"Hoppy" Halloween!!

According to Brynne, this Halloween was "the best!" I have to say ... it was pretty darned good!

Eli and Brynne looked adorable in their frog costumes.

We were invited to go trick-or-treating "hayride" style with a friend of Brynne's and about 30 others.

When you live in a neighborhood that has houses on one-acre lots, this is the way to go! The wagon was decorated so cute and it was so nice to be transported from house-to-house in style! Thank you Darrell and Dolores and Jessie!

Eli gave up as we passed our house. But Brynne and I kept going strong until the end.

The weather was perfect! And I have never seen so many trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood! It was awesome! Our neighbors even hosted a haunted house.

Dawson ran around the neighborhood with some of his friends. And Kyndal opted for staying home and studying for her Geometry test. It must have been a full moon.

I am now "checking" the candy to make sure it's safe. So far every piece I have eaten has been.

Hope your Halloween was as Hoppin' Fun as ours was!!

Make Like a Tree

and leave

leaves 

and more leaves!!!!!!

  What a fun day in our backyard!

A Prize

Remember my post about Eli running {more than} a 5K at his school's walk-a-thon? Well, as part of that, the kids get their names put into drawings for prizes based on the amount of donations they receive.

Last year I sat with the kids while the prizes were being given. Brynne won a prize. Eli didn't. He was so disappointed! {As were many, many children.} I decided that this year I would pull him out of school the afternoon of the prize assembly and just buy him something myself.

I didn't realize that the assembly was on Wednesday afternoon.

When I picked him up he was all smiles when he told me that he won a prize!

He won a Star Wars toy and was thrilled!

Thank you to all of you who donated! We told him that the biggest prize was how proud we were of him for walking/running all those 23 laps.

I'm not sure if he agreed with that statement or not. He kind of likes the toy!

Tulsa Corn Maize

Happy 14th Birthday Dawson!!!!

For Dawson's birthday he wanted to go to the Tulsa Corn Maize. So we went on Saturday night. Good times!

Drake, Kyndal, Rylee, Dawson and Nick

The Hay Jump

This one announced that she even had hay in her butt.

Lots of fun!

Try to keep up with us, mom!

Real corn .. cool!

The Cow Train .. Moooo!!

Eli loved the Duck Races!

Sure glad Grandma got to come with us!

The Bike Trail ... for "kids" only.

Running on haybales! Race ya!

Pumpkin Patch ~ Part 1

This afternoon Brynne's homeschool coop had a field trip to a pumpkin patch in a neighboring town.

It was so beautiful! The farm has an old, restored farmhouse that brought tears to my eyes. It was my dream home and property.

We picked out pumpkins, went through the hay maze, played a couple of games, looked at farm animals, went on a hayride and heard the story of Percy Pumpkin.

What a great day! The pictures say it all!

Someone in our Family ran their First 5K ...

... and it wasn't me!

On Friday Eli's school had it's annual Walk-a-thon to raise money for his school. It's always such a fun day. Dawson, Brynne and I went up to walk with him, and Rick came up for the last few minutes. Brynne immediately hooked up with her friends and took off to have a great time!

Eli had walked 8 laps in the first hour and then overheard another boy say he had walked 20 laps. Eli said, "I can walk 20 laps!" And off he went. Except he didn't walk ... he ran! He ran 15 more laps, only stopping briefly for {forced} drinks of water.

Each lap was .2 miles. The full 23 laps was 4.6 miles. He ran 3.0 miles straight!

As he was on his last very determined lap, the walk-a-thon was ending and they were taking down the flag posts and the lap counters had all left their spots. This sweet lady waited for Eli to come around the corner to give him his last tally.

He was so excited and proud of himself! His family stood there and cheered and clapped as he finished his last lap.

I told him that his school should be very proud to have him as their student.

Who Would Have Ever Imagined?

If this is the only one of my blogs that you read, you may or may not know that I am homeschooling Dawson. The curriculum we use has the occasional recipe to try. Right from the start Dawson wanted to bake the recipes on his own, with minimal help from me.

He has baked Fig and Date Bread

and Honey Cake with Orange Cream Cheese Frosting

and a week or so ago he said he wanted to try his hand at Coconut Cream Pie. I found a recipe, bought the ingredients and put him to work. I didn't even "look over his shoulder" while he baked it.

Not only was it beautiful, but it was so delicious!!!

Had we not started homeschooling we might never have known that Dawson enjoys baking and that he has a talent for it!

Now he has a plan to cook an entire meal for our family based on his studies of Ancient Greece. At this time he plans to make an appetizer of fruits and cheeses, feta stuffed chicken and greek salad for the main course and lemon custard for dessert. This could really end up working out great for me!!