Leaf Olympics

We have some nice large trees in our yard. They drop lots and lots of leaves. In the fall I got my children excited to help me clean them up by enthusiastically announcing THE LEAF OLYMPICS!! I thought it was a rather clever idea.

Our first event was not captured on film and was also not very successful. We tipped our green trash bin on its side and tried to blow the leaves directly into it using the leaf blower. It didn't really work. It really just made them fly up in the air. Still, everyone got a turn clearing the driveway and the rocks by our sidewalk with the leaf blower. Once they were in the gutter we used rakes and brooms to get them in the bin.

The next event was much more fun: leaf hurdles Really, it just involved raking the leaves into long parallel piles so that the kids could run and jump over them. This was a great success.

And, with only minimal grumbling (compared to some other clean-up-the-yard attempts), everyone stuck around to help when the athletic competition was complete. We got all the leaves into the bin and had a nice clean yard.

Good thinking, Mom.

P.S. Notice the autumn wardrobe. It was the first week of November. Good thing those leaves were falling, or we might have assumed it was still summer.

OCD? Nah!

When she got started, I was a little worried that Holly was a bit OCD. But, as you can see, she started mixing up the colors a little.

 Cute, funny girl.

Sailing Away

Damon's been working on a new project, and it required the purchase of a remote-controlled sailboat.  Yes, required. I try not to get in the way. He does dishes. He bakes bread. He comes home from work at a very decent hour. And, as he reminds me, he "could be out drinking in some bar." So, if he wants to buy a sailboat every once in awhile, I'll be supportive.* 

The first Saturday in November was a lovely day with a light breeze, so he found a local park with a lake and we sent the boat out on its maiden McMillan voyage. (Maiden for McMillans since it is a used boat.)

Everyone got a turn steering.

We liked chasing the ducks.

After my turn (no photo of Mom, of course), I enjoyed sitting on a blanket on the shore, but the kids started wading in that chilly water. Adah didn't stop until she had built a little stick-and-rock fortress and was wet up to her bum.

Gunnar was pretty well soaked up to his waist, I believe. 

I don't know when I'll finally learn that if we go visit a body of water, my children WILL get wet. I should just bring extra clothes, no matter how cold it is or what other activities are on the agenda. They'll get wet.  I wasn't too happy about it, but they didn't mind, so I guess I shouldn't have either. I'm trying to mellow out and go with the flow...of water.

*If you really want to know more about Damon's latest endeavor, email or call him and ask about the Kinticky Project.

Halloween Costumes, Carnivals, and Candy

We had several opportunities to dress up for Halloween this year as there were parties at the children's school AND at our church. Add that to Halloween night and a grown-ups-only party another night, and we were just a bunch of Halloween party animals....

Well, there were two animals. One tiger:

And one pink kitty:

There was also one paper doll,

one hula dancer,

and a witch.

Damon finally and reluctantly agreed to wear a costume. He donned Adah's jellyfish hat from last year. It didn't seem to slow him down in the Jedi training course at our church Halloween carnival. He and Gunnar loved their "light saber" fight.

All the kids loved "bobbing" for donuts.

Adah got very good at it. She could pretty much just grab on and then wiggle the donut into her mouth all in one piece. I hate to think how many donuts she must have eaten to master that trick.

This was probably my favorite costume. You have to have seen the movie Cast Away for this excellent couple costume to make sense. 

After dinner and games inside the church, there was a Trunk-or-Treat in the parking lot where the kids got quite a haul of candy, resulting in this first round of floor candy sorting and swapping.

Round 2 came several nights later on the actual night of Halloween. Holly was tired out before the other kids were ready to finish, so she had her own sorting session in the living room with me while Damon finished Trick-or-Treating with the other kids. After having him away in Hawaii for Halloween last year, I was so happy to have him at home to help with costumes and Trick-or-Treating. (It also helped that I only had to attend one school's Halloween costume parade this year.)

Here are the girls with one of Adah's friends, who joined them for Trick-or-Treating. Gunnar was across the street at the neighbors' house for a little party at this point. I stayed home listening to Pandora's Halloween Family radio station and answering the door, while Damon and the kids Trick-or-Treated through the neighborhood, running into friends here and there. After last year's bust of a neighborhood Trick-or-Treating experience, this year was so much more fun.

Our final costume occasion was for an "After Life" post-Halloween party (on November 2nd). It was just for adults and "undead" dress was encouraged. Damon and I have fun coming up with clever costumes, and the scary part of Halloween has never really been our thing, so we didn't really want to dress up as zombies to go to this party. So....we got a little creative. Mummies are dead. Egyptians sometimes mummified their cats. 

Hence, Egyptian Cat Mummies:

Most of the people at the party got it...eventually. It usually took a little guessing. We thought our costumes were pretty great. Way more fun than zombies.

Happy Halloween!---just two months late.

Halloween Prep

Jack-o-Lantern Time!

We considered going to a pumpkin patch one weekend, but in our Silicon Valley location, that would have involved a bit of a drive. Instead we opted for a lazy Saturday afternoon at home and supermarket pumpkins.

Holly chose the "Cinderella" variety and the inside stuff stained our hands orange!

Maggie was a very serious pumpkin carver. She attempted a spider web and spider, but it didn't turn out as she wanted. You can see the rejected design in this photo as she works on the new Mike Wazowski (from Monsters Inc.) on the other side.

I don't have very many Halloween decorations--a few pumpkins, a witch, a cross stitch--so Gunnar took it upon himself to add to the decor. He drew a whole bunch of Halloween-themed pictures and hung his "museum" on the mantle. 

A Jack-o-Lantern and Frankenstein:

A black cat and a spider hanging from its web:

A ghost (saying "boo") and a gravestone:

A skeleton and his name decorated with spider webs:

Gunnar did such a great job on his drawings, and I thought it was so funny to see how he came up with all of the things to draw. He really covered the subject matter well, don't you think?

Paper Airplane Target Practice

We brought back one of our favorite family night activities a little while ago. Basically, everyone makes a paper airplane (little ones get help) and then gets one minute to throw their plane into the tunnel as many times as they can.

What follows is 6 minutes of crazy airplane throwing and retrieving and lots of laughing!

 

 

At least Holly kept her feet behind the line.