Wanna Shipshewana?

How much do you love the name of that town?  Since I don't have any Thanksgiving pictures this year (only video), I'll post some pics of our other November happenings.

My favorite was probably the trip we took to Shipshewana, an Amish town just an hour away.  

I actually think it would be really interesting and eye-opening to live like the Amish for a year or two.  Addy would definitely love the horses!

Emerson had rather a lot of fun at his Thanksgiving Feast.

And the day after Thanksgiving we enjoyed a visit to the Botanical Gardens to welcome the holidays.

Meeting Mistletoe, one of Santa's actual flying reindeer, was a major highlight.  Of course the elves who showed her to us didn't have any of the magic flying dust with them--they save that for Christmas Eve.  I would have appreciated some magic dust to help me with my flash on these, but it had been malfunctioning.  Luckily Aaron figured out how to fix it a couple of days later.

Being Thankful . . . for almost being caught up!

Last catch-up post, hooray!

November always seems to be the month where the fun little extras fall through the cracks and trying to get everything together for the holidays just seems to take over. So instead of spending much time on the details of how much shopping and house-cleaning happened (a lot), I'm going to go back and catch a couple of the little things that happened in September and October, but which ended up getting neglected in November.

For one, Cookie Fridays have been a hit this year. At the ends of weeks when the kids have responsibly done their jobs and earned points (with good grades on school assignments, helping around the house, and not fighting), they have gotten to invite friends over after school on Fridays, and Sera and I like to make cookies as a snack for everyone. I think I have loved these afternoons as much as the kids have! It's been so fun to get to know my kids' friends better, especially the ones I don't know from church or anything. We've done all kinds of cookies: oatmeal raisin, chocolate chip, pumkin, gingersnaps, gingerbread people, sugar cookies that the kids can decorate, peanut butter, and holiday M&M--a feast of yum, basically. On the last Friday in October (whoops, guess I should have included this in last month's post), we had a little Halloween party for Cookie Friday, and each of the kids got to invite 2 friends instead of 1. We decorated cupcakes, had a cake-walk, ate doughnuts off strings, had a treasure hunt, played kickball (Theo's request), and started a Harry Potter movie (but didn't get very far). Other than the party, these afternoons don't take much effort on my part aside from inviting the friends (a day or two in advance, which is where I sometimes fall off the wagon), and are often some of the quietest afternoons in our house as everyone plays happily with their own special friend. Going into the new year, I need to get back on the ball at a) checking off morning and afternoon jobs, b) giving out points, and c) actually making the play-dates, so these wonderful afternoons can continue!

Another favorite of mine has been some lunch dates with the big kids. It's funny how crazy everything is for so long with little kids underfoot all the time, and then how suddenly they're all gone for six hours a day and I feel like I don't have quite enough one-on-one time with my older kids anymore. Trying to sneak them each out for a lunch date once a month has filled a bit of that gap.  They get SO excited choosing out a place to go (their choices are limited by the number of coupons I have, haha), and Sera likes getting to tag along, even though she usually just shares or gets a small side, while the child on the date can get something fancier than normal.

Back to actual November happenings, we really enjoyed a "Pie Night" activity at church.  Even though Aaron thought I was crazy, I helped each of the kids make their very own pie to be judged in the competition.  Sera made a "Pinkalicious" pie with cream cheese and raspberry jello in a graham cracker crust, Emerson made a cherry pie (using a pre-made crust and pie filling), Addy made a chocolate mint cream pie in a (pre-made) oreo crust, Theo made a coconut cream pie, and I made a sour cream apple pie.  After all that pie making, none of us won prizes (I console myself that none of our pies were labeled properly, because really, if they had counted up the votes of the little girls, Sera would have taken home top honors), but we all had a lot of fun and we all ate a lot of pie!

On Thanksgiving, we had a wonderful feast with our new friends, the Andrews, who moved in over the summer.  One of their daughters is in Theo's class at school, and their other son and daughter are each a grade off from Addy and Emerson in school, but are in their primary classes at church.  Though the food was wonderful (it's always so much more wonderful when there's someone to share the cooking with!), the highlight of the evening was the Thanksgiving play that Theo and Ani co-directed all the younger children in.  They had a script (from online) and everyone had lines to say, and it was so great to see it performed with such passion!

Immediately after Thanksgiving, we had a visit from Aaron's dad, our first since he stopped through Utah the year after we were married!  Our kids went nuts with excitement showing off for him, and he took it all in stride, pulling them in to show them some of the artworks-in-progress he brought along to work on.  One thing that was great about having him around was that he has really jumped on the health-train, and had tons of great tips to help us make healthier meals and add more movement into our days.  He slipped out for a walk or run through our beautiful neighborhood at least once a day, a reminder to us to do the same more often, even after the weather gets cooler, and he had lots of great ideas for salads to keep in the refrigerator.  Aaron had also gotten tickets for all of us to go see the Nutcracker in a nearby town (there's a production here in the city as well, but this was a chance to see something new), and we packed up and drove about an hour in our still-newish van, cranking up the family videos that we have decided will be our primary trip-media.  It was so fun watching/listening to our Christmas preparations from three years ago as we prepared for this holiday season!  The only sad part about his visit was that Aaron had to work quite a lot during it, but the payoff for that came when Grandpa Jerry got to come with us to see Aaron's holiday concert at IPFW, a really fun and entertaining concert that was broadcast live on our local PBS station.

The end of November involved lots of cybershopping by Aaron.  More on that next month!

Fabulous Fall

October in Indiana is gorgeous. Okay, maybe not quite as gorgeous as in Connecticut, which is our default awesome autumn, but still really gorgeous. Certainly it beats out Saskatchewan--we spent some serious laugh time just remembering the cold fall morning in Regina (in like, September) when we watched a tree with barely-yellowed leaves just sort of drop all its leaves at once without so much as a breeze--not quite the beauty pageant we get here, anyway. We have been loving the drives to and from Aaron's university, the YMCA, dance classes, Joy School, and church this month.

Earlier this month we had the chance to attend parent-teacher conferences for the kids (the only ones held all year at our school, for some reason), and things are going well! We were especially proud of Asher, who brought home straight A's for which we know he worked hard. Of course, his teacher did mention that he's going to need to step up his game in the organizational department if he wants to keep his grades up, because she has actually pulled stray papers from his desk when he has forgotten to turn them in, and there are occasionally students who stay after class or stay in from recess and organize his desk for him. Oi! Addy's teacher pretty much raved about her, telling us that she is a good friend and a good leader and a hard worker. And also that she needs to work on forming good test-study habits. Emerson also got some raves, and I think may be in the best first-grade class ever. His whole class seems to be full of wonderful helpers and the most enthusiastic learners (for which I'm sure his teacher must deserve a big hunk of the credit)! He really is loving school so much this year. Joy School for Sera is still going swimmingly, and despite the fact that it's a lot of work with just three moms, I'm so glad I didn't bail on my last child and just send her off to preschool.

The piano classes have settled in, and despite all the hard work it took to get them started, I'm so glad I have the opportunity to teach them! I'm not sure there are many things as fulfilling as starting with a group of kids who may or may not be able to match pitch, and to watch them blossom over the weeks into little musicians who understand this foreign language of music, and who can churn out one song after another. It really is the most fun!

In other musical news, our church primary classes just performed their annual children's program. As the music director for the primary, I was so proud to see the work they've done over the year come together! Our congregation is quite small (though it's kid-heavy), and I remember last year visiting Cincinnati and hearing their much larger primary perform the week before ours did, and feeling a little let-down after hearing our much smaller program. Though I've been nowhere near an ideal music director (Printed up flip-charts left at home? Check! Flip charts never even printed in the first place? Check! Organized list of monthly songs given to pianist on the last week before the month is over? Check! Improvised actions to about half the songs? Check! I . . . probably shouldn't go on, because I'm a little embarrassed about how many times I've shown up to fulfill my calling only halfway prepared), I do care a lot about teaching the children, I do love each and every child very much, and I do happen to know the words to all the songs really well, which allows me to go around the room and find children who aren't singing and sing right in front of them, looking them in the eye, until they finally feel obligated to join in. After a full year, there are only about three kids left who consistently avoid singing if I'm not looking directly at them (I stand in front of them a lot), and the rest are pretty darn good little singers! My favorites are the junior primary (ages 4-7), who absolutely sing their little hearts out for me. I feel like it's so important to get them to love singing before the "too cool" factor hits, because once you really get them, you can keep them for life. They did such a beautiful job singing this year, and there were even some lovely small-group songs that added a lot to the program and gave some of the children a chance to really let their voices shine.

In less exciting news, whether I wanted to or not, I got another year older this month. And I'm afraid I have in fact reached the age where the years pass too fast. I'm afraid I didn't meet as many of the goals I set for myself this year as I had hoped to, which makes me feel, well, kind of old. Luckily, my birthday this year started just the way I like it. Even though I am usually the first person up (not at the crack of dawn or anything--usually around 7:30 or so), after I had gotten the kids up (and I had showered and gotten dressed), Aaron talked me into laying back down in bed so that he could lead all the kids into our bedroom to sing our special Happy Birthday song for me. Addy had led a card-making campaign (I love her so so so much for this, because it really does matter to me, and I don't have to ask the kids for it--she gets them all together and tells them what's what), and presented me with a wonderful folder full of their pictures and sweet words. That perfect start to the day, coupled with Aaron whipping up an amazing omelette and some English muffins for breakfast for me (his omelettes, seriously, they make every day into a birthday . . . or Christmas . . . or whatever) put a smile on my face all day long.

Halloween this year was both laid-back and fun. I'm writing this so long after the actual day that it's a little hard to remember the details, but we had a were-wolf, Fancy Nancy, Buzz Lightyear, and a lovely little Princess Sera. The years when we use on-hand costumes are always a little more relaxed than the years when we go all theme-y, so it was just dress up and trick-or-treat this year. We meant to attend the church "trunk-or-treat" party, but we ended up spending most of the day in Cleveland, where we picked up Esmerelda. Esmerelda, you ask? Well, she's the new(-er), very fancy minivan Aaron upgraded us to this month. Spencer Murdoch, our sidekick for the last six and a half years, has nearly 200K miles on him, and we meant to switch him out at some point during our stay in Canada, but between foreign car prices and import costs and such, and then with another move piled on top of all that . . . it got postponed until now. Our kids forgave us a little bit for making them miss the party when they got their first taste of watching a movie on a flip-down screen while driving. To be honest, it's a pretty sweet gig, and Aaron spent a few minutes trying to figure out if there was a way to get a monitor up front for the driver until I convinced him (mostly convinced him) that aside from being illegal, that would be a terrible idea. For now, we've decided that the best car movies are our own home movies, which we rarely get around to watching, but which are excellent for bonding--we've laughed and laughed over 1-year-old Sera and 3-year-old Emerson tromping around the living room with Santa hats, singing Ho! Ho! Ho!

Back to Halloween though, Aaron and I clung to this (probably) last year of going out trick-or-treating with all our own kids. Aaron masterminded a high-school choral festival with the King's Singers while they were in town for a concert, and because of scheduling, it could only be held on Halloween. It ended just as trick-or-treating began, so we started without him, then met him on a street corner and followed the kids (who are all independent and stuff now) around as they traipsed from door to door. We didn't take enough pictures, but we wound up with exactly the right amount of candy--it lasted about a month. As for the King's Singers, we were able to take the whole family to the (free!) concert they gave at the Presbyterian church downtown the next night, and even though it veered more to the sacred than the hilarious (appropriate for the choice of venue, I suppose, though we had hoped the kids would get to see more of their funny songs), we all really enjoyed a wonderful night of music.

Well, that's about all my memory is willing to give me for October. If I can trudge through November's post quickly enough, there's a chance that I will be able to get the whole "home networking" thing working well enough to go back and post pictures for the last six months or whatever it has been. Looking forward, I think maybe the monthly blogposts should make the New Year's resolution list for next year.

October Snapshot

More and more, our family fun times are on Saturdays.  I actually love this, because there was a time when Saturday was the day I most dreaded in the week--when it didn't mean a day of leisure, but a day of extra work and trying to keep little people quiet while littler people slept.  Now though, the days of napping schedules are behind us (unless you count Aaron), and Saturdays are the ones we love spending together.  I've been trying to make us take a slightly longer road trip (1-3 hours) once a month, to see some of the fun sites that surround us.  The other weeks, we enjoy the activities right here in town.

We love the Botanical Gardens in town, and the wonderful events they host.  On this afternoon, we enjoyed a pumpkin festival complete with sampling some pretty gourmet pumkin soups that I hope I can recreate.  One was a curried pumpkin soup with coconut milk, while the other (the one the kids loved) was pumpkin apple soup with a bit of maple in it.  Yum!

I think this one is actually from September, when we visited the Children's Museum of Indianapolis.  It's considered by many to be the best in the country, and we enjoyed the chance to explore all four levels of wonder, from the ginormous talking transformer "Bumblebee" in the front foyer, to the archaeology exhibit featuring ancient China and ancient Egypt, to the Barbie exhibit that taught me way more than I ever wanted to know about my least favorite toy (oh whatever, they're kind of cool once you get to know them).

Joy School Halloween party!  Love these little cuties and all their pizazz!!

Next, the Halloween party at our house!  We kept it pretty simple--how can you lose with donuts on a string?

And the second round!

A little Ghosts in the Graveyard . . .

And we finished up our Halloween celebrations by trick-or-treating together.  I'm afraid Theo wasn't amused that we didn't let him go on his own or with friends, but we let him walk ahead of us!  We have Buzz Lightyear on the left, a sprouting werewolf, a sweatered-up princess with a furry hat under her crown, and a Fancy Nancy.  I have better pictures of the kids, but this is the only one outside with the pumpkins in back, so.