Trick or Treat, Round 4

(I hope you have noticed that Camille has worn a completely different outfit for each Trick or Treat)

Finally, the real night arrived. The girls were super excited, of course. The weather was perfect- it has been so unusually warm, but we could actually see the kids costumes this year which was great.

Ben took the kids trick-or-treating, as usual. They went to a haunted house even- some people really go all out for Halloween! We are not one of them, however.

I was pretty happy about Halloween, though. I'm not sure why, but I'm thinking it's because everything has been so negative with the elections and we have been so divided as a country. But, for tonight- everybody is friendly and neighborly, and we could all just be friends. 

This was my festive dinner: Chicken sweet potato pie. I thought it was awesome, but the girls decided they don't like sweet potatoes in chicken sweet potato pie. Boo!

Trick or Treat, Round 3

Tonight we had our annual Trunk or Treat at church. This typically turns out to be our biggest Halloween activity, and this year was no exception. I even went all Pinterest and had the girls help me make "Mummy Pizza" for the pizza pot-luck. They were a hit- all but two got eaten.

 And, let's be honest, this year was the best costumes we've ever done. All the adults knew who Claire was, but apparently kids don't read Pippi Longstocking anymore, so very few kids knew who Claire was. Camille chose Strawberry Shortcake for tonight, and I was glad- she looked so cute! And, well, Audra makes a great Vampire Princess, although I am a bit disappointed that even as a vampire she's beautiful. How are we going to make it through the teenage years?

Ben and I just went as ourselves- that was scary enough.

Audra Plays Soccer

For better or for worse, Audra is playing soccer this season.

This is her first time playing soccer, and she is catching on pretty quickly. She is really good at dribbling around players and winning 50/50 balls. And running all over the field. She has not scored a goal yet, as she isn't great at shooting yet, but she has a ton of assist. It seems like every time her team scores, she is part of it somehow- either by passing to the shooter, or winning the ball.

She did play goalie one day at practice,and afterwards she said, "I am NOT a good goalie!" I told her being a goalie is in her blood- she has to be good at it.

She is really enjoying playing, although she recognizes that it is very time consuming and she has to sacrifice other activities in order to play soccer. It's been a busy soccer fall for us.Between Claire and Audra, we had 4 practices a week, Tuesday-Friday. And always from 5-6, right when I should be making dinner. I have had to get really creative.

The weather has been perfect all season, though. It was in the 70's today, and we haven't had any rain. This is very different from Claire's spring soccer last year!

We are not signing the girls up for soccer in spring, and we will let her decide if she wants to play next fall or not. She is really athletic, so I think she would be great at whatever she decides to do.

Trick or Treat, Round 2

Our co-op had a trunk-or-treat. There were only a few families who went, but it was still nice to have a break in the day. Plus, there were cupcakes, so it was a win.

Trick or Treat, Round One

We weren't thrilled about it, but the kids really wanted to go to our local high school for Trick or Treat Street. The line was exceptionally long, but it did move quickly. It is so cool what the teenagers do. It was definitely worth going- the girls had a blast.

We ran into our favorite baby-sitter, Dominique:

And, we don't know these girls, but Audra and Claire were excited to be in Charlotte's Web and requested a photo. There were about 30 different rooms- superheroes, A Bug's Life, The Lorax (our favorite), and so much more.

An Awesome Couple of Weeks!

It has been a great couple of weeks in our homeschool world! I am really loving our new curriculum.

We finished our unit on frontiersmen, and started a new unit on sound/music. The kids built an ear canal with a tunnel that they could climb through to show the different parts of the ear and how the ear works. Today we built a pendulum with varying lengths of weights/string to show how the vibrations from the string share the same vibrations with strings that are the same length. The kids made a telephone with paper cups and string- and I know it sounds silly, but I have never understood how noise travels via vibrations, but after the kids built the telephone I finally got it- and so did the kids. It was an awesome "Eureka!" moment. The kids also tore apart an old phone to see how phones work.

Our homemade pendulum to show how vibrations travel and sync with strings of the same length.
Very cool, and simple, experiment.

I just love that this curriculum is so hands on- it is exactly what I want! We are really able to go in depth with everything we are studying. It is really exciting! Sometimes it can be a little overwhelming as there are a lot of things for us to fit into our daily schedule, but we are finally (in week 10!) starting to get into a good rhythm. I know that I am learning a ton, and the kids are, too- which is the most important. It's more than we did last year, because it has the reading and then the hands on as well, so we are going a little bit slower through the material. But that's ok, because the kids are getting it better, and they love all the projects we get to do. I'm glad that we switched things up this year- this has been a great change for us!

Fun Times!

 The girls had some super fun activities the last few days:

Audra had a costume Birthday party so she finally had a chance to use the costume she has been plotting for months- a vampire princess. For the record, this is by far the greatest amount of work I have ever put into a Halloween costume:

Claire had a Halloween party, so she got to use the costume she has been plotting: Pippi Longstocking. For the record, this is by far the second most amount of work I have put into a Halloween costume:

Then, while both Audra and Claire were at Birthday parties, Ben and I had our weekly date night and took Camille with us. We went to our new favorite Mexican restaurant- Casa Caliente, and then to Target. I think she had a great time- and it was awesome to have Camille alone. She was great fun with no siblings to fight with. She said she would have rather been at a Birthday party, Oh, well.

Follow the Prophet

There's a lot of things that Ben and I are not great at as parents. We pretty much parent-fail every day.

BUT, we did have one pretty cool parenting win recently.

Every six months, our church leaders speak in a "General Conference"- a worldwide conference that is broadcast throughout the world where we can receive direction from our prophets and apostles- kind-of like if the Pope and top Cardinals spoke to all the Catholics in the world. It's pretty cool, and something members of our church look forward to.

Anyway, I got an idea from a friend to do a "Guess Whose Coming To Dinner?" activity. For the 15 days prior to conference (ok, it was supposed to be 15 days, but the pictures didn't arrive and we started late....another parenting fail), we had one person "come" to dinner. I would hang their picture up with a sign over them, and read about their life- how many kids they have, what they did for a living, etc (I just read what is written on the back of the pictures). Then, everybody would guess who I was talking about. Really, it was a way for us all to learn a bit more about our church leaders. We all learned a lot, actually.

Camille was the cutest- she really thought somebody was coming to dinner, and the first night when nobody actually showed up she kept asking, "But when is he going to come?" Every night, she was the one most excited- all day she would keep asking, "Whose coming to dinner tonight?"

Now that conference is over, we are now watching one talk (almost) every day and writing down what each apostle spoke about, It's been pretty good so far.

My hope is that we can do this again in 6 months and perhaps we'll do a little bit better at knowing these great men.

And, here's a funny story: Tonight Audra said, "Mom, I hate to tell you this but our prophets are falling." Thinking that she meant we have fallen prophets (a term many people leaving the church cite for leaving the church), I was a bit taken aback. Until I realized she meant that some pictures of the apostles had literally fallen off the wall. Haha! Her testimony is still safe!

(And, yes, I realize while looking at these pictures that it's a bunch of white men in black suits. That's true. But I love these men, and believe they are men of God. Who have incredibly awesome wives who I also love to hear from!)

A Little Bit of Whine...

I have a little bit of a whine today...

Camille had her yearly IEP meeting today. Her speech is going really well, actually. She definitely talks up a storm, and her ending consonants are great. She struggles a lot with the "G" and "K" sound, but we can understand almost everything she says. Especially if Audra and Claire are around to help translate on occasion.

She is also well loved by her teachers and classmates. There are only 5 total kids in her class (and one just started a week ago), and three teachers, so she is getting great one on one attention.

Overall, her IEP went really well.

But, there was one thing that was a bit nerving. They asked me what my future plans with Camille were. I asked them how long they thought Camille would need an IEP and speech therapy. They made it sound like it would be years. I asked them at what point I should hire a speech therapist because the therapy at school wasn't cutting it. Their answer was vague, so I decided to focus just on the next year or two.

I said (because it's true) that of course I would do whatever we needed to do to get Camille the help that she needs, but that we are homeschooling and I would like to homeschool Camille at the latest starting in first grade (I would really prefer to start in kindie, but it sounds like that is out of the question as they were quite confident that she would need it at least for next year at a minimum).

At that point her teacher said, "School is, of course, important for academics, and for speech, but it is also important for socialization and Camille really seems to love school." She is right that Camille loves school, but I was really frustrated at her condescending tone about socialization. Does she really think that we just sit at home and never see or talk to anybody? If there is one thing about homeschooling that I absolutely, 100% do NOT worry about, it is socialization! My girls have so much socialization- and it is healthy socialization! When I walked outside right after the meeting and saw the fourth graders chanting "FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!" and turned to see the boys having an actual water bottle fight. I thought- "Really? This is the 'socialization' I'm supposed to be excited about that for my kids? I don't think so!"

I have to remember that I used to think the same thoughts. Now, thankfully, I can see things from the other side. I don't take to bashing public schools, I think they are great for a number of reasons. I wish people would extend the same to homeschoolers. It's just frustrating to have people be so judgemental, when they obviously have no clue.

Sigh.

Pumpkins!

It is well documented that carving pumpkins is not our favorite task.

However, we lucked out a little bit this year. Because we bought our pumpkins a week ago at Anderson Farms, and because it has been quite warm this year, the girls' pumpkins started to rot a little bit. They weren't going to take a carving, so the girls agreed to paint them instead. YAY! Audra and Claire did, however, insist on at least taking the top off and getting some of the seeds out so we could bake them up into a tasty treat.

This year, however, for once we will remember this night as a wonderful night- just as we were finishing up and getting ready to clean up the mess, we got a knock on the door- we got "boo-ed!" An anonymous family brought us over some mint chocolate brownies with a note that said (and this is just paraphrasing) "Now you've been boo'ed- go 'BOO' two other families and share the fun!"

It's pretty fun-  now we are thinking of who to BOO!

Funny Girl

The other day Ben was helping Camille tie her shoes. Camille looked up at Ben and said, "Daddy, I can do bunny ears." Ben was really excited for her to show him how she was learning to tie her shoes! But, alas, she put her fingers in a "V" bunny ear shape and put them behind her head, thus making bunny ears.

She still can't tie her shoes.

Anderson Farms

Today we took our annual trip to Anderson Farms- we were all very excited. Ben took the day off work, and we headed up. The weather was perfect, and it wasn't too crowded.

Camille LOVED LOVED LOVED these cars. It was so funny- she would hop on and pedal furiously. And if somebody tried to slow her down- watch out! That's pretty much all she wanted to do the entire time- she must have gone around at least a hundred times.

Photo ops are everywhere at this place:

The girls also really loved being in jail. I'm not quire sure what that means...

The maze they have for kids is pretty cool- you go through and try to solve the mystery of who kidnapped Farmer Joe. I guessed right this year- the bull did it!

We are now home and completely exhausted! We stopped at Good Times on the way home and splurged on hot fudge sundaes. We all deserved it!