November Blog

Evan assembled this scaaarrrryyy ggghhhoosssttt (scary ghost) the morning after Halloween. It is neat that it has a light switch to make it light up.

We headed to Alex's Robotics competition in Chelsea. Their robot was one of three out of 24(?) that could lift up so another robot can park under it. They have to fit in the blue square on the floor for more points. 

There is Alex walking away from the field. This is the only picture I got of him that day because he was "soooo busy". They did end up in the final games, but had some mechanical issues and didn't end up winning any of their matches... but that's fine. They did well and we are so proud of his team.

We picked up Nana to head up to Aunt Jamie's house for Davey's birthday. While Mike was working on things, the kids found Nana's electric photo frame and enjoyed looking through all their old pictures and talking about them.

This is why I appreciate going back to Standard Time in the fall. On the left is Daylight Savings, on the right is Standard Time taken two days apart. Walking to the bus is dangerous when people can't see you. 

Evan and Daddy worked on train puzzles while listening to a train sound cd. To me the cd made me feel like something was imminent in happening.... but to them it was a soothing sound to do puzzles to.

Evan came into my room at 7am asking where his snow pants were because it had snowed over night. I told him they were in the closet and I had not gotten them out yet. Not long after he left Eliza came in and asked where her snow pants were, I gave her the same feedback. I felt like I was living in a Calvin and Hobbs comic for a bit. All the kids went out to play in the first snow of the year, and came back in asking where the boot dryer was, and the hall tree, and the glove dryer, to which I again said.... I haven't gotten the things out yet for winter.  By church everything was out and ready to go. Evan made this snow man, isn't he cute!

Evan and Alex took care of a neighbors cat and fish while they were away. The cat was shy until the last day, and then Evan got lots of pets in. Such a fluffy cat.

Eliza got the Star Shirt at school for being such a great kid and being kind to others.

Circuit sets are out again and the kids are having fun with them.

Rosie thought Evan could use some help.

Rosie really loves Mike's lap. If he's home, she is on his lap and sleeping.

Just a night picture of Eliza and Mike before she got on the bus for school. 

Evan's Lego League competition went well. He tried so hard that day. We realized that one of the missions we had set up wrong on the mat, so we had to reprogram the robot on the go. For Lego League the kids program the robot with however many missions they want to do, and then just push the button to run on the field. 

We worked on code most of the day trying to get things to work correctly. In the end they finished 15th out of 47 teams. This team was behind the 8ball with having only a month to prepare for this, where most teams had two months to work. 

We love our library! We all got to try 11 different apple varieties. Turns out we all have different tastes, but no one really liked the Granny Smith apple. 

When the kids try the apple they have to write down if they like it, what it tastes like and guess the type it is.

Eliza reading a Lego magazine one morning while the boys and I were getting ready to go to the bus. 

Evan really likes this tree that makes maraca seed pods. He started tearing them open and taking the seeds to plant on the playground at school. 

My seed collecting this year went well. Lots of basil seeds and Texas sage.

I've started playing duets with the boys. My lips are not what they used to be. I'm hoping that we can play a trio together in the near future.

Eliza made the Allegany Train from Henry Ford Museum for her diorama. She even made the little train table next to the Allegany.

She had to research the Henry Field Museum and write a report, and because the museum is so large her teacher told her to do a diorama of just one of the items in it. 

We took the kids out to Cold Stone ice cream as a special treat for them for doing so awesome at school and having such great parent teacher conferences. 

Evan's picture of the moon after ice cream. He really liked that you could see the dark side of the moon even though it was just a crescent. 

Can you spot Evan's turkey he needed to disguise for his math class?

I just liked this picture of the kids gathered around Alex's computer one morning looking up things. 

The day before Thanksgiving we headed over to visit Clayton's new house (sorry no pictures) and then headed over to the Wade's house to bake with Maggie.

While I was busy in the kitchen Eliza and Alex were busy in the basement making a massive horse stable and barn area. 

James and Evan were making a massive train yard in the living room with three sizes of trains.

Mike was trying to get anyone to play a game with him that wasn't doing anything else.

And Maggie and I made pumpkin pie cookies, a layer cake with a strawberry mousse and strawberry butter cream. It was yummy!

Thanksgiving at the Baker's house.

Oma joined us for Thanksgiving this year. It was nice to have her visit.

We got 5.5" of snow Saturday night. The kids woke up and were out the door to play in it. They were able to make this guy, who is 7'7" with no issue... other than needing me to put on the head.

 

October Blog

 

Evan wanted to make caramels for his teacher for his birthday, we also took some to people that donated to Alex's robotics team. Eliza helped us with wrapping them up for delivery. 

Eliza won one of the Summer Reading prizes from the library. She got all these book sets.

Oma took all of us to the Yankee Air Museum near Ypsi to show us Dave's parents memorial that is set up there and also to tour the place. 

One thing I wish was that we knew more about planes, but it was interesting just the same. They had the front of a refueling plan that you could turn all the switches and dials. Evan spent a long time in that thing.

Third times the charm, my MOPS group finally escaped a Escape room. So proud of us.

Evan sold mums to help with the cost of his 5th grade camp. He sold 42 mums and raised himself $140 towards camp. He used Alex's old radio flyer wagon to deliver them to the neighbor's houses.

Turns out transporting mums takes a lot of room. Mike and I had to make 2 1/2 trips (two with my car and one with his) to get all of them home from the school.

Evan had more fun this month with his telescope. His class is studying the moon phases so we went out a few times to take pictures. 

Saturn

One last swim for the season at the Douglass's. Can't believe the kids were in the water on Oct. 5th!

Burrrrrr!!

I tried my hand a moon pies. Learned a few things: You need a stiff marshmallow fluff or it will ooze out of the cookies unless you keep them cool, and they are much better after sitting a week in the fridge. The chocolate mellows a bit and it all goes together a bit better.

I had a pretty good pepper harvest this year. This is about half or less of the peppers I've cut up and put into quart bags in the freezer for the winter. 

The library book sale strikes again. All these books for ~$40. We love our books!

Eliza and Evan were invited to their friends birthday party at a Zap Zone. There was way more to do there than I thought there would be. 

Alex decided to drag us all to the High School band concert. Alex went for extra credit and to dance to "The Time Warp" in front of everyone. It was fun and the Jazz band was really good.

I ordered seed garlic, turned out not to be that great. I planted it anyway, but we will see what comes up in the spring.

My garlic bed for the winter. The left has the seed garlic I ordered, under the harvesting basket is my seed garlic I had from harvesting this year. 

Alex's concert playing trombone in the Symphony band (he's in the highest band in the Middle School). He did a great job.

Aunt Jamie and Uncle Dave came to see him play. 

I tried making English Muffins, and did pretty well. Everyone liked them and Mike can't wait for me to make more. Fresh are way better than store bought.

Eliza's bus got home at 4:50pm on the day of her trunk or treat, she was late because of a sub. So we all jumped in the car and headed the 20 min north to her school with our dinners packed to eat in the car (which we never do). Most of the parking at her school is a free for all on the grass, and with the van I can't jump curbs so we try very hard to be very early to get a spot. 

All ready to get some treats.

After everyone got treats they took off their costumes and went to play on the playground. Eliza loves sliding down a hill on her playground. It makes her hair stick straight up from the static.

We were called in to help at the church to spread 10 yards of wood chips. 

With a crew from the church we were able to get it down in 45 min. 

Flu shots for the kids. They are showing off their muscles. 

I've been going through my Grandma Manny's picture books and I found some pictures of me and I felt like I had seen them before. Turns out I cloned myself to make Alex. (I'm the lower two pictures, Alex is the upper two pictures). 

Turns out they do have microwaves at the Bavarian Inn. Who knew?!

We signed up to go to the new water park in June, so gosh darn it, shut down or no we still went. The kids had a BLAST! They went up that tower of stairs for 2 1/2 days and they slept like rocks. They thankfully opened the wave pool the last day we were there, but the water was really cold. I was too chicken even to try the most simple of water slides, but Mike and the kids took full advantage.

We were able to hang out with some of our favorite people while we were there. We even got to go to dinner with them as well. Thank you again Laura.

Evan figuring out his coding for Lego League.

Alex's Robotics team

More moon pictures for Evan's class.

Zoomed in on the craters.

Evan with his telescope

Oreo spiders I made for Evan's class. Use Double Stuffed if you make them they will work better. Also, I had to make my own eyes because the candy eyes have red 40 in them.

We helped with Evan's Halloween party this year. Mr. Malisow knows how to throw a party. The kids decorated the whole classroom and it looked amazing.  He also made brain cakes for the kids and left the red frosting off Evans, and made "blood bags" with sprite and juice and even went out to get Evan a vitamin water so he could have some too without red dye. 

I helped make caramel apples with another adult while Mike helped with one of the game stations.

We got to see Eliza's costume parade at school and join her for her party as well.

The trick-or-treating crowd this year. We got Enoria, Clayton, James, Clara, and Aunt Shawn to join on for Trick-or-Treating this year. Mike dressed up as Beetlejuice. Eliza was her normal unicorn rainbow princess, Evan was Death again, and Alex was Charlie Brown in the Great Pumpkin. 

Alex found a fellow Charlie Brown fan our neighbor Mike.

The kids did pretty well on Halloween candy this year. They were able to mostly fill their 2 gallon zip lock bags.