Happy Halloween!

We kicked off the celebrations with two different trunk-or-treats this year. First up was the 4-H party and Peanut and I came up with a slight twist on last years' Harry Potter themed trunk. Not too much of a twist with The Witches' Hut, but he made me leave behind a few specific HP decorations, haha.

Our dragon rabbit was back, and the hit of the parties once again. Although she is retiring from trunk-or-treat appearances--the church one ended up being pretty big and she was scared, probably a combination of how dark it was and how many people came by, but I held her the whole time to try to help her feel safe, and she peed on me, which she NEVER does, so we're not going to put her through that again.

But the trunk was a hit overall.

Daddy-o even got dressed up for it this year--he hasn't pulled out the whole pirate costume for awhile, and he's added some new pieces to it in the past couple of years. People were duly impressed with how naturally he takes to the pirate role.

And our little gnome was pretty impressive, too. Peanut came up with this costume himself and made the beard and hat with only a little help from me. Everyone loved it, and only a couple of people thought he was Santa, haha.

We're running low on trick-or-treating years--Bug went out with friends (as Men in Black) so it was just Peanut and I on the big night.

But we met up with a few friends to keep it fun.

(Watching the dino waddle all night was the highlight for sure. My friend and I were cracking up every time he had to run a little to catch up with the other boys. Best costume ever!)

And then, with too much candy and tired legs, it was all over for another year.

Halloween Fun

I don't feel like we really got into the Halloween thing this year--costumes weren't very involved and ended up not being quite what we'd originally planned, we never got most of the decorations out, and kids didn't make plans until the last minute, but we did have a couple fun activities, so I don't think it was disappointing for anyone particularly. 

Peanut had big plans for a medieval family costume theme this year and had gathered up the parts for his knight costume weeks ago, but when it came down to it, Daddy-o had to work the Saturday of the church Trunk-or-Treat and Bug wasn't feeling great and came late, so Peanut and I were the only ones who started off dressed up, and we didn't even get a picture. But I did get a couple pictures of our trunk which was a medieval magic shop.

And we decided that every good magic shop needs to have a dragon rabbit. Luckily, no one had any shillings because for some reason, she was priced really low, and I didn't want to let her go.

She was the hit of the trunk-or-treat for sure and had a lot of return visitors.

I was happy to be able to pull out all the Harry Potter potions and my science class skeletons to complete the look.

From what I heard, Peanut had a good time at the party (I was on trunk duty and Poppy sitting pretty much the whole time) and Daddy-o and Bug showed up for the last hour.

And as a total break from tradition, we did not go trick-or-treating as a family. With Bean gone, it doesn't seem like a big deal to further split up the remaining two kids. Peanut and Daddy-o headed out with some friends in the local neighborhood, Bug met up with his friends to go hit up all the neighborhoods they thought they'd get the best candy in, and I stayed home with a pretty bad cough. Not our best Halloween, but everyone seemed happy enough.

 

We Know It's Fall When. . .

Our mantle gets a makeover.

Some years I've gone with a more spooky look for October, but this year, I only added a couple of our Halloween decorations and mostly went for classic fall.

Love my little nature collections tray--there are so many great things to collect in the fall.

The guavas are ripe.

I look forward to this season every year. No one else in my house seems to care, but this fruit is full of nostalgia for me, as well as being really tasty.

Water polo is going full steam. This has been a rough season for Bug. He's personally having his best year yet, but his coach seems to have given up on the boys and is providing very little coaching or encouragement. It's been frustrating and I know Bug is looking forward to the club season starting next month (with a different coach who he actually likes), but he's trying to stick with it. He's been shooting a lot more this year and has scored some really beautiful goals, as well as getting a lot of assists (or, a high percentage--considering how badly they have lost some of their games, there isn't always a lot of scoring going on by anyone on their team.)

The Halloween House comes out.

This is actually not something we usually do, but Peanut had been asking about buying one of these kits, so I surprised him with it one day. And then the frustration with the frosting started and I remembered why I don't really care to do these, haha. Probably skip the gingerbread houses this year.

We get a new spooky game. We've played 13 Dead End Drive the past couple years, but this year, since Peanut and Daddy-o had just been to Disneyland, I decided to pick up the Haunted Mansion game when I saw it on a crazy sale. It's a really fun game and a nice addition to our fall-themed games.

The houses are decorated for Halloween.

There's a really fun street in Pleasanton that Peanut and I discovered last year, so we took Daddy-o and Bug this year to see the area.

Nothing quite lives up to the house we saw in New Orleans a few years ago, but there are some fun ones here, as well.

And, finally, the Primary program at church happens. These two cute boys were the narrators and did a fabulous job at their last ever Primary program. In January, they move up to the youth program, which is hard to believe, but they certainly are seeming responsible and mature these days.

Happy Halloween

From Mando, Bob the Minion, and Sylvie the Loki variant.

(The spider pumpkin)

With Halloween on a Sunday, it was a pretty lowkey day--Peanut and Daddy had carved a pumpkin the day before, church, kids catching up on things all afternoon, Daddy-o had to go into work (we've had some complications with work--his one employee got a new job, but has been staying on for Saturday and some Sundays, and he though he had someone new starting this past week, but then she ended up bailing at the last minute because SHE got a better offer, and so Daddy-o is stuck on Sunday duty until he can find someone else. Not ideal at all.)

Then, after a quick dinner, we met up with our group of friends that we've trick-or-treated with every year since we moved here. It was a little subdued, and as the kids have gotten older, they're not so into the trick-or-treating as they used to be, so they only lasted an hour before people were done, but it was nice to get one last walk around their neighborhood before Bean isn't with us next year and even more of the kids are done with this (we already had some protests from one of the older girls who did NOT want parents coming along this year, haha. But this being a family thing is kind of our thing. The adults like going out for a walk as much as the kids like the candy.) 

And then, that was it. I guess better than last year, with the trick-or-treating in our hallway.

Trunk-or-Treat

 This might be the first time we've actually decorated our trunk for one of these. Peanut got excited about the idea of doing a Harry Potter themed trunk, and we still had our little HP corner from Hogwarts homeschooling last year, so  I was pretty excited to move it to the trunk (and then back into storage until someone's 11th birthday next year.)

It turned out really fun and a lot of the kids loved it. I even threw on my robes to hand out candy. Although there was one little boy dressed as Harry Potter, who was completely confused when I asked him if he'd finished the 9 inch scroll I had assigned. Turns out he hasn't actually read the books yet, so he had no idea what I was talking about and just told me that it was the weekend so he didn't have any homework, haha.

And after they had made the rounds of the trunks about half a dozen times, they had the biggest candy exchange I've ever seen. What was probably the most amazing was how many kids were trying to trade away their chocolate! Kids are crazy.

There was also some actual dinner in there at one point, too. Daddy-o took 3rd place for the chili cookoff (and scored a box of Hot Tamales), and we had a little live entertainment.

One of the missionaries serving in our area used to do fire dancing at Disney World and Universal Studios and he came and performed for us. It was pretty impressive!

Getting Behind on Our Holidays

Is it normal to be getting rid of Halloween pumpkins

while this is in your living room? And it's Jan?

I think the tree is staying for a bit longer. We're just not ready to say goodbye to the lights and the hygge. I think this is the longest we've had our decorations up, since we got stuff out in the middle of November. Guess we'll go for a family record. 

 

Halloween, 2020 Style

Things may have looked a little different this year (what hasn't?!), but our Halloween ended up being a really fun day. We had themed snacks,

the boys dressed up in super simple costumes (baseball player and Alan Grant from Jurassic Park). We had debated doing costumes or not this year, and decided it was going to be a good year to just piece together whatever they could find at home. The rest of us opted to not bother, haha.

We met up with friends to paint pumpkins and hang out for a few hours in the afternoon. I love that we have a couple families that we meet up with regularly during this super weird time. There's still a lot that we're avoiding--indoor gatherings, large groups, hanging out with people who are pretty free with their social interactions, but we have a small social circle that has continued to be in a somewhat similar place as us with the whole pandemic and it's been nice to be able to (carefully) socialize with them.

Finished pumpkins.

Love the spooky tree.

And since Bug's was a small pumpkin (the cat above), he finished quickly and one of the adults commissioned him to paint their pumpkin, too.

Back at home, Peanut was the only one who cared about carving a pumpkin this year, so with help from Daddy-o (and later, Bug), he did that.

This girl got to DRIVE HERSELF to a little backyard socially distanced meet up with a couple friends. It was so weird watching her drive away, but I can already tell this is going to be so nice! I like not having to leave the house to drop her off places :) (Although I may miss some of the talking time, but since many of those drop offs have required at least one other kid to be in the car, it's not always quality time anyway.)

The rest of us had these mummy dogs for dinner

while playing this game.

I think we've got a new Halloween tradition--even Daddy-o thought the game was pretty fun.

By 8;30., Bean was back home, our jack-o-lantern was lit, and we were ready for our final celebrating. We split up the candy we'd bought and everyone took turns trick-or-treating down the hallway (and there were a few tricks for sure!) Then, loaded up with candy and popcorn, we watched The Hound of the Baskervilles, which was a nice, not-too-spooky movie for a family of chickens, haha. Well, Daddy-o loves a good scary movie, but no one else is very excited about them.

So, we missed trick-or-treating with friends, and the kids probably would have been happy with even more candy, but all-in-all, it was a really fun, full day of celebrating.

 

October Schooling

October meant lots of reading, including books to go along with our election unit, our science studies, and math. We listened to Little House in the Big Woods, 5 Children and It, and the 2nd Harry Potter on audio, and read a ton of other seasonal picture books.

Peanut went to work with Daddy-o one day and got to do school in a different environment.

Daddy-o put him to work, too. And I realized why Thursdays are so stressful for me--because even without Peanut around all day, I was going hard all day, teaching science classes and all the other work that is involved with that, running to the farmer's market and taking kids to water polo. It's a lot of work even without a 9 year old who needs attention fairly regularly;).

The air started clearing up and most of the second half of the month was nice, so we took our school outside as much as we could.

It still counts as outside time, even if you're on a screen, right?😂

As always, this kid read a LOT. I love it when I find him lost in a book somewhere in the house (especially if it's not at a time when he's supposed to be doing something else, like brushing his teeth or helping with the dishes.)

We did some fun science experiments, working with yeast and bacteria and starting our plant unit.

We played new games--10 Days in Europe was just as fun as the other 10 Days games we've played, and a good stretch for geography. This will be perfect while studying more modern world history.

Another new game that was lots of fun, and good for the spatial reasoning.

We combined our read aloud, PIE, and it's recipes for every chapter, with our election unit and held a vote on which pie we should make for dessert one night. The buttermilk pie won,

and so Peanut and I baked a pie together. It was really tasty (and no one complained even if the crust wasn't quite up to level that Daddy-o usually serves us. We're still beginners.)

We took our multiplications table outside, too. Seriously, anything I could think of and convince Peanut of, we took outside. We're still really trying for those 1000 hours, but we've had some serious setbacks between the bad air, and then Peanut had some sort of allergy issue going on this month so we had a few days of avoiding most of our outside activities again.

Finally, this kid and I went on a Halloween themed field trip one day--a visit to Forest Home Farms where they had a themed scavenger hunt set up through an app that taught us little bits of Halloween history and about nocturnal animals. Then, we went to a nearby park where they had a scarecrow scavenger hunt. We found all 25 in an hour and a half, enjoyed some absolutely perfect weather, and Peanut didn't even end up with itchy red eyes at the end. Great day all around!