Pumpkin Time and Jumping in the Hay

Every year we take Esme to the same spot to choose a pumpkin for our jack-o-lantern. Today she learned that pumpkins are actually a fruit and that the average pumpkin weighs twelve pounds. Last year was the first time she was big enough to jump in the hay pile, and today she had it all to herself. I think that was her favorite part!

Our First Ever Halloween Party

Esme's Halloween party was a big success! She had 5 guests. They made Halloween fairies out of fabric samples, cardstock, vellum wings, sequins, and buttons. They made their own pizzas, played a couple rounds of pass-the-pumpkin, and of course had plenty of time to just play together! We loved having everyone over - it was a great time!

Homeschooling this month.....

We finished up our homeschooling State Park series with a very cool trip. We visited a center that has dioramas of habitats all the way from the ocean up through the forest, following a local river. The interpreter walked the kids through each diorama and showed them little hidden secrets along the way.

Esme is playing soccer again - she is on a different team this season and the games are just starting now. I am worried that it is going to be COLD by the time we finish! She is loving ballet and has attended bring-a-friend-to-dance classes with both Kaitlyn and Sarah. I am pretty impressed how quickly she has learned to remember the different ballet positions.

She is also continuing with Daisy Girl Scouts, and we have starting preparing for our mitten drive. We wanted to offer something back to the library since they let us meet there for free, and the children's librarian suggested that we work together to do this. Last week we made posters and this week we'll make the actual tree.

Esme is continuing in the Math curriculum we chose and progressing nicely. She is also doing very well with her Bob books - I can see that we'll have to purchase the next set soon. However, she is resistant to trying to read anything but those books, so that is something we will be working on in the coming weeks.

This is our new kitty Cosmo! He is such a sweetie! He wasn't big on having his photo taken! He has certainly livened up our house with all his playing, but he also loves to cuddle and spends lots of his time purring loudly.

When we couldn't find Pekoe we hung up signs all over the neighborhood, and someone from a cat rescue shelter called us to say she might have our cat. By then we had found Pekoe, but we got to talking and she said she had a kitten waiting to be adopted, and that she wouldn't even charge us the normal fee if we wanted to come get him. We talked it over (Ethan had to be convinced) and picked him up the next day. Of course after he explored the house a bit he sat down on Ethan's lap and put his little head down on Ethan's hand and fell asleep, so now he is pretty much Ethan's kitty.

One reason I am looking forward to the Christmas season: stores open longer. I am having trouble being confined to the normal schedules - if I want a craft item at 8 am or 1 am - I want to get it then!!

I looovve Columbus Day weekend! Every year half the citizens of a neighboring town hold yard sales. We're still paying for our new water tank and don't have much money to spare, but we were able to get many good deals for not very much money. I got a sewing machine, leg warmers for Esme, Polly Pockets, dancewear, a microscope, and a couple building sets great for fine motor development!

Yesterday was a horrible day. Our family's cat disappeared around 10:30 Sunday night, not to be found til about 2:30 Monday afternoon. Pekoe is a member of our family and we were all distraught, thinking we would never see her again. She's an indoor cat and very gentle, so I don't think living outside would be easy for her, and I am not quite sure she would have the skills to find her way home again.

My brother Charles was doing some work on our house and we were both going in and out. Charles is very considerate about shutting doors because he knows we have a cat, but he didn't notice and I forgot that the windows were open on our sun porch. When she disappeared in an unfurnished apartment, we assumed she had jumped out one of them. Esme and I searched for a long time last night. Ethan searched when he got home from work. I woke up early and searched again, and hung up flyers all over our neighborhood. Charles, Ethan, and I all searched the empty apartment for her mulitiple times. There literally nothing in the apartment, so it should be difficult for a kitty to hide.

A long time ago I remember a discussion on the NSBR board at 2 Peas where someone said, after you have kids, your pets are no longer members of your family. I can say for us, this is not true. I spent many hours crying and walking and calling her name - if she was not a member of our family that wouldn't have happened.

Yesterday afternoon Ethan went over there to do some cleaning, and out walked Pekoe!! She was disgustingly dirty and had obviously been trapped somewhere for a long time. I suspect she had climbed into the back of a dryer that's not in use right now, and couldn't get out. We were all so happy to see her we didn't care. We hugged and kissed her anyway! We are sooo happy she is back!!

Dinosaurs

We decided to check out the dinosaur tracks in town in preparation for sending our Summer/Fall box to Nebraska. I was so proud because Esme said, "Shouldn't we read about dinosaurs before we go?" She found a book about dinosaurs from her library and we read all about their life cycles, how they ate, what they ate, etc. Then we grabbed some crayons and paper and headed down to the tracks. They were amazing! We found three very distinct types, and read that they were created approximately 190 million years ago. This was a fun side lesson for all of us!

My mom wanted me to help her with some decorations for her office. She wrote these poems, I decorated for her.

A Ride on the Bus

As part of our Nebraska Exchange, I decided to take Esme on a bus ride around town to see what our city looks like from a different view. We made a long list of all the things we saw as we rode through downtown, over near the mall, and back near our neighborhood. Esme loved riding on the bus and was sad when I told her it was almost time to get off. Ding Ding helped her ring the bell.

What's going on around here....

Yesterday we attended the Not Back to School picnic with tons of other homeschoolers. It was so fun! Esme took off and played with other little girls and made a couple new friends. I got to talk to a lot of other moms, including my friend Laura, and got to hold her new baby too!

Esme has been to three out of five state park visits in our series. I ran a program about trees at the second park including the life cycles of trees, trees that are in trouble, and how to identify trees. We also did leaf prints and solar prints. Last Monday she got to learn about hawk migration and observe the birds.

She started ballet two weeks ago and is enjoying it. She's learned plies, split leaps, etc. It is a nice small class of only four girls. She is also playing soccer again this season. We're back to regular Girl Scout meetings now and we visited the fire station as a troop yesterday. The girls got to see all the different trucks, but the highlight was that they let them get in the rescue boat.

I am trying to figure out what this says about me: A scrapper posted on my blog that she is moving to the area and I emailed her back telling her about how much I love the local coffee shop that makes their chocolate milk with real chocolate instead of syrup.

Two of my favorite Haikus from second grade last year:

I am tired of Math
I do not like it one bit
I lay on my desk

I saw a tiger
It was about to attack
So I ran away

more animals

Anyone going to CKC in Hartford this year? I'll be working at the Dollar Scrapbooking booth on Friday - come by and visit me! I'll be shopping on Saturday.

Happy to be a Team

Ethan and I are so happy that we have different strengths and can bring both of them to homeschooling. I am great at planning events, finding activities for Esme to take part in, doing research, attending trainings, and making plans for our weekly lessons. Ethan is great at sitting down with Esme and actually doing the lessons, and is very patient in working with her. As I type this they are working on ordering numbers in our new Math book. I am so glad to have a husband who wants to take such an active role in his daughter's education, and who allows me to play to my strengths while playing to his own.

When I was a child, I was obsessed with the musical "Annie," and tonight I got to take Esme to see it. It was her first play and this production was paced very s l o w l y but I think she still enjoyed it. Now that she's seen the play we're going to watch the movie together on DVD.

Being Esme's mother has been wearing me out lately! She is involved in many activities, some of which I have to coordinate and run, like Girl Scouts and some homeschooling events. Speaking of homeschooling, that takes quite a bit of effort too. We love it though, and are definitely glad we made the decision to go forward with it.

I recently discovered Hulu.com and have had fun watching Arrested Development with Ethan, and a show that seems so old now, Chicago Hope. When Chicago Hope and ER debuted the same year, I was a die-hard Hope fan. No ER for me. Now that I've watched 9 seasons of ER and I'm revisiting Hope, I am wondering what the heck my problem was. Not that I'm not enjoying Chicago Hope, ER is just so much faster paced and exciting. Plus come on, George Clooney! And Noah Wylie too!

An Amazing Day

This past Wednesday we had our first trip in our Homeschoolers State Park Series. We were so lucky to have Ranger Betsy as our interpreter. We arrived at the park and she showed the girls her fairy houses, and invited them to build their own. Then we went over to a picnic table and learned about tree cookies. The children counted 14 rings in a small cookie, and 96 rings in a large one. Then they decorated the small cookies and made them into necklaces. Next Ranger Betsy taught them about how owls eat, and we dissected owl pellets, and classified the bones we found inside. I loved how Rangeer Betsy trusted the children to understand take in such meaningful information. We took a break for lunch and the kids had a great time playing on the beach. After lunch we made our own fossils with plaster of Paris, and then went for a hike. We learned so much on the hike - we learned about caterpillar tents, wintergreen, beavers, squirrels, etc. This was one of the best field trips we have been on since we started homeschooling!

Sharing a Favorite Book

Esme and I have been on the hunt for items to send to Nebraska. One thing we're doing to prepare to send and receive a box, is ready a story about a woman who moved from New England out into the prairie. I loved this book when I was a child and Esme seems to be enjoying it now. I am reading her one chapter a day, and every days she asks to hear the next one.