When daddy's away, the kids will play...

That title is a lame copy of "When the cat's away, the mice will play"....except that we would much rather play while daddy is around than when he is away.  However, he had to go up to Canada for a few days last week.  I try to make the times when he is away a little extra special for the kids.  They miss him, and so it helps them when we have 'traditions' to sort of look forward to when he's not with us.

We have "girl's night" movie nights (except, we have Nate now...not sure what to call it anymore).

But, we also had a garage sale.  Nicole and Hannah were trying to raise money for Operation Christmas Child, a neat ministry that we participate in each year.  The children fill up shoe boxes with supplies for another child overseas.  So, the girls try to raise their own money to go shopping with.  most people are happy to chip in anything from a quarter to a dollar.

Hannah sold hot, homemade cinnamon rolls and water, and Nicole "sold" adventuring tips.

Who wouldn't buy a cinnamon roll from this little cutie!

Nicole certainly won the prize for most creative table display, but there was little interest by children or adults for her adventure knowledge.

It says "I need money for shoe boxes"

"Open  Now a out back fun wild store is hear.  If i am not here I am helping someone. Are you happy?"

Her sign up sheets

However, Hannah sold quite a few cinnamon rolls and drinks.

The girls made $30, which paid for two more shoe boxes.  I made $45 selling some of our things, which paid for bowling and dinner ;)

So, I took the kids bowling, and we had a grand time together.  Nicole bowled the whole time the correct way.

Nate used the ramp a few times, but most of his turns I help him carrying the ball and "push" it toward the pins.

 Hannah tried doing it on her own, but she resorted to the ramp about half way through

Nathan bowled a 99, Nicole a 91, and Hannah somewhere in the 60s (this may not be her sport of choice ;)

After bowling, we hit up the arcade.  I let the kids play video games, which goes against my general feelings of video games.

Nathan did an awesome job on the race car game.  He kept meeting the time minimum and extended his game by several minutes (I never can do that).

Nate doing his race car game

Hannah had fun on the motorcycle game

The girls also did a dance game.  Unfortunately, I picked a really hard song out for them to dance to.  It was sort of a flop.

Since I spend pretty much every moment of my days with the my children, I wanted to try to let loose and have a little fun with them.  I think they had a fun day (but we missed daddy!)

Just in case you think our life is all fun and ice cream....there is also some of this going on....

Oh...and here's a little airport fun while we waited for him the next day.

Thankfully, his plane was even about 20 minutes early.

waiting for daddy.

 We love him so much!

This flag flew over Iwo Jima to commemorate the 65th anniversary.  

Last week's fun and sillyness

This past week, Hannah officially started math when she received her Saxon 1 math workbooks. She was very excited.  Although the lessons are really easy for her right now, we are taking it a day at a time.  She is also doing Spell to Write and Read.  She really, REALLY wants to learn to read, but we are still working on building all of those phonics skills.  She is doing really well. 

 Nicole found a dragonfly with a ripped wing.  She made it a little "home" in a box, and somehow nursed it back to health.  She took this little dragon fly and put it on her finger and then she would gently wave her arm around and land her finger in the grass.  This was her way of teaching him how to fly again, and a safe place to land.  After about an hour, the dragon fly finally was able to completely fly on on his own.

 After weeks of the girls begging...I finally sat down with them to make them some new jammies.  Nicole wanted camo jammies.  She helped a lot.

 Oops....we sewed the sleeves shut.  I was ready to quit at that point, but her sweet little face encouraged me to keep going:)

 Finally, the dress/jammies are finished.  She has barely taken it off since then.

 This is her special creature adventurer pose :)  Look how sad Hannah looks in the background.  I wasn't going to make her jammies that day (especially after sewing the sleeves shut and fixing that), but she was so sad, and she is so sweet, I couldn't say no!

 So....here is Hannah's dress:)  We added some pretty lace to the sleeves and the hem of the dress.

 Saturday, Hannah and I were able to get away for a few hours and go on a date together.  Of course, we ended up at Target. We shopped for some needed items, tasted food on display, danced to music in the aisle, and ate pizza and a cookie for lunch. She is so fun to be with!

 We bought supplies for her Operation Christmas Child box.  She got this box when she stayed with her friend Aleya while Jeremy and I were on our cruise.  Hannah heard about this ministry at our old church, and has been thinking about this mysterious girl who will receive her box.  She has drawn pictures, written lists, and spent a lot of time and energy on this box.  Look at how excited she is to have finally filled up!

 Later on Saturday, Nicole had all of us making puppets.  It was fun to spend the afternoon with them, making a mess and making memories.  My puppets are in the middle.  I made Willie, Uncle Si, and Jase form Duck Dynasty:)

Halloween

Halloween and all the "harvest" festivities that come with it have finally come and gone.

I don't like Halloween.  I never really have.  For years we got away with going to a festival and "trunk and treat" at our church down south.  However, this has been our second year of real trick or treating with the kids.  I'm still not sure what I think about it all.

I know the "background" of the day, and of course that makes me not want to be a part of it.  However, I also know that my kids are almost always dressed up in crazy clothes anyway...it's just a day when they don't look weird doing it because everyone else is ;)  We also live in a super sweet neighborhood, and truly enjoy the time we get with our neighbors...even if everyone is dressed up in strange clothing.

Painting pumpkins with our friends down the street.

But, that's as far as we go...dressing up and knocking on people's doors as a family.  We don't decorate, in fact, this year I still have not gotten my autumn decor down out of the attic....I guess it's to late now.

I also think this whole "harvest festival" in Florida thing is kind of lame.  I mean...who are we kidding?  It's still in the 80s (and sometimes 90s) with  a breeze that puts us at 79 degrees and we all go running for our jackets.  To my knowledge, there is not a lot of harvesting going on, like there would be up north.  Now in Ohio...I bet they know how to work a harvest a festival.  But here....again, it's just an excuse to dress up and sip pumpkin lattes (except for me, I don't drink coffee).

So, yes...we participated in Halloween and even went to a "harvest festival", although I'm not sure what was harvested. Jeremy had to work one Saturday, so I took the kids to a little festival, and they had a grand time.  They got their face painted,

 played drums,

I love her face here!

 bounced in bounce houses and slides, fed animals at a little petting area,

This little girl is SO SWEET and gentle with animals.  She truly has a gift with them.

 and picked out our carving pumpkin.

Daddy "carving" our pumpkin this year.

However, we also spent a lot of time talking about a greater meaning of October 31, Reformation Day.  It went perfectly with our CC memory work this year.  So, the kids had to tell me why Oct. 31 was special before they were allowed to trick or treat :)

This year, Nicole wanted to be a termite (WHAT???  Who is this girl's teacher, and what is she teaching her?  oh...wait, that's me)  But, she finally changed her mind and decided to stick to what she knew best- adventuring.  So, she was an adventurer.

Hannah was a princess ballerina.

Nathan was also an adventurer (and then decided an hour before trick or treating that he wanted to be Shamu. Hmmmm.

 I don't even know what to do with this little boy.  He's so crazy!

One of the fun parts about homeschooling is that you get to dress up early and stay dressed up all day, so they did.  Nate and Nicole got covered in camo, and Hannah transformed into a princess.

So, just before we went outside, Nate decided he wanted to be Shamu.  I cut up an old pillow case, spray painted it, then covered his face in black and included two white patches near his eyes.  He was so excited (He has a Shamu stuffed animal that he has adopted as his sleeping aid)

I had fun painting the kids' faces, until they asked to paint mine.  Of course, I said yes to them...thinking they would make it pretty.  Well, this is how I turned out.

Hannah said I looked pretty....I guess that's all that matters.

We had fun seeing our friends on the street.

Hannah the Princess Ballerina and Viana, cat woman

The kids with their friend Alex, the biker dude!

Once again, Nicole worked hard to think of some tricks in case someone chose "trick" over "treat".  One was to dangle a spider in front of them (fake spider of course).  However, the best trick was when she knocked on someone's door, then ran and hid in the bushes.  When the person came out looking, she jumped out and said, "Boo!".  Thankfully the guy thought that it was really funny :)

All in all, it was a fun Halloween.  We have lots of candy, and lots of memories.