Halloween

Pumpkin Carving

A favorite tradition. Love seeing what they decide to carve each year.

The Black Swan - from Keeper Of The Lost Cities

Minecraft

Trunk Or Treat

This year our church hosted a Trunk or Treat. We enjoyed a chance to hand out candy a day early and get to know church members a bit more as well.

Decorating The Yard

The kids took the day off and enjoyed decorating. They aren't *quite* as enthused about it as in years past, which makes me sad, but they still did a great job. This year they added the Power Up Cubes throughout the yard of spiders and cobwebs to go with the Super Mario theme.

Dressing Up

Aunt Heather doesn't get trick or treaters at her place, so she decided to join in on our fun and come for a long weekend. It took them a while to agree on their costumes, but they sure did look fun!

Princess Peach

Mario

School Happenings

Thought you might enjoy a peek into what we are doing this school year. :) So far I haven't gotten many great photos, but it'll have to do for this update.

Lorelei's Class Line Up:

English II

Geometry

Geography

Spanish I (Class at library)

PE/Speech (HOPE Prep)

Drivers Ed

Psychology

Tangled Tails Training Team

Geography this year includes some extra fun research into each country she is studying.
This research involved animals, so even better!

School work while dog sitting. :)

This is pretty typical for this year.
In the corner chair doing research while drinking a smoothie.

Because why wouldn't you bring guinea pigs to speech class?
Her teacher assigned a How-To speech, so she did How To Train Animals With Positive Reinforcement.
It was a hit. :)

This year's math includes a video lesson followed by her work on paper.
We are thankful geometry clicks a bit better for Lorelei. :)

I'm really excited about the flexibility with Makin's 8th grade year. When we hit high school its important to track hours and fulfil certain credits. After all these years of laying a strong foundation, I'm looking forward to this being a year we fully lean into making it what we want. Of course I plan to make sure he is prepared for HS, but its also fun to get creative while I can. :)

Makin's Class Line Up:

English (Grammar, Writing, and Reading)

Pre Algebra

Science (Health and Geology)

Social Studies (Geography, Government/Election, Economics)

Handwriting (He will have this every year unless his handwriting improves!)

P.E.

Robotics - This is his class at HOPE Prep this year. He has to work with various teams on various robot challenges first semester. Second semester his teacher will assign them a team for that semester and they will work to prepare their robot to achieve certain goals for the in-class competition at the end of the year. He then stays and enjoys study halls and lunch recess.

Math is online this year, which he is really enjoying.
He watches video instruction and then answers the questions on the computer.

Sadly P.E. is a very short stint this year because we now have a conflict on timing for Lorelei's Spanish class. He did get about 6 weeks of PE during her teacher's maternity leave and really enjoyed it.

Diagramming sentences is a new challenge this year. :)

Bits and Pieces

It has been a crazy couple of months with some unexpected hospital stays thrown in, but here are some bits of fun we fit in in-between.

Book Club

I'm enjoying meeting most Wednesdays (while L is at HOPE Prep) with a friend to discuss the book we are currently reading. We go through various parenting books and I've loved having consistent reading and friend time!

Heather's Visit

Heather came to run a half marathon. It was great having her visit for the weekend and cheering her on during the race.

Movie Night

Sunday movie nights are still a favorite family time. Recently we watched Father of the Bride 1 and eventually 2...I had forgotten how much I loved those movies!

IEA/IEA First Horse Show Weekend

Lorelei found out about a program (through her horse magazine) that allows kids to compete in horse shows even though they don't have a horse. She was very excited to try this for horseback riding lessons this year. Her first show was just south of Aunt Heather's place, so we enjoyed a short visit to Heather's as well as the show. (The boys likely won't go to most of the shows to cut down on cost etc.) Heather spoiled us, including fixing us hot breakfast (and fancy coffee) before we left at 5:30 AM.

Lorelei and Layla

Coach Courtney helping prepare Lorelei for the show ring.

Aunt Heather and Ronnie came to watch the show that afternoon.

The Team.
Lorelei placed second during the first show of the day and fourth during the second show. 
(Each horse show day really consists of two shows.)

Lorelei in class wearing eye gear to help her learn not to look down.

Funday Friday - Texas Civil War Museum and Mini Golf

This museum was recommended by a fellow mom in P.E. It was on my list for fall field trips, especially after finding out it would be closing permanently at the end of October. So glad we could see these amazing artifacts from the Civil War.

There was a mini golf course I'd been wanting to try only 10 minutes from the museum so we decided to add that to our afternoon. We loved it.

Finished out the afternoon with Andy's treats. Pumpkin Pie Concrete season is upon us, so this is a fav for me!

Each button was a different bugle call.
There was also another station similar with each drum call.

So many amazing flags.

Growin'

The moment we realized little brother is now taller than big sister!

October Date

Monthly dates are still going strong. This month we enjoyed going out for pie.

A Little Crafty

I'm struggling to get them to do much art these days, but they agreed to paint a fall decoration for their door. :)

I also found some small wooden pumpkins and Lorelei painted them and put them on the bookshelf. They turned out so cute.

LEGO Club

I'm thankful for LEGO club to give this kiddo a reason to continue LEGO building. Sadly this is currently the only time he uses his LEGOS these days. He challenges himself to make sure it has some robotic element each month. This month his creation, The ExChanger, counted quarters and then would give you a dollar bill after four quarters were inserted.

He has to do a bit of programming with these.
This time he consulted his dad and learned some helpful information!

Sale Saturday

We had what has become our "usual" fall sale on the community garage sale weekend. While it wasn't as successful as they would have liked, they still made a little bit and enjoyed their time.