October/Halloween Festivities

October tends to be one of the busiest months of our entire year. There is something so festive about the Fall and an almost-desperate urgency to soak up every last sunny day possible before winter arrives. We did a lot of Fall-themed field trips, but here are some of the more Halloween-centered activities.

"The Spooky Cottage"

Lydia decided that she wanted to enter the library's "Haunted House from recycled materials" contest. She planned it and only needed a small amount of help to make it happen. My very very favorite part is the haiku she wrote to go next to her display. 

"Eyes in the window - Moon shining high in the sky - Spooky all around." 

She got a free-movie rental and a bag of popcorn for entering and our family went to the Halloween Party that was held there as a show of support for Lydia. Everyone loved it. 

Walker Pumpkin Carving

Our favorite Halloween Tradition. A bunch of Walkers. Bowls of goopy pumpkin insides. Laughter and funny stories. A mad dash to take pictures on the porch before the sun went down plus plenty of pictures with candles in the dark. 

I love this family. My mom wasn't feeling well most of the day and so she stayed back in her room, but it was just so lovely to spend time with these people. 

Austin and Lydia carved their own this year, while Caleb and Lucy obviously just "helped". But they each picked out what they wanted and we had a great time. 

Austin: Spooky face. Caleb: Dragon. 

Lucy: Cat Lydia: Dog face. 

Our next favorite October Tradition: 

Gardner Village with Melissa and Zachary

We love coming here with them every year. 

Homeschool Witch Tea Party

As part of one of Lydia's homeschool rotations, she is part of a book club. This month they read "The Worst Witch" then had a fun little tea party where they all dressed like witches. 

Homeschool Halloween Party 

We also helped arrange a Halloween Party for our Homeschool Co-op. A few simple activities/games. Memorizing a poem. A snack. All in all some great "socialization". (Things like this are important to me so that even though these kids' experiences won't look the same as public school, they won't miss out on the class parties and such." 

And lastly, Vanellope von Schweetz

 Amy Perkins wanted to do a Wreck it Ralph themed costume with her and Derek and Amelia. She needed help building the car and so I offered to help her a couple evenings leading up to Halloween. The car turned out amazing (Sadie was taking a turn in the car). I was just grateful for the excuse to spend time with Amy. She's a great friend to me. We worked really hard to make it awesome and even though it was more work than Amy probably bargained for, it was worth it! As a thank you Amy brought us an amazing charcuterie board. It had cookies that were all shaped out to be a skeleton and then surrounded by delicious candies.

Good Friends and a Surprise.

 I have been blessed with a handful of really, really good friends. It's often hard for me to make real friendships. I don't have a lot of time to spend hanging out with other adult women (especially when my children aren't there) and although I have a lot of happy acquaintance level friendships, I am especially grateful for the women who are friends to me even through my awkwardness and weaknesses. 

Amy Perkins and Karli Shields - two of the best out there. We used to try to go out for lunch for each of our birthdays but Karli moved and I can't really do lunch anymore because of homeschool, so we opted for one combined dinner/girls night for the year. Amy's birthday is in January. Karli's is in June. Mine in September. We are finally getting together in October. It was a great evening with good friends. 

And speaking of the best of the best, Ali Middleton's 30th Birthday is the first week of November. After a brief conversation about how she was going to be out of town on her birthday (she loves birthdays as much as I do) my wheels started turning and I knew that I really wanted to throw her a surprise birthday party for her milestone 30th birthday. I tend to have big ideas, but always need someone else to jump with support for the idea and help with the planning in order for it to happen. Our mutual friend, Tara Gotfredson happens to be an amazing floral arranger/lover and she volunteered to host a wreath-making class if I could manage the dinner. Ali is one of the most creative people that I know and a wreath making class was perfect for her. 

I was able to secretly find a guest list by going through old text messages for other creative adventures Ali has invited me to, finalize a night and plan of surprise by texting Mike, her husband, and get her input on whether she liked silver, gold, or rose gold jewelry by pretending that I was having a debate with David about what was best. I'm a horrible liar, so I was proud of all of those things. It worked out just perfectly. 

Ali was surprised, the dinner was lovely (thanks to so many people pitching in to help), the wreath making was fun. The friends of Ali's coming together to surround her with love was tender because you can see the goodness of the person she is by the people that surround her. I'm just grateful to be counted in that number. 

October Homeschool

Oh. October. Fall is in the air and life is good. I posted separately about the MANY fall field trips we squeezed in throughout the month, but here are a few snapshots from our schooling this month: 

Austin

Austin is such a great little engineer. He loves building things and figuring things out. His brain is practically a little calculator and you can just see it clicking away as it works on math problems. I often laugh because we will finish a section of his math book about a simple math concept and almost immediately after I will see him thinking about something and then he'll say something like "Mom, is 6x8, 48?" Clearly much more advanced than what we had been working on. However, I feel happy about building him a strong math foundation without getting to advanced, too quickly, and we are working our way through the basic concepts with enjoyment and ease. Language Arts is much more difficult, but I am so proud of him for working so hard to learn to read and write. He's right on the cusp of the tipping point where reading is difficult and decoding takes maximum effort, but almost on the other side where the basic elements are understood and reading starts to become truly engaging. I am grateful to be his teacher and witness first-hand the amazing process that learning to read is. 

Austin has discovered a love of gymnastics. We had discussed putting him in last year, but didn't because #covid. He is really enjoying it and I'm so glad to see him learning those physical skills. Also, he's enjoying his science rotation, and I'm still just so happy that this rotation worked out this year. Three boys the same age, all homeschooling on our street!? It's a homeschool dream-turned reality. 












Lydia
The Utah-History portion of our homeschool rotation has been a smashing success. We are learning about pioneers right now. Working to answer three big questions: 1-Why did they come? 2-What did they sacrifice? 3- What did they build? (What was their legacy?) I hope that I am doing a good job of creating a balanced view of history. We spent a lot of time talking about how difficult "colonization" was for the Native Americans and how unfair it was for them and how heartbreaking it was for them to lose their way of life and also of their courage and determination to survive and adapt. History is not black and white. It's complex and messy. Full of difficulty and also beauty. Unfairness and also strength. Lack of understanding but also incredible faith. A thousand different perspectives and experiences woven together in a tapestry. Even with all of the difficult things, I want these children to be proud of the faith and effort of the Utah Pioneers. They were absolutely far from perfect, but they were also determined to do the best the could, to build the best community they could, to help each other, and to faithfully live their lives. 


Lydia and her group also decided they wanted to decorate cakes for their cooking class. We started by making cupcakes, then learning how to decorate cupcakes with piping bags. Then they made cakes and decorated those cakes.






Lydia is smart and funny and learning so much. She's started doing some digital art classes and we even bought a little Cricut Joy vinyl machine so she can turn her art into stickers. She's a great friend and if I ever worry about homeschooling, all I have to do it look at her - and I see how well rounded, kind, funny, educated, and happy she is. 

Caleb

I don't have many pictures of Caleb this month, but he is enjoying his preschool (he still requests to ride his bike every day). He is doing upstart and LOVES to join in with the kids for their cooking rotations. One of the things that he loves to do is to write letters over and over and over. He will fill up whole pages with line after line of letters. (Not spelling words, just letters one after the other.) He's learning a lot about self-regulation, but even though things are sometimes high-emotion, he has such a tender heart and I love watching him grow.