I feel like that's how my blog posts are going lately. Nothing, nothing, nothing, BAM! Oh well. Here it goes...
Ward Trunk or Treat:
Our family is going as a group of pirates this year, and Ollie is our parrot. :) Many thanks to Aaron's mom for sewing up Ollie's costume for him. It turned out SO ADORABLE, I can't get enough of it. But I'll save more pictures for actual Halloween day. Also, the YW did face painting at the carnival part of Trunk or Treat, and painted that awful mustache on my husband. Yuck! Good thing it washes off, but I really can't take him seriously with a mustache, let alone kiss him. Bleh!
Grandma Lemmon's Owl Cookies:
These are a little piece of my childhood. Grandma Lemmon always brought them to Sunday dinner around Halloween time. And I want to pass them along to my kiddos. They are sort of a short-bread texture. Crunchy. Always eat with a cup of milk for dunking. Creative ya? And she was baking them long before Pinterest! ;)
Our newest tree:
Okay, okay. This isn't our new tree. It's our new tree's mom. Our new tree looks like this:
It's already the biggest tree in our yard, and someday it will be as big as it's mommy tree. We got it from Aaron's Aunt Karen. It was growing really close to her house, and she didn't want it, but thought we might. So she called us up, and Aaron went and dug it up and brought it home and planted it in our yard. Yay! I'm such a tree hugger. :)
Adelia:
No explanation needed. Just Del being herself.
Lincoln Reads Fablehaven:
The other day it was read aloud time at our house. We were really close to finishing The Witches, so I told Ivan to go grab the book. He was a little upset, because he wanted me to read Fablehaven (we've been listening to Fablehaven in the car). So, to appease him, Linc says, "Ivan if you listen to Mom read Witches, I'll read you the first chapter of Fablehaven afterward." I didn't really think anything of this. We read Witches, and then I took Oliver upstairs to put him down for a nap. When I came back downstairs, sure enough, Lincoln was reading Fablehaven to Ivan.
I thought he did a fantastic job! Except for the parts where he started picking his nose. ;) But I'm willing to overlook that for now. I guess it's time for me to up the level of books he's reading out loud again. I was curious where Lincoln's reading level is at, so I did a Google search for how to determine reading levels. I can't find the site I was on at the moment, but it had two different quick assessment tests. I had Lincoln take them both. The first one said his reading level was a 5.6 (which means he's reading at the same level as someone that's a sixth of the way through fifth grade? I think that's how they explained it). The second test said he was at a very-end-of-fourth to very-beginning-of-fifth-grade reading level. Neither test tested for reading comprehension, or reading stamina, just word decoding. So taking those things into consideration, I don't know if I'd really say that Linc is at a fifth grade level. Anyways, I'd like to find a better test and spend some more time figuring it out. But right now what I need to figure out is what to have the child read!
Lemmon/Sparks Family Party: A Halloween Mystery Menu Dinner
Aaron and I were in charge of hosting the Lemmon/Sparks family party for October. We decided to do a Mystery Menu Dinner. Basically we created these menus, one for every person coming. We made a bunch of food items, and then named them creepy Halloween names.
The meal was a three-course meal. Before dinner, we handed out the menus and everyone had to fill them in for all three courses, picking 4 items from the menu for each course. Eating utensils were included in the menu items. So if you didn't order a fork, you were just out of luck for that course.
Here were our menu items:
Fountain of Youth - water with a gummy-worm ice cube
Extract of Ghost - milk
Witches Brew - apple juice with a gummy-worm ice cube
Medusa's Hair with Cyclop's Eyes - Spaghetti and meatballs
Witch's Broomstick - fork
Freeze-Dried Frog Bits - Caesar salad
Ghost Sirloin - slice of garlic bread
Dante's Inferno with Circles of Suffering - 7 layer dip with chips
Grave Digger's Friend - spoon
Green Goo - green pudding with crumbled up Oreos on top to look like Frankenstein
Bat Wings - Hot wings
Dung Balls - Cake balls
Spider Egg-sacs - cottage cheese
Wooden Stake - knife
Whatever you picked for the first course is what you got, whether it went together or not. :) For example my first course (I let Lincoln fill out my menu for me, so it wasn't cheating, since I knew what all the foods were.) I got water, spaghetti, a cake ball, and some 7 layer dip. No utensils. Second course I got pudding, garlic bread, salad, and a fork. Third course I got a knife, cottage cheese, hot wings, and a spoon. :) So it's fun like that. My kids really had a good time with it.
We hung up sheets between the kitchen and the dining room so that you couldn't see into the kitchen and know what you were ordering. Mom helped me dish up everyone's plates for every course.
FHE Pumpkin Carving:
Aaron's parents came over for FHE this week to carve pumpkins with us. My boys had a great time carver. Ivan was obsessed. We couldn't convince him to stop carving. :) Adelia wanted to paint hers, which was probably for the best, since she's extremely independent and I don't trust her with a knife, and painting kept her occupied the entire time.
Letter F Preschool:
It is my turn again this week to host preschool. Today we learned about Letter F. Preschool kind of snuck up on me this week, not really, I mean, I knew it was coming, but I've had a lot going on (see above) and haven't had the time to sit down and prepare for it. Luckily, I had some thing left over from doing preschool with Ivan last year. So I was able to pull up the files and print them out really quick last night. Then I had Aaron run into Walmart and grab me some colored goldfish crackers before we dropped him off at work this morning.
First we read the book Rainbow Fish and sand a few songs. Then I had everyone go to the table and we did our letter F handwriting sheets, and put fish stickers on big letter Fs.
Then we needed to get up and move around a little bit. We came into the family room, and I got out the fishing pole I use for the nursery kids, and some foam fish I had from a reading activity I did last year. I let the kids take turns fishing, and sorting the fish by color.
Then it was snack time. We had colored goldfish crackers and Swedish fish. I had the kids sort the crackers into colors while they ate. They all did a really good job.
For our last activity, I passed out a paper with ten empty fish bowls on it. They each had a number 1-10 in the middle. The kids had to glue the correct number of Swedish fish into each bowl. The kids liked it at first, but it took a long time, and the kids lost interest after awhile and started eating their Swedish fish. :)
Ollie is 8 Months Old:
Crazy! He's getting so big. I am in the process of packing up all the 9 month clothes, he's wearing 12-18 sizes right now. He's getting around really well, but hasn't mastered an official crawl yet. Still scooting.
He's also officially a menace. Pulling over my lamp, pulling books off my shelves, sticking everything in his mouth. But he's still adorable as ever.
And I think that's a wrap. All caught up...for a minute.
