It was a fun ending to a wonderful weekend.

Fall Photos with Very Little Interesting Commentary

Posted on October 8, 2012 by Amy

All I can think to write about tonight is how much I love fall. But I’ve already done that so many times. Here. And here (yes, those are two posts, a year apart, with the same title). And here. At least once each year I write a post in which I wax poetic about how much I love fall. I can’t help it. I do love it so. I am trying hard to resist the urge to slip into my fall-loving commentary again. Instead, I’ll let the photos from this weekend show my love, and I’ll try to write about something else.

Okay. I’m trying to think of something else to write about.

Look at the photo below. My hubby is playing Monster chase with the girls. He has pink sidewalk chalk on his butt.

Still trying to think of something.

Oh! I finished reading Atlas Shrugged tonight. Great book. 1168 pages. Yowza. Maybe that’s why my brain feels a bit sluggish right now. I kind of don’t know what to do with myself now that I’m done. Who is John Galt?

More photos.

I give up. We’re having fun with fall. We’re getting pumpkins tomorrow. Carving photos to come soon. And perhaps some intelligent words as well.

Happy Fall

Posted on October 1, 2012October 1, 2012 by Amy

This is my favorite time of year. When the air cools and becomes crisp and smells amazing. When everything changes so quickly. And beautifully. When I think, at least once per day, that I wish I had my camera so I could pull my car over and take a photo of that gorgeous farmstead, that harvested field, that amazing tree. …

I didn’t pull over to take this photo. This is just the tree in our front yard.

Often, I don’t have my camera. But even when I do, I never pull over to take photos of what I see as I drive along. I’m always worried about finding a safe place to stop. Or about getting home quickly because my kids are hungry, or tired, or need to go to the bathroom. Maybe I should make a point of keeping my camera with me. Maybe I should stop once in a while. Seize the moment and all that. Maybe someday I will. But for now, who needs photos of farms and trees, when you have this?

Leaves on a trampoline –

A nice front porch for hanging out –

And drawing –

Lots of leaves for gathering and raking and throwing and jumping –

This time of year is when I get the urge to do more spontaneous things. Simple things to soak in the beauty of my favorite season. Like pulling my car over on a country road simply to take a beautiful photo. Or stopping at the roadside pumpkin stand.

And then I remember I need to make lunches and feed a hungry baby and get girls down for naps, or get to school/swimming/gymnastics on time, or get home to start cooking dinner.

Oh well. I do try to do other simple things that make the most of the perfect fall days we’ve been having, like impromptu lunch picnics and walks and jumping in leaf piles. We are planning Halloween costumes and will be getting pumpkins for carving soon. We watch football and buy apples at the farmer’s market. I get lots of gorgeous photos of my girls enjoying the season. We’ve got leaves in hair, crazy outfits, precarious wielding of very large yard tools. … Soon we’ll have pumpkins, bigger leaf piles, and two little girls trick or treating as ballerinas (again). Who needs photos of barns and cows and fields?

Happy fall to you.