Fall Fun

Fall means back-to-school routine. We sort of school year round, but we always tweak our schedule and approach every Fall and dive into the fun stuff we come up with. This is true of our family and our homeschool group.

So, this past Monday was a particularly full one. This is uncharacteristic for us, since we're adamantly opposed to "over programming." It stresses me out.

Thing is, thankfully with homeschooling, we are able to do so much with our days that our evenings can be spent at home as a family.

And around here, there are so many classes you can take during the day (instruments, Tae Kwan Do, YMCA, ice skating, etc.) as well as so many classes and clubs through our homeschool group (art class, writers' group, knitting group, Legos group, newspaper club, etc.), that we can do so many neat things without feeling like we're always on the go and not having a moment to breathe. It's nice.

So, our main homeschool group day is Friday--that's the day we do whatever class or field trip we're doing for that week, then we have lunch, and then we all go to the YMCA for swimming and sports in the gym.

On some Mondays (mostly 1st and 3rd), we have additional fun stuff we do. This past Monday was a full one.

We did some school stuff in the morning.
10-11am Art Class taught by Miss Jenny (she's great!)
11-noon Writers' Group (we made mini-books; so fun!)
Noon Rendezvous lunch with Mark
1-3pm Knitting Group and Lego Club
5:00 Dinner as a family
5:30-6:30 Group Violin (Suzuki)
7pm Individual Violin Lesson

Also, I attended a wonderful meditation class from 7-8.

Full Fall day. But oh so fun! I got pictures of a lot of it, but they're a bit fuzzy.


And what's fall without good fall food?

I mentioned this on Facebook, but it bears repeating:

One cool, rainy Saturday, we made these:

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Streusel Muffins
They were DELICIOUS!
And kind of healthy, too (use applesauce instead of oil).
Recipe here

We also made homemade gnocchi with creamy saffron shrimp and caramelized onions and Italian sausage from our home-grown pig! Yum.

We also got our barn painted (it looks fabulous, by the way). As promised, here is a picture of the man who has been working on it:



We've made some fall crafts:

Those are painted acorns--then we make jack-o-lantern faces on them

The kids decided to donate some of their money to help endangered animals, so they each sent in donations to the World Wildlife Federation and they got these T-shirts as a thank you!


The kids also got a fun surprise in the mail from Vavó:

Posing for a picture

Thing 2's idea to take a picture with a look of "WOW!"
from seeing what's inside the card

Thing 1 also got to attend something really neat . . . An American Girl Night!!

10 Girls and their dolls (one girl not pictured)
enjoyed a fun evening of American Doll fun!

Thing 1 with her Samantha Doll
Each girl brought something representative of her doll's era
SUCH cute gingerbread cookies!

Thing 2 had a great time hanging out with the boys
and playing Bakugan and Yu-Gi-Oh!

No pictures of us, but I had fun hanging out with the Moms and Mark had fun watching a Phillies game while hanging out with the Dad of the hosting family. Fun night for all!

And here is picturesque fall--we were sitting down to dinner and looked out our back patio door and saw this and had to take a picture:

We love where we live!

And what's Fall without a visit to a pumpkin patch? Our homeschool group did a field trip to a local farm this past week and it was really fun!

Buddies -- on a hayride

Friends -- on a hayride

A couple that is looking a lot alike (we always have to some extent; back in our dating years, people would look at pictures of us and ask if we're brother and sister. Um, yeah, no)
-- also on a hayride

Listening to the farmer talk about all the different kinds
of pumpkins and gourds

We picked these from the pumpkin patch!

Thing 1 and her good friend navigate the corn maze

Good buddies navigate the corn maze

We found one of the stations!

Sampling the cider

Boys with their pumpkins

Yay! Toothless Grins!

After the field trip, our crew (and many others) met at the YMCA for swimming and street hockey (my hockey pics are a bit blurry, but here are some pool pics):

Friends
Friends

Sibling strength and love :)