Jumping into Fall

I decided today was a good day to rake leaves, and because I'm not a terrible parent, I invited the kids to come outside to do one of the best fall activities: jumping in leaves.  I raked them into a giant pile, and then had all the kids jump in the pile, with varying techniques and varying results.  Joshua started far away, and in a dead sprint headed toward the pile, launching from a distance and crashing right into the middle of the pile.  That was expert technique.

Clara doesn't have quite the leaf-jumping proficiency that Joshua has, so she jumped a little late and almost overshot the pile.  But it was still a reasonable approach, and it worked fine.  Here she is:

Hannah, on the other hand, might need some work on her technique, or maybe just on the concept in general.  Here's what she did:

She jogged up to the pile from a short distance away, stopped, leaned over, and then jumped into the very front of the pile, and then just sat there for a few seconds with pretty much only her head in the leaves, before finally emerging. I have video of it, and it's utterly hilarious. I laugh every single time. It's so cute, because it's so her. Interested in doing what everyone else is doing, but a little unsure and not quite adventurous enough to go all out.  But she did it over and over again, doing it the same way every time.  It was adorable.  Here she is on another jump:

  We then played in the leaf pile some more.  They enjoyed burying themselves in the pile.

 Lastly, I let them throw armfuls of leaves into the air, which created some great pictures, as the leaves at that point were pretty much obliterated into small pieces, resulting in a confetti-like effect with the leaf remnants reflecting the setting sun.  We had lots of fun, and it's really too bad this only happens once a year.

A Triple Birthday Bash

Until last year, in each year that we've had a child who had a birthday, we had a pretty big (at least in terms of planning and preparation, even if not in terms of number of guests) at home for each kid.  In 2011 we had Joshua's first birthday.  In 2012 we had Joshua's second birthday and Clara's first birthday.  In 2013 it started to get a little crazy, with Hannah's first birthday, Joshua's third birthday, and then Clara's second birthday.  Last year we had a party for Hannah's second birthday, since we felt the first two birthdays should still have their own dedicated party, but we had a combined party for Joshua's fourth birthday and Clara's third birthday (we still have a small party with just our family on each kid's actual birthday if it's different from the party date).  This year we decided to have a combined birthday bash for all three of them.  We settled on a fall-themed party at a shelter in Shawnee Mission Park.  They all had cakes at home on their actual birthdays, so we did birthday cupcakes for this party.  Gentle Hannah's breath was too gentle, so Meghan had to help her with her candle.
Afterward, everyone enjoyed cupcakes, and of course all the kids devoured theirs as fast as possible.

We invited close friends and family (including Joanna and Kirk who were conveniently in town and able to attend!), but our kids had started asking about their friends at school, so we invited their whole class.  We ended up with a pretty good amount of people.  We had a lot of food, including pulled pork, chili, soup, grilled hot dogs, and caramel apples
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Benjamin, with help from his Mommy and Daddy, was able to enjoy his first s'more-making experience.

When you're hosting the party, you often don't have a chance to really eat and enjoy it.  I managed to eat a plate of food while I walked around managing things and talking to people, but as the party wound down, I sat down to make some s'mores for me and Meghan.  The party turned out great, despite my last-minute setup.  Everyone seemed to have fun and enjoy the food (and the flashlight party favors were a huge hit), and the weather was also perfect: a little bit chilly so the warmth of the fire and the hot chocolate and hot cider was comforting, but not so cold that people were uncomfortable.  And the kids were able to celebrate their birthdays with most of the people who are closest to them, and they had a great time and loved it.  I'm not sure what we'll do next year, but the combined big party worked out really well for this year.

Partying with Violet

 One of the kids' classmates, Violet, invited all of the kids in their class to her party.  Since all three of our kids are in the same class (it's a multi-age class), I took them to the party, which was at Black Hoof Park.  We have been to the park many times, but usually to the north side, where there is more playground equipment.  The south side has a picnic area and a smaller playground area, but it's really pretty.
After the main part of the party, the attendees were free to play and explore the park, which our kids were excited to do.  And by the way, the picture by the water isn't nearly as dangerous as it looks, as that water has almost no depth to it at all.

Shatto Tour

Today we had plans to go to the Shatto farm to take a tour with Alaina and Halie. This didn't exactly work out because when we got in the car, I realized Clara's car seat was so loose that I could take it half way out of the car, which is definitely not safe. Jason fixed it, but by the time we got there, we were about 30 min late. I thought we'd be okay because they said to allow two hours for the tour, but I found out that the tour lasted 30 min and the other 1.5 hours was to allow time in the gift shop. So I started out feeling really disappointed, but it actually ended up being pretty great. We started out tasting many milk flavors. They were all pretty great, though I wasn't a huge fan of French Vanilla.

We also tasted some cheese and butters. Hannah wasn't sure about this blue Royals cheese, but she ended up approving. She likes cheese far more than my other kids who are a bit iffy on it, so that was no surprise. We also bought milk shakes. For the kids I got it made with cotton candy milk and for me I chose root beer milk (that and coffee milk are my favorites). They were delish. I generally don't drink milk and don't like it. However, this milk tastes so good and fresh, I actually do really like it.

After tasting, we went out to the parking lot and had a tailgate picnic since the picnic area was super muddy from all the rain. 

Then we went back to the gift shop to buy some milk to bring home, including some Royals milk that we brought home to Jason. We had a super fun time even though we didn't get to see the cows. I think we'll try to go back some time to actually experience the full tour.

Hangin' with the Big Girls

Although Joshua tends to be the most outwardly social of our children when we are around our house, wanting to yell "Hi!" to anyone he can see, even if they're down they street out of earshot, Clara still finds the other kids to be good potential friends.  Specifically, she's really interested on Lauren, a newer girl who moved to our cul-de-sac.  This picture was from September when Lauren and another girl on our street (I can't remember her name), were near our house, and Clara wanted to play with them.  She offered them some of our bubbles, and they had fun playing together.  It was a hot day, and Clara probably should have come in to take a break, as you can see how sweaty she is in the picture, but she was having so much fun.  Click the pictures to zoom in and see how happy she is to be hanging out with her new big girl friends.

Finding Dinosaurs at Home

This week we have been learning about dinosaurs. Today we excavated a dinosaur and talked about how when people find dinosaur bones, they have to figure out how to put them back together again, just like we did.

Our excavated dinosaur ended up being a stegosaurus (I think. My only complaint is you get no documentation at all, but it looks like a stegosaurus to me). We also had a 3D puzzle that was a T-Rex. Though Hannah doesn't look particularly thrilled in this picture, she loved this guy and named him "Dino", which is pronounced like a dinosaur, not like dino from the Flinstones. We talked about how T-Rexes are meat-eaters and eat other dinosaurs, but the stegosaurus is a plant eater. We also talked about how their plates keep them safe from meat-eaters and also probably helped cool them off.

I also remembered there is a Dinosaur Train episode that talks about the plates on a stegosaurus, so we watched that. Buddy, one of the main characters, is also a T-Rex so we got to see him too. Clara watched with her dinosaur and of course had to tell him all about it, because she really likes talking and explaining, even to inanimate objects. We had a fun time learning about dinosaurs. Some things we do I am personally not that interested in, but I actually really like dinosaurs and my "Biology of Dinosaurs" class was one of my favorites I took in college, so I enjoyed this week as well.

Working on Gratitude

One thing that we really work hard (though it's quite a battle and I'm not sure we're winning) to instill in our kids is that it isn't all about us. This pretty much goes against everything that small children believe, but at the least we want to show, at an age-appropriate level, that there are so many people who don't have what we have, that we have so much to be thankful for, and it is our job to sacrifice to help others. We try to focus on this all year, but definitely in the month of November. For the last few years, we have done a gratitude tree and a prayer each day of something we are thankful for. This year, I thought the kids were old enough to do more and wanted activities and something sort of like an advent calendar. I was so excited to order this one from pottery barn. It's so professional looking and attractive and so easy. I didn't have to sew anything or design anything. But then it came and was missing a 22 and instead had two 26s and most of the squares seemed to be glued shut. So I returned it. And was extremely disappointed. And had one day to find something else.

So coming down in the attractiveness and professional scale several levels, I ended up with this. I hope to make (now that I have a bad attitude about store-bought options) something more permanent in January. But for this year, we will give this a try and see how it goes. Each day has something to focus on to be thankful for and also a related activity.

Yesterday  we thanked God for the beautiful world he made for us and went on a nature walk around our neighborhood to collect some "cool" things. After we were done, Clara and Joshua relaxed on the driveway and literally howled at the moon. I am going to call that being joyful in God's creation.

Today we are thankful for our home and we made a centerpiece to decorate our home with the items we collected yesterday. I am a little concerned about our leaves lasting. I ironed them in wax paper and then removed the paper and mod podged them. I am hoping for them to be okay until the end of the month. We'll see how it goes. I hope that we will have both enjoy the various activities and get value and meaning out of them. The good thing about not getting my super professional calendar for this year is we now have time to test the concept before I settle on a delivery format.