Happy Halloween!

Eagerly anticipated, long awaited, happily prepared for, Halloween finally arrived. A few weeks ago, I took them to the thrift store and let them go wild in the halloween sale. They all put together all kinds of interesting costumes, and Tara made sure Sylvia got a cute costume too. Over the last few weeks, Kate kept losing parts of her costume, swords kept being broken, but eventually all costumes made it more or less to Halloween.

This morning, we carved pumpkins. It is nice that most of the kids are starting to be old enough to do it without much or any help. The only thing I did for the older ones, was to cut off the top. They were quite creative in their carvings. Kate me a sunflower with a square sun (I had told her that curves are hard). Jane made a rat on one side, and a face on the other. Tara meticulously carved the word HATE in her pumpkin... @_@ Tim and Erik made more standard jack-o-lanterns.

The boys went trick or treating with a friend, in a different neighborhood. I dropped them off, came home, and found part of Tim's costume in the car... So I had to go back and get it to him. The girls had a friend over to go trick or treating with them, they had a blast. Dh and I were out with only the little ones, weird to suddenly be a two kids family. We almost looked normal! Sylvia figured out fast how to behave when trick or treating. She would ring the bell, and the moment the door opened, she would eagerly hold up her halloween bucket, looking expectantly at the person who opened it. She often tried to push open the door, making it go faster.

Erik kept talking about all the humans we were trick and treating at. 'Let's go to that human's home now!'

Now every one is in bed, not necessarily asleep. It was quite an interesting evening with eight kids on sugar highs... Kate totally lost it before she finally fell asleep. She kept crying about nothing, over and over. So every one was happy when she went off into dreamland. Most likely filled with lots of candy :)

Geocaching

Did some geocaching maintenance today, replaced the cache with the dent, which didn't look like a moose accident after all. The dent was such that I think it might have been there anyway, but I assumed that an ammobox would be waterproof, not realizing that this slight dent would break the waterproofness of it. The cache had been totally filled with water, but dried out by a nice geocacher. Now I put it in a new ammo box, so it should be fine.

Also did maintenance on my Peace Cache which had gotten wet. Hmmm, sense a theme here? Maybe it just rained way too much lately. Sylvia helped out a lot putting back the cache, insisting on putting it in the wrong container, but at least, it was in the right location. She was so totally convinced of this being the way things should be, it was cute.

Of course, before I went out caching, I had to play just one game of go. Ended up being a half pointer, I won by half a point. Somehow the victory seems sweeter if it's a halfpointer :)

One of Those Nights...

Last night, I stayed up way too late to play go (not unusual for me :-p) and fell asleep immediately when my head hit the pillow. Only to be rudely awakened a few hours later by Cees 'Mama!! Tim just puked all over his bed!'

So much for sleep. Spent a lot of time cleaning up, making his bed, getting him comfortable, and by that time, it was too late to go back to bed. Luckily he was fine after a few hours, but now I am wondering who else will get it.

Last farmer's market of the year. Did I mention how I am soooooooooo not ready for winter? Maybe I should live somewhere else, somewhere where there aren't nine months of winter. After the farmer's market, I planted some bulbs for a friend, and dug up my rosemary and sage to take in the house for the winter. I found two plastic cereal bowls outside, we seemed to be having less and less of them. I wonder where the other missing ones can be. If they are outside, we'll lose them under the snow soon.

Go club in the afternoon, always fun. Sylvia enjoyed herself for a while eating an egg roll and drinking some chocolate soy milk. Then she suddenly wanted to nurse, now!, and happily fell asleep on my lap for a while. Nice relaxed playing that way, didn't have to keep track of her.

Tonight we'll have an extra hour, when daylight savings time ends. Will I spend it on the go server, or shall I use it for sleep? :)

Finally!!!

Finally I got my act together enough to post a picture of all of them. This one was taken in September.



We had homeschool club this morning, the kids had fun doing all kinds of Halloween activities. We are now the proud owners of a bunch of grave stones and of stained glass pumpkin decorations... I was smart and had brought my go books, so I could do problems while the kids did their thing :)

We came home with one extra kid, so we are up to eight kids for the night. They are sewing something now, I think a Halloween goody bag or so. I got a new sewing machine last week, when the old one broke. I haven't even used it yet, but Tara is very happy and has made a bunch of simple things already (pillow, blanket) The sewing machines has fancy stitches, and she thinks that that is really neat. I would like to make something on it, but not badly enough to actually sit down and do it.

Snow!!!!

I am sooooo not ready for winter. Today we got hit by lots of rain, the basement was partly flooding again, and then it started snowing! Blech! Cold and nasty. And our dishwasher is broken too...

Sylvia enjoyed the snow, she was walking outside, half naked, wondering why the rain had turned white... She is getting more and more verbal, adding important words like 'No!!!', 'Blech!', yummy, and open to her vocabulary. She is so able, she can do ANYTHING. At least, in her humble openion.

We got boo-ed last night, one of the neighbors left us a Halloween basket with treats, the expectation is that you boo two other neighbors in exchange. So my girls are out now, boo-ing people, they had lots of fun putting baskets together.

One of my caches was totally dented in and full of water, it's in the middle of the woods, not even that close to a trail. Our theory is that a moose must have stepped on it, how else could an ammobox get destroyed? We also lost a micro in the woods, which was hidden in another tree. This time we are blaming a curious raccoon, or a pesky squirrel :D Those blasted critters, messing with our geocaching!

Quote of the day

'MAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He is touching a new piece of food before he has finished chewing his last one!!!!!'

Yes, Tara really expected me to micro manage the way my kids eat... Tim was eating cookies faster than she did. Mind you, there were more than enough cookies for all to eat as much as they wanted and then some. But it's the principle of the thing. Touching food before properly having chewed your last bite... Horrible!

Good News and Bad News

We had a homeschool support meeting today, so we spent yesterday getting ready for it. Kate was vacuum cleaning, and Sylvia was 'helping'. After ten minutes or so, Kate came over to me 'Mama, I have good news and I have bad news! The good news is, that Sylvia now can turn the vacuum cleaner on and off. The bad news is that she is doing it all the time... ' :D

Homeschool support meeting was fun. Not many people, but had a nice chat with the ones who did show up. Afterwards, I did some go studying, and had a friend over for a few hours.

We saw the sun today!!! I almost had forgotten what it looked like!

Didn't do much (if any) around the house, but at least things were cleaned up for the homeschool meeting, so it's not too bad. Maybe I'll get myself to unload / load the dishwasher soon. Maybe :)

Back from a fun weekend of go

Spent last weekend in the Catskill Mountains, playing and studying go. What fun! I learned a lot. I took Sylvia, Cees, and Tim with me, the other kids stayed home with hubby. The only negative things were Timmy puking like seven times, and Sylvia having diarrhea. Nothing like playing a game, and being interrupted by Cees coming in with a happy 'Tim puked again!' Oh well.

The week had just normal stuff, LLL meeting, homeschool club, go club, and such. It rained and it rained and it rained. Did I mention the rain? Very depressing!

The garden is still spitting out tomatoes, but I don't really feel like picking them with all the rain. Amazing that it's October already and we still haven't had our first frost.

Stuff

Long day today. The kids really wanted to go to Borders, so we planned that for the morning (after doing some go problems of course). Sylvia is at the age when it's challenging to take her to a book store, there are just so many books to be pulled down, so many things to get into. Heaven for her, frustrating for me. But at least she is uber cute while she does all her things. I am grateful that at least she didn't take off all her clothes.

We picked up some lunch, and went to the playground, where the kids played, and I did go problems. Sylvia is sure she can do all the same things the older kids can, and usually she is right too. Amazing body control for a 16mo. Yes, she is 16 months old today, time just flies.

Back home, getting ready for karate (three girls), starting bread, getting them to karate, doing some dishes, getting them from karate, baking bread, making soup, doing go problems, doing lots of other stuff. Busy day. But no, I didn't get any tomatoes or basil picked.

I signed up for a Tactical Self Defense class at our karate school. Sounded interesting and useful, looking forward to it!

Just heard that a good on line go friend still is in the hospital, with his broken leg, and it turns out that he might lose his foot :( Please send good thoughts his way.

Apples

Yesterday was a potato day, today was an apple day. We went apple picking with our homeschool support group. Started out with a tour of the cider house, and then we got a wagon ride to the apple trees to pick. The kids had a wonderful time. Sylvia was sure you had to eat at least three apples at once. Kate had a hard time deciding on which apples to pick. Tim's apples had to be just perfect. Cees just went for fast and big quantity. Tara and Jane went off and did their own thing, returned both with a bag full of apples. Fun how they all did it differently.

Ended up getting some cider and a pumpkin and every one was happy. We now have enough apples to last us for the next three years or so...

Put some tomatoes and basil in spaghetti sauce for dinner, but still tons of tomatoes left to harvest. Guess I need to do that soon!

Potatoes

Gorgeous weather today, so I wanted to do something outside. My potatoes had been beckoning for a while. This was the perfect day to tackle them. Tara and Sylvia both helped, Tara was more effective at it than Sylvia. But at least Sylvia now knows that potatoes grow under the ground, and that they come in the colors red and purple. She really enjoyed walking around with potatoes, I wouldn't be surprised if we find them everywhere for the next three months at least.

I also went out to scout out a place for a night time cache. Sylvia didn't want to bother with those pesky clothes, so she took them all off about halfway the hike. Oh well, at least she is cute. Then she spent a lot of time throwing her clothes on the ground, so we could pick them up for her. She has trained us well.

There were 32 mallards, and 17 Canada Geese. The geese were amazing, honking and loud and just fun to watch and listen to. They were so noisy! I loved watching them.

Farmer's Market

Last month of our farmer's market, it's bittersweet to think that the season is almost over. It was a gorgeous day, and the atmosphere at the market is always great. The kids got their bakery treats, and home made ice cream. They ate honey samples, chatted with friends, and had a great time.

I got a card to send to a friend who's in the hospital, it has a close up of a cow, looking straight at the camera. Turns out that the cow's name is Blossom. I'll tell my friend that Blossom wishes him well too. I have been sending cards and letters to people, which I enjoy doing, but hadn't done in ages. I have so many people I would like to write a letter or a card, but I was unable to do it since shortly after Sylvia was born. Things just weren't right, and somehow I couldn't find the energy to send cards or letters. So I am very happy that I am getting back into the habit, I hope that it lasts.

This afternoon I went to go club. Sylvia had a great time running around and climbing on everything. I spent a lot of time chasing her instead of playing. She is so cute though, that I didn't care at all.