Sidewalk Chalk

This fall has been absolutely beautiful in Washington. We have had a ton of sunshine, much more than I can remember for the past few years, and the leaves have been beautiful as a result of it. The kids have also been able to do a lot more outside play then usual, which is nice for them and for the moms. :) Of course, this week we have had torrential rain, but you can't really complain after the beautiful weeks we had before!

During the week of Halloween the kids had early release at 11:30 every day to accommodate parent/teacher conferences in the afternoons. This, coupled with the sun, gave everyone in our cul-de-sac a lot of time for creativity. The day before Halloween Lynnae and her friend Courtney wanted to go outside and use some sidewalk chalk. We had a whole bucket that we had barely touched from the summer... so I handed it over to them. As soon as they started, the rest of the kids in the cul-de-sac came out to join them. Within two hours our street had some of the most coverage in chalk that I have ever seen! They used over half of the chalk and had so much fun doing it.

The rain came the next day, but it took 2 days for the chalk to fade away. It was a really fun day for everyone on the street, and it was fun for me to see them out there again like they were during the summer!

October Food Crafts

We had a lot of fun during October this year! We didn’t just make paper and nature crafts, we also did a couple of food crafts.

Near the beginning of the month we made caramel apples. I decided to do it the long way and bought a bag of caramel, (instead of the wraps.) We had a lot of fun unwrapping all of the caramel... It was a race between Andy and Lynnae, Andy won. Cooking the caramel was another matter. I did not realize how messy it would be and how difficult it would be to clean it up! So, I hope the kids enjoyed caramel apples this year because we will probably not be making them this way again... From now on it is the caramel wraps for us!

Then during Halloween week we made sugar cookies in the shapes of a pumpkin, witch, ghost, witches hat, haunted house, and cat. Charlie and Lynnae each got to decide which cookies they wanted to cut and push them into the rolled dough. (I am saving the rolling out of the dough for Christmas... I thought we would just start with letting them cut it!) They both did really good. When we frosted them we made purple, orange and white frosting. We also used candy corn and gummy worms to decorate them. I was actually very surprised at how good Charlie did on this... All of his cookies were very symmetrical. Lynnae also did a good job, although we have more work to do in learning how to spread the frosting!

All of our cookies

Lynnae's cookies

Charlie's cookies

Pumpkin Carving at Home

Finally, after all of that pumpkin hunting and buying, we were ready to carve our own pumpkins at home! The Monday before Halloween we decided to devote the evening to our carving. Lynnae and Charlie were very excited! I was wondering how much of a mess this was going to be...

We started by cutting off the tops and scooping out the innards. Lynnae was having a hard time figuring out how to separate the seeds from the strings, so we had to help her with that!

Andy and I chose the fast and easy method for carving our pumpkins... We used templates! Lynnae really wanted her name on her pumpkin and we decided to let her do it all herself. So she drew her name and then cut it out without our help. We were actually very impressed with how well she did, for an 8 year old we weren’t sure if it would turn out. The big gaping hole under her name is supposed to be a mouth. That one threw me into fits of laughter. Charlie colored his pumpkin, and had a great time doing it! We were all laughing and having fun all night.



The next day I made pumpkin seeds. Since I watch my sodium, I try to stay between 1600-2000 ml a day, and most pumpkin seeds are drenched in salt... I searched for a pumpkin seed recipe that would be different. I found one on allrecipes.com that was really good, and a third of the sodium in most pumpkin seeds. First I roasted the seeds in the oven, then I pulled them out and fried them in olive oil and sugar. Finally, I tossed them in a mix of sugar, pumpkin pie spice, and a tiny bit of salt. (I cut the salt in the recipe in half to reduce it even more.) They were very tasty!!! I thought they were very similar to kettle corn.

This year was so much fun that I am already looking forward to pumpkin carving next year. And the mess was not too bad!

Pumpkin Carving Party 2008

Did I mention that neither Lynnae nor Charlie had ever been to a pumpkin patch before this year? They also had not contributed to carving in the past. In the words of Lynnae, “I ooooonlyyyyyy got to watch!!!”

This year was extra special for her because we actually got to go to two pumpkin patches. We went to The Farm with the Boschees, and then a week later we attended a Pumpkin Carving Party at our friend’s the Stutzmans. This pumpkin carving party is a huge deal... It starts with appetizers, leads into a trip to a pumpkin patch where everyone chooses their pumpkins, then goes into an early dinner. But that’s not all... It then goes into pumpkin carving itself and wraps up with dessert. They had a pretty big crowd this year!


We decided to pick out one pumpkin at the party to be our family pumpkin. Andy got the idea to find a nice green one and carve it upside down to look like an alien head... I think it turned out pretty good! (Although Lynnae has incessantly called it scary ever since that night.)


The kids had a lot of fun, they really, really like the Stutzmans and the Zaniewskis... who were also there. Lynnae also enjoyed spending time with Candice's parents, who were in town visiting.

Here are a couple of pictures from the pumpkin patch, I just wish I could include ones of Charlie and Lynnae!



This trip concluded our pumpkin patch visits for the year. but we still had four pumpkins to carve from the week before...

The Farm 2008 - Pumpkin Patch #1

Can I tell you how nice it is to have some time to be at the computer now that the Halloween activities are over? Tonight we start in on Thanksgiving... hopefully it will be a little more contained!

Finally, we get to some pumpkins! As I mentioned earlier, in the Sit and Spin post, we reignited an old tradition with the Boschee family this year... An annual trip to the pumpkin patch. The Boschees made the long drive up to Snohomish and we all went to The Farm, which is a neat pumpkin patch just outside of downtown Snohomish on the side of the Snohomish river. The Farm has everything you could want in a pumpkin patch... A Washington State corn maze (that actually has our interstates and things carved out,) a hay maze for little kids, a petting zoo, a kids play area, hay rides, a putting course, a restaurant, food stands – including the important kettle corn, and I’m sure there is more that I am not thinking about.

The Farm's "Directory"

When we got there we decided to wander around for awhile. The kids saw the petting zoo right away, and they needed to spend some time there! There were goats, puppies, kittens, and lots of other animals to look at. Then we headed over to a fishing place they had set up, but we decided just to watch that one. After wandering some more and checking out the gift shop we finally headed over to the pumpkins.

Madison petting a goat!

It was some work to find a wheelbarrow, but when a family that was leaving gave us theirs, Madison and Lynnae had fun trying to steer it. Once we got into the actual field they gave up, and Jeff and Andy took turns maneuvering it around. Charlie found his pumpkin right away, showing a determination to get it off the ground. I was surprised when he actually was able to lift it up and hand it to Andy! Then I found mine, Andy’s was right behind... But Madison and Lynnae were being very picky. They really wanted to find the biggest, most perfectly round and orange pumpkins that they could. This was slightly an issue because we went early in the season and many of the pumpkins were still green. They finally found theirs, and Lynnae actually managed to get her monstrous pumpkin off the ground too. She held it just long enough to take pictures and then started saying really fast... “Take it, take it, I can’t hold it!” So we took it out of her hands and added it to the wheelbarrow. Once the Boschees found all of their pumpkins too we headed back out... Muddier and ready for dinner!

Andy's Find

Before leaving we actually stopped to take some pictures of the families... So once we can get this adoption finalized, I will be able to change our main picture to one of the entire family!

The next week we headed to the Stutzmans’ Annual Pumpkin Carving Party and picked out one last pumpkin from another patch for the whole family... Stay tuned!

The view from the Farm

Countdown to Halloween Paper Chains

Early in October we made paper chains out of orange and black construction paper as a Family Home Evening activity. I pulled out some scrapbooking paper and we cut out designs to decorate paper plates... Each of the kids had a lot of fun with the plates! Then we attached the chains to the plates and hung them up above our breakfast nook to rip off one chain per day. Eventually I had to move them over to our back door because they were too high up to be reached. The kids really enjoyed watching the chains disappear, even though it took Charlie about half of the month to learn how to gently tear only one chain each day.


On Halloween we were down to just one chain left, and both of the kids were really excited! We are planning to do paper chains for Christmas as well!

Skeletons: A Third Grade Tradition

Every year 3rd grade students at our elementary school spend the first quarter learning about bones. Each week they learn about the function of at least one bone, and then trace and cut it out of lightweight cardboard paper. They keep the bones in a folder until it is time to assemble their full skeletons. As far as anyone seems to know, this is a tradition that goes back to the opening of the school in the early 1990’s.

Lynnae’s third grade class was fast at work during the last two weeks to make sure all their bones were cut out. They even spent last Wednesday working only on Science to get it done! The teacher asked the volunteer parents to come in and help with the assembly on Halloween. Of course, I wouldn’t miss it... And I brought Charlie along for the fun too.

It was mass pandemonium. The desks were moved to the outsides of the room, and in the middle of the class 20 children had bones spread out all around them... As they learned how to attach the breast bone to the ribs, slide the vertebrae in, attach the neck bone and cocyx, the head and the pelvis, and on and on... Six parents and one teacher rushed from child to child to try to help them figure out how to align shoulder bones or help cut out missing bones. Finally, the project was done and it was recess time. I grabbed my camera with about half the kids still in the class and snapped a few pictures.

The kids had so much fun, and Mr. Bones proudly took his spot on the window by our front door to greet the trick or treaters that night. At least one set recognized that we must have a third grader in the house!