October
started with a visit from Granny and the grand entrance of the beautiful crisp
Fall weather. The trip highlight was
having friends over for the first campfire of the season and dining on Granny's
super delicious chili, cornbread, and fried pies.
We
went camping at Guadalupe
River State
Park with the Ruschs, Ericksons, and cousin
Aaron. On the drive there we were
entertained by an authentic Ranchero showing off his lasso tricks while his gas
was pumping. We were a pump over
watching with big grins. It was so
awesome and somehow made my Texas
life more complete..... Definitely crazy
camping weather; sometimes muggy, overcast, and humid, sometimes raining, and
sometimes perfect! Caleb had a great
first day camping and he was super excited that we let him stay up with the
adults by the campfire as late as he wanted for the first time ever. Sadly, he came down with a cold the second
day and was a big pile of mopey sadness.
We tried to express that you can have a good attitude even while you
feel sick, but he just couldn’t kick the floppy body language and frowny face;
with the exception of the couple rounds of the Settlers of Catan board game he
got to play with the grown ups. He loved
that and it was enough to distract him from feeling bad. So Caleb and Jon had to sit out on our big
river float, which was a bummer. Ben and
I really loved our first river float. The
adults were outnumbered by small children, each on their own floatation
devices. It was interesting keeping
track of all the kids, but we managed. I
mostly kept track of my Ben. I was in my
tube with my legs hooked over onto Ben’s tube.
He grabbed my feet to doubly make sure he didn’t float away. He was nervous, but excited. He did great until we got to the small rapids
section of the river. He was not okay
with that. We had to get out while I
tried to talk him into trying it with me.
I decided, kind of stupidly, to squish Ben’s partially deflated tube
into the center hole of my tube. The
beginnings of the currents were very shallow and I was trying to increase our
buoyancy so we didn’t have to combat scraping our behinds up on all the rocks,
while simultaneously trying to keep Ben having fun. I sat him on my lap for us to brave the
rapids together in my double tube invention.
Our tubes totally tipped and dumped me on top of Ben. The currents + the rocks + a scared Ben + a
smashed Ben under a Mom = a terrified, bleeding, scraped up Ben. Epic Mom fail! So, while the rest of the group played in the
rapids for the next hour and half, Ben and I sat on the side lines. But, just about the time we were all ready to
leave, I finally got Ben to try the rapids.
It helped a lot that he had been watching all the other kids going down
the shoot over and over and over. Also,
the men delved into their inner child and went nuts rearranging the boulders to
make the most ideal rapids shoot possible.
This is really the reason that Ben finally felt comfortable enough to
brave the rapids. Yay Ben and yay
Justin, Jay, and Aaron! Once Ben got
going, he really loved the rapids. I
loved it too. I’ve never done anything
like that before and it was a blast! I
was so bummed that Caleb and Jon missed out.
We brought the gang all back the next afternoon though. I forced Caleb to try the rapids a couple
times, but he just didn’t feel good enough to be able to enjoy it. He spent most of his time sitting
around. At least he was sitting around
in gorgeous scenery. We set up a table in
the shallow rocks and the group played another round of Settlers of Catan,
which brightened up Caleb’s afternoon. I
spent some lovely time with my camping chair set up in the middle of the river
sunning myself after a few chilly rides down the rapids. It was so perfect.
One
day Ben’s Friday school needed me to volunteer as the teacher's assistant. Each
parent has to volunteer twice throughout the school year, but since we started
a little late, all the spots had been filled.
I’m the backup if someone has to cancel.
It was a fun and random day. I
had all the art classes. It was great seeing what Ben does in school because I
haven’t been able to get much info out of him when I pick him up from
school. Really, hardly anything at all;
and no work had been sent home with him either.
I was getting very curious. It
was exciting to see what art projects he’s been working on and what he is like
in the school setting! He is very cute,
in case you were wondering, although I know I’m partial. It was a great day, but I was running on low
because Caleb had been sick since our camping trip and I’ve had to get up a lot
during the previous few nights to help him.
That particular night I missed many hours of sleep.
I
finally figured out a plan for Caleb’s English curriculum that works for
us. It’s a bit of this and that. I found some stuff in the education store in
town and some I improvised. Caleb is no
longer doing busy work or using curriculum that doesn’t fit his learning styles
– he’s learning and that makes me glad.
Near
the end of the month we had a fantastic Saturday; the best day! We got a ton done in the house, Jon repaired his
lathe machine, Caleb and Jon began making a new board game, Quoridor, Jon
taught Ben how to play catch, and we even got a game of tennis in! Then we
finished our night off with friends, roasting chili cheese dogs, and eating ice
cream around a campfire in our yard.
Caleb
first saw the game Quoridor in a teacher supply store when I was looking at
homeschool curriculum. He was super interested, so he and Jon made plans to
make their own. I am so amazed and proud
of Caleb and Jon for their creativity, perseverance, and ingenuity. In one weekend they created their design, cut
out the board/walls, turned the game pieces (1 representing each member of our
family - guess who is who in the photos), sanded, and varnished it all. We are so pleased with how fun the game
is! It’s very addictive. Here are the game rules if you’re
interested. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quoridor
We
very much missed our annual Halloween party at Jared & Claudine Allen’s home
and trick-or-treating with the Flores and Jenkins families. We miss our California friends an extra measure at times
like these. But we were still able to
have a good time. A couple days before
Halloween, I asked the boys to look through our costumes, to see what they
could come up with to wear. Caleb just
wasn’t satisfied with anything. He has
exhausted what we have and is too big now to be impressed with anything Target
has to offer. So we brainstormed and
decided to tackle making him into a Lego minifigure, which is the little Lego
person. He really got excited! It took two long days to make the Lego
costume. I knew, yet didn't know, what I was getting myself into. It's amazing
what cardboard, styrofoam sheets, glue, tape, and paint can become. Oh, and
some PVC for the hands. It really
turned out spectacular.
We
joined the Rusch family at their church’s Harvest Festival again this
year. It was pretty much the same as
last year. Caleb turned a lot of heads
as we walked in. Sadly, he quickly
became disoriented, overheated, and wilty in his costume. It was very stifling in the styrofoam head,
with very limited vision, and he couldn’t bend his knees to walk. It turned out to be a very impressive, but
impractical costume. He ended up sitting
out on a lot of the festivities. Meanwhile, Jon and I took Ben around to play
the variety of carnival games for candy.
We dined on chili dogs, cotton candy, and popcorn. We got to check out all kinds of prehistoric
looking creatures, went for a hayride, and Ben got a balloon snake made by the
balloon man. Caleb had fun doing the
costume contest at the end of the night.
Funny enough, there was another little boy in line with him in a
homemade cardboard box costume that he had designed to be a transformer in its
vehicle mode. He was a nice little boy
about Caleb’s age and I was later telling Caleb that he should go find that boy
and try to make friends with him. Caleb
wasn’t interested in doing that of course, but I was internally pining over
this potential friendship. I could just
tell that they would be great friends.
Later
on, one of my new friends showed up. I
was surprised to see her because we know her from Caleb’s robotics class. Her son and Caleb had hit it off in class and
we had been over to her house once for a play date. It turned out that her brother brought her
son Lucas to the Harvest Festival because she had taken her youngest to the
hospital. So the little boy I had been
pining over ended up being Caleb’s friend already! We just didn’t recognize him out of
context! So funny! I have no doubt that these friendships will
grow and grow.
Caleb
was very excited to win the costume contest for his age group. He has now won two years in a row. Last year he had put together a very random
assortment of bits of pieces from our dress up box and called himself Captain
Random.
We're
considering finishing up the details that we ran out of time to add to the Lego
costume, name him, and then photograph him in funny places around town over the
next year. We were cracking ourselves up with our ideas on our drive home. I’m kind of hoping we do, I think we’d have a
good time.
I’ll
end this entry with a super new tasty dessert I discovered. It’s perfect for Fall and I’ve even made it
twice because they are so yummy, and I rarely care about treats. Here you go…welcome to the world of
Pumpkin Whoopie Pies with cream cheese frosting!
Whoopie
Pie Recipe (disregard the frosting portion):
Frosting
Recipe (You need to double the frosting recipe, and although this whole recipe
is tasty, you only need the frosting portion for the pumpkin whoopie pies):
Tip:
When you drop the cookie batter onto the cookie sheets, you need to use a spoon
and swirl them into a flatter and smoother shape. They pretty much stay the
same shape as they are when you put them on the cookie sheet.
