up to date!

This one is more pictures, less writing. Back at the beginning of October we drove out to Wolfville with some friends to pick apples and check out the pumpkins, corn maze, and such.  It was a great day and we brought home four new pumpkins to gut out for Halloween. The story alluded to in my pic that had the finished products is this:

The 30th of October rolled around and after school the boys were going to start gutting and carving their pumpkins. I cleared the table, laid out the garbage bags to catch the mess, got tools and bowls for various muck and seeds, then I cut the hole in the tops for the boys to clean them.  They already had a few ideas for what they wanted to put on them, so I asked them to draw it out. They took a sharpie and started drawing on their pumpkins (cue my inner screams that they needed to figure it out on paper first or they'd have black marks all over their gourds!!!) Sergeant drew a Tree Rex Skylander, Smarty wanted his to look like a clone trooper mask. I basically left his design as it was, since he actually did an alright job of it.  But I had to explain to Sergeant how cutting worked. It was like cutting out paper. You can't cut out a circle for a face and expect the eyes to just ... be there.  So I got him to take the paper and he decided on a different design to cut. And he was really happy with it! 

Next the girls were called up for theirs, but when we went outside to bring their squash in we discovered that they were rotting.  Yup. Rotting pumpkins the evening before Halloween.  I should mention that this happened to us last year too. But it was Sergeant's pumpkin and mommy tried 5 stores before finding something remotely suitable. This year Daddy took to the roads, trying store after store. Texting me with update after update. There. Were, No. Pumpkins. I got onto the computer, searched Reddit for info on anywhere that might still have some left.  Made a couple phone calls and texted Hubby. There were some pumpkins left all the way across the city, but they were selling pretty quickly. Off he went and came home to make two little girls happy :) But their carving would happen the next morning.

Smarty has been taking Cello lessons and had his first recital a couple weeks ago. He did so well! And he's been practicing and loves using his bow :)

 The kids saw Santa at a Unit Christmas party a couple weekends ago. Something we discovered last year is that Monkey is afraid of Santa. She would not go to him last year at all. So when he came in this year, she clung to Daddy and scowled at him. When Daddy said that she wouldn't get a gift unless she went to the big guy in red, she hopped right down and sat with her siblings.  All three of the older ones answered Santa's question "Have you been good this year?"with a resounding "Yes". Monkey got the same question and, bless her heart, she answered very very honestly with "Not really." 

Our house became very very festive November 22 this year. Hubby had a busy Sunday of services and such so the kids and I brought up some boxes from the basement and started setting things up. Nativity scenes, sparkly baubles, winterscape candles. Then the tree. I was hands off for the tree, only putting it together and fluffing the branches. 

I confess, I did help rearrange the garland, even though now you can't tell...But the children kept busy and didn't fight! 

And the boys made sure that there were ornaments on the very bottom of the tree too. There was only one casualty this year. One of my glass nativities that hangs in the tree fell and shattered within minutes, but I'm counting that lucky so far. 

Last week was crazy for school. They had Tuesday and Thursday off. Happily we were able to have much needed pajama days. And played with Lego so much! Both the little Lego and the Megablocks. They all (and it really was all four of them) played so well together. Sorting and building, playing with the characters. 

 

We also got our yearly Perogs made. Yummy yummy bacon filled buns!!

And the school Christmas Concert was this week too. They did so well, sang loud and with the group, All dressed up and shiny. They really are growing way too fast!

Okay. That was way more writing than I anticipated. ;) But I think that more or less brings thimgs up to date!