Flying By Fall

Fall flew by so fast this year. I know we aren't quite to Winter yet, but Thanksgiving is getting so close and it has already snowed here so it feels like Autumn is gone. Here's a bunch of photos from October and November...



Picking out pumpkins at Stein's.

Yummy pumpkin pizza.

The two older girls and I ran in a 5K donut dash at my parent's house. Any race that serves donuts at the finish line is Emma's kind of fun for sure!!

Our gym hosted a meet near the end of October and we had different "team spirit dress up days" throughout the week. All the gymnasts loved it!! This photo was taken on beach day. I wish I would have done a better job taking pics throughout the week, the kids had some pretty crazy attire going on.

And the meet itself...it was Rebekah's first meet ever, she was competing just for the fun of it. She decided Thursday night that she would compete Saturday. She talked to me throughout her entire beam routine, {something a competitor is not supposed to do and something I have never really witnessed in a meet before.} She is so sweet. Our optionals treated this home meet as a practice competition. It went well.

Way too much Halloween candy, most of which is still in our living room.

We love to help rake :-)

And of course, playing in the leaves is just as much fun!!

We had a pretty decent snowfall on November 11th to let us know that Winter is on it's way. The girls can't wait.

This was the first day of tech rehearsal, when among other things Alyssa found out how they would style her hair for each performance of A Christmas Carol. She LOVES it!!

Watermelons are the new Pumpkins

Our autumn weekends have passed us by way too quickly! We did not have the chance to do many of the fun fall things that we usually do. The first weekend in October I got my wisdom teeth pulled, so we did not do a whole lot that weekend, then the following two weekends in a row I coached gymnastics, and I never coach on Saturdays so that threw those weekends for a loop. Finally, during the last weekend of the month, Dave and I were out of town. The Tuesday after we returned, Alyssa started A Christmas Carol rehearsals, so even when we do have a spare moment at home, she's never here, and it seems like we are stuck in this holding pattern, just waiting for her to get home so we don't do anything fun without her. It kind of feels like a Fall Fail on the part of keeping up with little traditions we enjoy. We didn't visit any pumpkin farms or even buy or carve a single pumpkin this year. Oh well, time marches on and there's always next Fall.

The first week of November I still had not harvested our remaining watermelons from over the summer.

But once they were picked and lined up on the back bench, they looked almost as cute as a row of pumpkins sitting out there. And about those pumpkins we tried to grow this summer...yep, that's them in front of the watermelons. What started out looking so promising as beautiful orange blooms with a little pumpkin sprout at the bottom eventually failed to grow.

I debated letting the girls paint the watermelons {I'm pretty sure it's too late to eat them} or even try to carve them. It can't possibly be any harder than scooping out pumpkin guts, right? But it might just be time for them to go to the compost pile. So regardless of my desire to make watermelons the newest autumn trend, I would likely have a very difficult time convincing the rest of the family that watermelons could take the place of pumpkins as an appropriate Thanksgiving sidedish.

A few photos of the girls to serve as a reminder to myself that we really have done something other than run from place to place in the last several weeks...

Dave took the two younger girls to Laternennacht {Night of the Lanterns} while Alyssa was at rehearsal, and I coached.

Rebekah chose some German Dance dresses that she would like to wear. Miss Irene better get busy on these soon if each girl is going to have anything this intricate by GermanFest in July!!

Emma spent a great deal of time working on building a castle for their German Castle unit.

Rebekah has played lots of my little pony lately. Poor Dave was trying to watch an Iowa game less than two feet away from these ponies in all their beautiful glory.

We went to a Hearts and Hands quilting night at school where each family was given a quilt square to design and the squares will be assembled into beautiful blankets and sent to an orphanage in Bolivia. We also were able to design squares with the letters of the alphabet to hang up in one of their classrooms.

Our sweet teenage birthday girl on the morning of her 13th birthday! She was in love with these jeans from Dave's parents. They are a really dark denim wash with a super sparkly sheen to them. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!!

The weather was nice enough today for me to go for jog outside earlier today. What a blessing, and at least a little surprising for the end of November ~ I love to exercise outdoors so much more than inside! So maybe Fall is not gone for good yet...

Happiness

...Is running up, and then rolling down a huge hill with your sisters...

An afternoon spent rock climbing...

Doing fall crafts...

Getting funny face paintings {Emma had a pink squirrel and a black spider, Alyssa chose a bird and an octopus and Rebekah had a ladybug and a pumpkin}...

Visiting the long-lost painted turtle cousin of our runaway pet...

Discovering a "secret" outside door to a "hidden" indoor playland...

Hiking and enjoying the beautiful Fall weather.

A Saturday at the Urban Ecology Center Fall Festival = lots of fun and 3 very happy girls!

Es Schneite!

Yesterday afternoon in Rebekah's classroom, the kids suddenly ran to the window, their tiny voices calling out, "Es schneite, es schneite!" as they marveled at the first snowfall of the year. Rebekah marched out to the hallway where I was helping kids paint a turkey handprint, and as if I needed a translator, she said, "Es scheite! Mommy, it's snowing." Now usually the translation is very helpful, but it was pretty clear what the kids were so excited about in this case. It only lasted a few minutes, but check out what is going on right outside my window as I type this...

Hopefully like yesterday this will be just a short little flurry. I'm not sure that I'm ready for all the cold quite yet! Missing hats and soggy boots, mittens and scarves all over the place ~ yuck.


Some very welcomed visitors in our yard:

During Fall and Winter we often have a family, or a few families of deer that make their way through our neighborhood. We were happy to see them return a couple of weekends ago.



Rebekah promptly scared them off into the bushes on the side of our yard trying to alert Dave of their presence. But we're so glad they're back and hope they stick around for the Winter. It's a very peaceful thing to sit and enjoy a morning cup of coffee while watching the deer in the yard!

Apple Orchard

I love going on school field trips with the girls! It's sometimes exhausting, as this day at the apple orchard was, but always worth it!



Maybe it's just the excitement of being out of the classroom, but I always see a wilder, crazier bunch of kids when we leave school. It's fun!

Today at the apple orchard, we learned about apples, Johnny Appleseed, honey bees, pumpkins, and we were able to pick several different kinds of apples to bring home. Yum!



Peeking at me through the tree as she picks out the best apples! She was so excited.



So proud of her beautiful apples, we baked cinnamon apples for dessert that night and Rebekah was so happy with her contribution to the meal.



A happy group of victorious apple pickers.

Choosing her tiny pumpkin from the garden. The smile Rebekah is showing here she inherited from my mom's side of the family. Pencil thin lips that all but disappear when we smile big is completely a Currie trait.



These chilly little faces don't look like they are up to trouble, do they? Well about five minutes later I discovered they had the idea up their sleeves about how they might lose their chaperone for the day.



It all started with me taking this photo above, thinking they looked so cute with the corn towering high over head...

Which led to this ~ all four girls giggling and running away from me in the corn maze. I loved this picture because Rebekah is airborne as she happily leaps and runs after Sophie. And if you've never chased four little kids frantically through a corn maze ~ you should give it a try. It's a good time, and an even better workout (especially if you happen to be carrying loads of apples and a very heavy camera around your neck).

A cute little daisy at the end of a long, but fruitful day.

Pumpkins for Our Pumpkins

Our adventures in pumpkin farm visiting for this Fall...

We took a hay ride to the highest point of the farm.



The girls loved it. I'm always amazed at the simple things that amuse them so much. They're not usually loud girls, but they were definitely the goofiest kids on the wagon that day as they laughed and told stories the whole time. Any hay ride that makes them that happy...



...Even one that a cow tries to join...

...I'd happily take again if it means I get to sit across from these sweeties to see them enjoy it!



It turns out the girls may make excellent little farmers someday if they enjoy stacking hay bales as much as they loved jumping off them, and sliding down them...



...And falling face first into them. Just looking at this picture makes me feel like I need to sneeze. What it doesn't show is how after each climb to the top of the hay, she had to start the five minute long process of taking her boots off, shaking the hay out of them, while at the same time getting hay stuck to the bottom of her socks, putting the boots on the wrong feet, then starting the process all over again.



This precious newborn calf was only a few days old.



Alyssa enjoyed studying this map and finding out about all the prime cheese locations in our state.



And this picture is because Kahiwa always likes to tell Granddaddy what a good climber she is ~ well she's been at it again!



We picked out lots of pumpkins in all shapes and sizes, and got some "rainbow corn" as Rebekah calls it. Alyssa agonized over picking out the perfect gourd, which I'll have to see if I can get a picture of later, it's unique!



It was a perfect pumpkin day!



How all good days on the farm ought to end.



Happy Halloween.