Mia's Greek/Roman God Family Tree

Mia's craft project for history this week was to make a family tree for the Greek/Roman Gods and Goddesses. She chose a branch from the backyard. Luckily for her, the recent snow storm left quite a few big fallen branches in it's path. She then had the idea to spray paint it gold before collecting dirt to fill this pitcher we found at a thrift shop for her birthday party. Next, she chose a leaf to trace and cut out 23 times for the tree. She wrote the name of each God on each leaf and then we hot glued them onto the tree descending from most important to least important. She loved working on it and in the end Lennon helped with the glueing. It's so festive and fall looking too, so we're going to keep it up for a while!

Strawbery Banke Museum

On Tuesday we went on a field trip with a home school group to a museum we had been to before called Strawbery Banke in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. We got to do a special program focusing on how Thanksgiving has changed over the years. The kids got to help with kitchen chores that kids their ages would have been responsible for in the 1700's, 1800's and early 1900's. They had a blast despite the fact that Lennon was on his way to being sick. We didn't know that yet.

Each of the kids made their own corn husk doll to bring home.

Lennon was fascinated by this old fashioned spit turning machine which would have been new fangled in it's day.

All the kids took turns doing various kitchen tasks including grating cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves, stringing beans, weighing different ingredients on a scale and grinding corn with a mortar and pestle.

Right at the beginning Lennon found a very exciting piece of history for him - These water pipes from the early 1800's. He and his friend Luca had fun talking to each other through the pipes.

A bit out of order, here is a picture of the kids hard at work in the kitchen. They actually strung the beans on string with a sewing needle.

Among other activities of the day, they had the kids complete a vin diagram, watched a short video on the history of Thanksgiving, talked about some of the myths surrounding the origin of the holiday and focused on what the real meaning is of the holiday. Throughout the day they emphasized that we are celebrating being thankful for what we have and the ability to share any excess with others. It was a great day, and we even made it home in time for Lennon to go to school and Mia and Jaeda went to choir.

Thanksgiving Collage

Apparently it is a tradition at Lennon's preschool to send home a blank cut out of a turkey to each family in November. Our assignment is to decorate it in whatever way we want to, then return it to the school to decorate their halls for November. I suggested we do a collage and Lennon added that we should choose colors to make the turkey look like the colors of a real turkey. So, Shelby and I cut out a bunch of pictures for the kids to choose from and let them go to town cutting and pasting them wherever they wanted. The end result is really cute. They did a great job and had a lot of fun. They ended up making another collage each later in the morning.

Field Trip and Play Date

This past Tuesday I got to go with Lennon's class on their walking field trip to the Fire Department that is just across from the school. It was originally just his class, but one of the 3's classes had low attendance so they ended up joining us too. It was really fun to see Lennon in "class mode." He was very attentive although a little disappointed because we had such an awesome tour of a fire station in Plano last year and this didn't quite meet his standards.

Luckily, since Shelby's office is walking distance to our house, I was able to leave Mia home for her piano lesson and then Shelby took a late lunch, picked Mia up after her piano lesson and dropped her off at choir practice. Then he brought the car back to his office where I met him when I was done with Lennon's field trip and I went off to pick Mia up from choir and then dash back to Stoneham to pick Lennon up from pre school. It was bit crazy, but it worked.

Another somewhat crazy day. It started with a friend invited us to Drumlin Farm for a little morning play date. Then Mia decided she didn't want to go. Claire was home, so I left Mia here doing her school work until Claire had to drop her off at The South School for her gym class. Claire had a swimming class to get her kids to though, so she had to drop Mia off at 10:15 when her gym class didn't start until 10:45. I cleared it with the secretary first and Mia brought a book to read. It ended up taking me an hour to get to the farm when it should have taken only about 20-30 minutes. Then, I lost track of time at the farm and didn't leave until 11:45 when I need to have Lennon to school at 12:30 and Mia was done at gym at 11:30. It ended up only taking us about 20 minutes to get back to the school though and the secretary said Mia was great and just sat reading her book. Lesson learned: Don't plan play dates for mornings when Lennon has school.

Lennon isn't quite in this one, but it's a good shot of his friend Aleric, who "prefers to be called Beaver." These two were made for each other. The little girl is in Aleric's class at The Waldorf school, Ina.

Lennon had begged for a hay ride and I thought I remembered it being $5 or something, but it was only $2, so we did it. He was thrilled.

Lennon always wants his picture taken in any of these cut outs he sees.

Lennon and Aleric, AKA Beaver saying hello to the sow. They had a scale you could step on to tell you what age pig you were. Lennon was a piglet and I...was a finishing pig - ready for market! Pretty funny. Lennon told Mia the story and then said, "so basically, she's dead meat."

After I dropped Lennon off at school and picked Mia up from school, Mia and I whizzed home for a quick lunch before hopping in the car to bring dinner to a friend 45 minutes away who just had a baby. We got there with enough time to hold the baby for 10 minutes before we had to get back in the car and drive the 45 minutes back home with 3 minutes to spare before Lennon's class let out. I figured out I spent somewhere around 3.5 hours in the car today. I am definitely coming down with something and I can't get sick because there is just too much to get done for me to slow down at this point. Gotta go to bed. Good night!

Halloween Palooza

We just had our biggest holiday party yet. I promised the kids this Halloween party originally in lieu of trick or treating, but then after much protest on the part of Mia and the family we usually trick or treat with, I gave in to doing both. The party was deemed a success by everyone who attended. The kids said it was the greatest party ever! We had right around 50 people here and after a record breaking storm blew through this weekend, we were all kind of amazed that anyone showed up at all. The day was beautiful, albeit a little slushy from the melting snow. The weather was great considering the storm. It was around 40 all day, so totally warm enough to be out in the yard and jumping in the bounce house we rented. We set up the bounce house at about 11 and the kids were basically in it the entire day until we made them go to bed around 8:30. They definitely got their exercise today.

Luckily, the downstairs apartment is in between tenants right now, so we were able to use it as the party room. With all the slushy snow, mud and dropped food, I was definitely grateful for the empty apartment.

We were given all these pumpkins at a Stoneham TV thing we went to yesterday because they were leftover, so we set up a pumpkin decorating station at the party for kids to take a rest from the cold.

Jessica came early and she and Lennon used his awesome veggie slicer that he scored at a thrift shop to make some home made baked sweet potato chips

Mia set up a precious little story time area for later in the party when the kids needed some down time. She gathered all the remaining kids and read a few Halloween books to them. It was really cute.

This is the killer bounce house/slide combo we rented for the party. Several people chipped in for the rental so that it wasn't crazy to rent. We were worried that we weren't going to get to use it at all when the weather turned bad yesterday, but it all worked out in the end. The kids were even still sweaty while they were jumping in there. I don't even think any of them wore coats all day.

Shelby-our fire man

We couldn't get ahold of Lennon for this picture, but we were all characters from The Golden Compass. Shelby's costume cost a whopping $12. Thank you Salvation Army. Mine is a reused Homecoming dress with $5 worth of clearance fabric safety pinned on. Shelby is Lee Scorsby and I am Serafina Pekkala. Lennon's costume picture is on Facebook. Mia wore several costume over the course of the day.

We finished cleaning up right around 9:30 and this is all that is left of the carnage from the party. Not too shabby.

A Halloween Winter Wonderland

We got a huge winter storm just blow through, right in the middle of fall. The kids -and I-are in HEAVEN! I've been listening the Christmas music all morning while the kids played in the snow. They woke up and were sooo excited! Mia and Lennon dressed Mia's American Girl dolls in their winter gear and then came down stairs to decorate the cups for our party tonight. As soon as I was up they geared up and went outside to sled and build snowmen.

Goofballs to the core.

There are tons of fallen limbs, but luckily we didn't lose anything devastating. We very briefly lost power during the night, but all was well by this morning.

While the kids were out playing in the snow, I baked some muffins at Lennon's request. I used the last of some fresh pumpkin we cooked ourselves and filled them with raspberry jam that Mia got from a farmer's market in Vermont recently. They are pretty delicious! Especially along with the Trader Joe's Pumpkin Spice coffee I made this morning.

New Haircut and Halloween Happenings

Last night we went to this great event at The Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary called Halloween Happenings. They start you out in the barn with crafts, games and activities. The kids did leaf rubbings, played bingo and fishing for prizes and made masks. They also learned a bit about native animals. When our group was called we went on a one hour hike in the forest - in the dark! Along the way, we came across several "animals" - costumed characters who told us all about their habitat and life cycle as well as lots of other interesting facts. We even encountered a rotting tree. At the end of the hike there was a booth with cider, cupcakes and a bonfire. There were also tons and tons of really intricately carved jack o lanterns.

It was around 30 degrees last night, so Mia dressed in her Hermione costume to stay warm. The woman who carved this pumpkin said it took her all day. Pretty awesome!

Surprisingly, this is all the hair he lost. Sadly, it was pretty much all of the curls.

I still need to even up the back a bit, but overall I think I did a pretty good job. It should be a lot easier to take care of for the winter now.