The Autumn Blur

As I write, its November 1st!! ...Does anyone else feel like you blinked and the year was all but gone? My kids are in the kitchen, stuffing their mouths with Halloween candy. (and after the timer goes off, the candy goes bye-bye and it doesn't return!) .....anyway, its our "day off" in the week, so I have a few minutes to sit down and breathe. I've got so many great pictures of all the fun we had this month, it was time to blog. (On time, for once! lol) So, let us begin......

A fellow homeschooling mama organized a trip to the local fire hall at the beginning of October. (I feel that if I were a more aware mother/teacher I would have already known that Oct was fire safety month...oh, well.)  There was quite a large group there that day, but since I've not asked permission from fellow moms, you'll only see my kiddos throughout this post...

The firehouse tour was a lot of fun... my elephants really enjoyed themselves.

As I mentioned earlier, we have a "day off" once a week. With Daddy Elephant's new work schedule, Thursdays are now like our Saturdays. We spend the whole day together, doing something as a family. One of our Thurs activities this month was our annual "Leaf Walk". We are blessed to live in a beautiful park of the country, with some great local parks. Autumn is my favorite season, so every chance I get to be outside soaking it in, I'm game! Here we are on our walk...enjoy the wonderful fall scenery!

 

I love the above picture...sweet memory for me. :)

And these following pictures....well, I just want to freeze these moments in time. Why can't my elephants just stay this age? So delightful!

 

What did we do with all the pretty leaves we collected? Crafts, of course!! I showed the kid mulitple things we could do using leaves and pinecones. Then, we decorated our dining area for the fall!

 

 

We also got the chance to go to a corn maze/fall festival with some great friends....the kids had a great time!

 

 

We tried out trick-or-treating for the first time this year... our first stop was Grandma and Palpa's house!

 

The elephants had some snacks, and photo ops of their costumes before we headed out to gather loot...

 

 

(Yes, it was chilly, and Pink Elephant is getting over an illness, so we had to incorporate a hood into the fairy princess costume!)

 

Of course we balanced out all the fun of October with some learning....

Our Daniel Boone craft while we studied KY was a coon-skin cap!

 

 

Its hard to believe that Thanksgiving and Christmas are right around the corner!  Happy Autumn, from our herd to yours!

 

 

 

 

Been A While? What We've Been Up To!

Okay, I know its been MONTHS since I blogged. But I made the choice a long time ago that what we do day to day is more important than any of my "extra" activities....so when school started up with full force on August 1st, we jumped right in, and E.T. sat quietly waiting to be updated.  What have we been up to? PLENTY! Rather than write paragraph after paragraph reviewing our summer segway into fall, I thought pics with brief captions would be more fun! So, here we go.....enjoy our snapshots of life here in the herd!

First Day Photo Shoot...we are real fancy round here!

With the on-set of rainy fall weather, we made certain to take advantage of glorious puddles! Look at P.E.'s face...so sweet!

 

We've made sure to have plenty of goofy fun.... 

We HAVE done lots of educational things...like studying the Water Cycle. (Making a cloud rain experiment I found on Pinterest!)

 

We had a "Johnny Appleseed Day" and made apple pies!

We played "Apple Tree Math" (Thanks again, Pinterest!!)



"Pink Elephant Appleseed"

"Blue Elephant Appleseed"

Proof that we do get down to business and push some pencils! ....Just in a fun format! :)

And there you have it.....our herd doing our thing! Thanks for stopping by! :)

 

Water for Elephants

My Blue Elephant is a fish. And I realize that unless you understand the theme of this blog (....its pretty obvious, people!) then that first sentence may sound a bit odd.

This summer, my BE's love of the water has intensified to the highest level! He wants to be in the water every day, all day long. We don't have more than the standard Wal-mart pool, so its the grandparents' awesome pool to the rescue! B.E. loves to do cannon balls, splash wars, and play "Mean Squid" with Mama and Grandma. He never wants to take a break, even when he's drooping from exhaustion.
I thought it only right to monopolize on his love of the water by signing him up for "official" swim lessons.

Today was his first day! (Waiting for the lesson to begin.)

I was extremely proud of the great job he did today. The teacher asked "Who knows how to float?" BE's hand shot up. "I DO!!!" and showed them how its done, just like a pro.

When the class was over, Blue Elephant looked a little down. Come to find out he was upset that they didn't learn the backstroke already!! He perked right up after I explained that we would be coming back for the rest of the week, and that yes, one day he WILL learn how to do the backstroke! :)

Just keep swimming, Blue Elephant....just keep swimming!