Halloween 2021

Both Emily's ballet & William's karate had special events for Halloween, so they each had an extra costume.  Emily the flamingo:

And William the deep sea fisherman. = )

We also made some spooky snacks, thanks to the Kroger Magazine for the recipies.

The sausage mummies are so good, I'm pretty sure we had them at least three times!

The kids all wanted a piece with the spider on it, but then picked off the olives. lol.

Emily decorated her computer for the season.

And it was really spooky for the kids when Roblox went down for an entire weekend!!!

And some time in the last year, I found a definitive candy measuring cup. It's a tupperware dressing cup.  The kids are allowed to have their age in candy on the first night, then follow the cookie rule after that (age/4 (rounded down) + 1.)  But, if the candy is small, they may have 2 pieces per cookie.  Every year I was bombarded by: "Is this small? Is this small? Is this small?"  So, now we finally have a cup, that if the candy fits inside, with the lid on, it is "small" if not, it's big.  I told Billy that Alice would be eating a lot of squished candy this year. (and she did.)

Halloween this year fell on a Sunday, which is less than ideal, but we managed to have fun just the same!

Avia stopped by and helped set up the porch and the company that we would be having soon.  Then Sarah stopped by with Seven to get a picture of Scooby Doo & Shaggy together again.

Abby's family, even big Em, came over and played some games in the afternoon, then left just before trick or treat time.  Emily and Abby were peanut butter & jelly.  (Emily and I tie-dyed the shirts when the weather was still pretty.)

Then, we were joined by Willow for trick or treating.  I let Billy take the kids this year, while I passed out candy.  The three little ones were done quickly.  Grace and Juliet helped me pass out candy the rest of the night.  

Eventually, Willow and Emily came back, but her mom took them to a few other neighborhoods to try and score candy, without having to be out in the cold.   Sadly, they ran into a lot of darkened porches.

And strangely enough, despite giving out large handfuls of candy, we still ended up with almost a full bag of candy that did not get passed out.

Afterward, Juliet's friend Kennedy and her mom stopped by for a bit, which made Juliet one happy girl.

It was a fun day of friends, outside time, and candy!

later days

edit: written 11/15/21 but back-dated to Halloween for continuity.

Collection of Other Recent Activities

 I don't know if the preparation and return from our Great Wolf Lodge trip just took over, but I feel like September was a crazy busy month.  October has not slowed down much, but at least enough that I finally have time to blog about it! 

William was selected to test for his next karate belt.  So, Emily and Juliet made up a sign for us to sport at his belt test.

Ready to go!  That is his Sensi in the background.

Testing.  They test in groups with others at their level.  They start with the lowest rank and move up, so Billy missed him actually testing (right at 5,) but surprised him when he came over wearing his new belt.

Success!  Sporting his new 11 Kyu belt!

Grace and Juliet unpacking a gift box from Zoey.

The Saturday after our trip, we headed down to Eaton Rapids to play some board games with the Cornishes.  We were there most of the day, and played 3 different games (at least 2 times each.)

What the other room looked like, with 10 kids:

And, because we were feeling wild, we drove back down early the next morning to drop off our crew, and made an adult only trip to the Renaissance Festival!  

It was a really fun time.  I don't know that I'd seen the shows in years, since we always had so many small ones of which to attend.   That said, this is the only picture that I took.  

The lines were wildly long when we arrived, and got longer and longer throughout the day.  They were running out of some of the more popular foods (like turkey legs.)   I'm sure there are many reasons it was so packed: they weren't open last year, it was a beautiful day, it was next to last weekend.  Even so, the sheer number of people was astonishing, and I'm so happy the kids were tucked safely away.  Unsurprisingly, but hopefully not terribly biasedly, I think that the Texas Ren Faire does it so much better, or did, the last time we were there, many years ago, but coronavirus has changed so much, it could be just as bad there.

On October first, we went out delivering Boo Bowls!  Filled with treats for our friends, we dropped off what we hope was a pleasant surprise.

When we went down to Eaton Rapids to deliver one for the Cornishes, we saw signs for a rummage sale at a nearby church!  So, I sent my friend a message letting her know that my car was parked in fron of her house because of our fun delivery, but that we were going to the sale.

They had massive quantities of goodies, and all of my crew found something!  William found a foam dart gun, and he liked it so much that he wanted to take pictures of it with my phone.

Juliet helped him set up his target cans.

When we were at the farmer's market in Cadillac, I saw some tasty looking cabbages.  I'd been in the mood for some of my Grandmother's New England boiled dinner, but didn't want to cart the cabbage home, along with all of our vacation things.

Last week, at our local farmer's market, I found a beautiful cabbage, but this thing was a beast!

I only used about a third of it, and it made an entire crock pot full, plus a bowl full.  The bowlful I tossed in a bag and stuck in the freezer for another time. It came out very tasty, though I seemed to be the only one who liked it.

In the Kroger, freebie, catalog that they sent out last month, they had half a dozen pintrest worthy ideas for spooky treats!  Since I've not been on pintrest in a while, this was a delightful surprise.  

As it turns out, I've set out to make all of these this season, apparently.

The little mummy oranges are so cute! The kids tried to eat them first, despite having a stash of unwrapped ones!

On the same day I bought the cabbage, I also bought a pie pumpkin.  Alice helped me cook it up so that we could make some pies.  It was so big that it made 2 pies, 4 crustless pies, 20 pumpkin chocolate chip cookie/muffins, and enough for a pumpkin juice recipe (that was not a big hit.)

The kids are all really excited about the ghost fruit kabobs, so I guess we'll be making those next.

later days

Dental Trip

This is the latest post in the series of William, grace and Juliet's journey with hypophosphatasia.

We had a regularly scheduled appointment for William, Grace and Juliet.  After a quick morning of lessons, we headed to Ann Arbor to the appointment.

We arrived early enough to walk the 'specialty' recycling (writing utensils, batteries, and ink cartridges) over to the building William and I found on our previous trip.

After checking in, we still had 15 minutes of waiting.  They were called back, but it felt like a very brief time before they were all done.  William and Grace got excellent reports.  

Juliet has some decay on the top of her teeth that we will have capped at her next cleaning appointment.  In the mean time, her dentist put some silver nitrate to help prevent more decay from forming.

Once we were all checked out, it was time for lunch in the courtyard.  William and I went there once, and now he wants to go every time.  Since they are regulating visitors, we had to bring in our lunch with us to the appointment.  

The coffee shop nearby is open, so I got a decaf coffee for me, and a cute little cookie to share. = )

As far as dental appointments go, it was middle of the road.  Not the best news, and not the worst.

later days

<what happened previously

what happened next>

Homeschool Life

Having only a year under our belts, I still feel like we are homeschool n00bs, but we are starting to venture out into the world for lessons and activities.  Much of our day, of course, is still spent at home, but we try to have adventures when we can.

We were able to sign Emily up for a homeschool ballet class.  The first week, I didn't see anyone that I knew, but the following week I saw four ladies that I knew from MOPS!! It's lovely for me that she has some contacts in her new class, and I get to catch up with some of my favorite ladies on a non-mops day!

Last week, for nature study, one of the activity options was to make textured art.  I worried about it, because it was a super messy, and long, activity, but I think the kids really liked it.  And the art came out beautifully!  So, I would do it again, but probably not too soon.

Top: Alice created a pond scene, Emily picked an apple tree (see what I did there? lol.)

Bottom: William represented things found underground, Grace did a good job on a mushroom family in the sun, and Juliet chose a leaf adorned with caterpillar. 

In our nature reader, we learned about large trees, and how one of the biggest ever required 30 people to surround it.  So, we went out to our big tree, to see just how big that tree was.  Very big.

The mops kick off this year was at a park.  After it broke up, we did our nature walk.  Alice was not amused, and would not even attempt a smile for the camera.  So, I did what any mom would do, I told the others to look annoyed liked Alice.  

Juliet nailed the look, even Alice thought it was pretty funny.

The weather is quickly cooling down, so my days of enjoying the outdoors are winding down.  I'm sure glad that we got to spend these lovely warm days exploring!

later days

Pumpkin Patch

This is the second year we've walked down to select our pumpkins. In nature study today we discussed seed dispersal, so we were able to tie it into our lesson even!! ; )

William and Emily took turns pulling one another in the wagon.

Picking out the perfect pumpkin!

I'm pretty sure herding cats is easier than getting my 5 to all look at me, and pretend to be happy, for a picture.

Individual pictures came out better...

...except for the twins who decided to fight about who would go first.  Then, they thought it would be fun to toss leaves up in one another's pictures to make it look "more like fall."  So, none of those pictures came out, and this was the best I could manage of them together.

It is nice to be able to walk to pick up pumpkins, avoid the crowds and have it tie into a lesson, definitely goes down as a triple win in my book!

later days