More October

We had school conferences on Columbus Day. The kids are all doing great. On their midterms, two of them had straight A's and the other only had a single B. I am sure eventually school will be more difficult/challenging, but for now it is nice that we have no worries in that area. Of course, we have plenty of worries in other areas, but that's a topic for another day.

The kids aren't missing sports and we definitely aren't either. I know it is the thing for kids to be in organized activities, but we tried it and it wasn't our thing. As a wise friend said (that's you, Alecia), if it's something they are passionate about, they will be the ones asking and putting forth the effort. We were definitely the ones driving the ship. Jack was more than willing to play baseball and he never complained about going, but he rarely wanted to practice with Thomas and wasn't striving to get better. Kara tried soccer, but we had to fight with her on practice days. She liked baseball practice, but didn't like the games and as it turned from t-ball to machine pitch, she wasn't interested. Finally, Anna. She also did t-ball and soccer and while she was the best sport, she probably got the least enjoyment. So, here we are. It's a Saturday and the kids have been playing outside for the past 3 hours. I have no regrets! (As a side-note, if they had been more excited about sports, we were willing. Oh, and we also tried dance). We still have Luke, so we'll see what happens there.

Fall activities have been a little more relaxed this year too. We skipped the Haunted Dove. We loved it last year, but the kids were cranky that day and we just weren't up for it. We did do the Fall Festival at Mount Vernon. The girls made corn cob dolls, which was super cute. Like last year, they had some people staying in character in the slave house. Hearing about the lack of quality of life was really sad. Our family loves George Washington, but he shouldv'e been better than that. Like last year, they had the little hay bale maze. Also, like last year, Luke loved it and just ran through over and over again. We had lunch, then spent a little time in the museum. From there, we decided to check out the distillery. It is really cool to see how they managed to do things without electricity or other modern conveniences. Luke wasn't interested in going in, so I stayed out with him. It is in a beautiful setting and Luke used the time we were alone to repeatedly roll down the hill.

For whatever reason, Luke insisted we take his picture on this rock.

The very popular (with the preschool crowd anyway), hay bale "maze"

With their corn husk dolls and if you look to the left of Thomas, who do you see running through the maze.

The kids also had their book character day at school. Anna and Kara were legit again and went as characters from actual favorite books (Harry Potter). Speaking of which, there were a lot more Harry Potters this year. I am so glad it is still popular and relevant.

See if you can figure out what Jack was. Here's a hint, he wasn't a "ghost cow" like many of his classmates thought. I felt a little bad because we worked hard making his costume and he was really excited about it.

I was thinking we hadn't done much, but looking at my paltry pictures, I was reminded that we also did chocolate mummies at Heritage Chocolate and went to Forrest Hall Farms with friends. It isn't the biggest corn maze in town, but we really like it. Plus, it is small enough, that we felt comfortable letting the kids go in a second time by themselves. Of course, they got lost and we had to retrieve them, but everyone still had a great time.

Our chocolate mummies. Almost too pretty to eat.

Lost in the corn

Today, we are going to do After Dark at Stratford Hall (so, I am belated in adding pictures and posting, we went last night, but I'll still add details to the next blog). We haven't done this event before, but I've been looking forward to it for weeks. Stay tuned for the next blog to hear how it goes. We have that, pumpkin carving, neighborhood Halloween party and trick-or-treating left. I am not sure when Halloween turned into such a major holiday, but no complaints from anyone in my house! Oh, we also decorated outside this year. Perhaps, I will remember to get a picture (raining right now).