Quote #44.

As October draws to a close...

Fallen leaves lying on the grass in the November sun bring more happiness than the daffodils. –Cyril Connolly

Just a lovely something to think about as we head into November. Personally, I agree. I prefer the crunching of the leaves to the blooming of the flowers. Of course, here in Colorado, both are subject to the whims of the snow, lol. (Yes, we’re expecting more snow later this week.)

The morning of the day before the snow...

Just a quick picture that I snapped while out on my morning run this past Tuesday:

Yup, sunrise. It was a bit windy when I started out and I generally prefer not to run in the wind. (I HATE wind.) But. Knowing that snow was in the forecast, I made myself get out there and was rewarded with this gorgeous sight.

Oh. And I took this with my new iPhone 4S. ;) I even have a dandy new custom case for it:

Isn't it cool? ;) 

That was all. Now I'm off for my morning run...a bit later in the day than normal since I'm hoping it'll be a wee bit warmer for having waited. (Nathan's concerned about ice since there's still snow, but the sidewalks and streets have been clear since Thursday so I'm hoping it'll be fine.)

Happy weekend to you all!

The day before the snow...

Taking a step backward, here's what we were doing the day *before* the snow:

Yup, we took our annual "leaf walk" around our neighborhood and made ourselves a pile of leaves to jump in...and bury people in...and throw. ;) Since Nathan was working from home that day, he joined us and came in handy for raking (and re-raking) the pile...and got buried for his troubles, lol. Here are some of my favorites:

(Click to make any of these larger.)

For all that Noah proclaimed himself too old to go on our leaf walks any more, he had a blast. (Note, looking at yesterday's post, he also is apparently not too old to enjoy making snow angels, lol.) I think his enthusiasm was bolstered by not needing to do all the raking alone (since Nathan joined us) and by coming up with the brilliant idea of stuffing handfuls of leaves actually up Nathan's jacket instead of merely burying him. ;) 

If you were keeping track, yes, this isn't the almost 80 degree weather of Monday. Though it was gorgeous Tuesday morning and sunny and warm, the storm started coming in after lunch so that it was getting chilly when we ventured out. (But we were determined, knowing that we'd lose our chance if we waited.) We're thankful, too, that we opted to do our fall yard clean up stuff last weekend. Yay, us! 

Snow day.

I'm going out of order but I know folks wanted to see proof of the snow we got yesterday. ;) So. Here are the pictures:

First up is the neighbor's tree that fell into our yard...(this was taken from our front door)

And this is the tree after Nathan and I had spent some time in the morning going around our fence line and knocking snow off of trees (to try to keep more of our four different neighbors' trees from falling into our yard):

The poor tree was really such a beautiful tree...it had only just started turning to its glorious red for the fall. From what we can see, most of the branches are snapped. Sad. (This was the largest of the trees/branches that ended up in our yard. We had a few others in the back yard as well and know we were fortunate...many others have full, downed trees to contend with.)

And then, of course, there was playing in the snow. (I must insert here how proud I am of myself for being on top of things and managing to check all the coats, boots, gloves and snow pants before the first snow, as I've been often caught unprepared. Though most stuff still fit or just got handed down, I actually finished finding new gloves and boots for Noah just last week. Yay!)

Beyond the snow angels and snow ball fights, during the more than 2.5 hours they stayed outside, the boys also built a snow arch. It was a careful process that involved compacting the snow mountain they'd made (by shoving each other onto the mountain numerous times, of course) and then shaping out the arch:

 And, finally, they tested the arch...starting with Micah and ending with Noah:

They were pretty proud of themselves (and have been back outside numerous times since then to check on their arch). :)

And that was our snow. I don't know what the official numbers were, but Noah measured more than 6 inches on our back deck Wednesday morning (and it continued snowing throughout the day). For those who aren't local, keep in mind that on Monday, it was almost 80 degrees. Yesterday (Wednesday), we didn't get above freezing. The snow's pretty wet and is melting well (or will throughout the day), so I wouldn't be surprised if we're back to fall weather by this weekend. That's Colorado for you. ;)

PS Thankfully the boys all stayed plenty warm during their time outside. But. If anyone knows where to find some sturdy *boy-sized* suspenders, please let me know! Micah's snow pants fell down to his knees a couple times, lol.

October

October's gotten away from me. I'm not quite sure how that happened. We've been here. We've kept busy. I've even taken some pictures of us being here and keeping busy. :) I just haven't managed to share them. So. Here ya go:

From top to bottom, left to right:

We're still quite happy with karate. Asher and Micah are still going twice a week and still love it all. Noah, btw, is still enjoying swim team twice a week and recently had his first "meet" of the school year season. (During the school year, swim team is really more practice, as they don't compete against any other teams. The meet was just among themselves but they had timed races and all, and then we had a lovely potluck dinner. Noah's branched out since summer swim team and is now also racing in freestyle (in addition to back stroke and breast stroke).)

Still obsessed with Star Wars. Asher and Micah have been making their way through these Boba Fett chapter books (each book has about 21 chapters Micah tells me). There are six in this particular series but MANY more Star Wars series to be read yet. Thankfully, the library appears to have most of them. ;)

I don't think I've mentioned it, but we're doing another reading incentive program of sorts. The boys are not huge readers, at least not voluntarily. We know this. So, last year we came up with a program modeled after the library's summer reading program...offering small prizes for certain levels/amounts of reading. We stopped that mid-year last year because it became more work to track than it was worth and the boys just lost interest. This year, Nathan and I both thought about it and came up with the exact same idea (seriously, we came up with the same thought independently so figured it must be a sign, lol). We've offered the boys a quarter for each book they read. We have a binder that they have to log the book and author into when they finish it. From there, I award the quarters into our handy tubes that Nathan made out of florescent lightbulb tube thingies. I have a tube also, to "challenge" the boys to keep ahead of me and to model reading on my own as well. (Note, I have to approve the books...meaning some don't count toward a full quarter and some count for more than one, depending on the boy, the book and how I'm feeling just then. ;) Also, the boys can't have any of the quarters until they reach 100 books. We figure that if they read 100 books, that's worth the $25, right?) So far, Micah's well in the lead with more than 50 books...and we only started a week into September. (Based on last year, we'd figured it would take them each the whole year to reach 100. Micah's determined, though, to make up for the fact that his allowance is the smallest, lol.)

October finally meant some cooler weather...time to break out my boots! Love my boots. :)

Micah's been loving his cooking class at Options...so much that he begged me to get the recipes from his teacher so that he could make them at home. He's got one dish, squash-a-roni and cheese, that he's made with us twice now. He won't let the rest of us eat it, though. He chows on it for a few days and is quite happy.

Just a representation of the many books we've been using lately in our homeschooling. 

Archery started up again in October and is going well. The boys look forward to going every week.

I've actually been managing to hula hoop regularly. (Thanks, Theresa, for helping me figure it out!) I'm at about 30 minutes at a time right now and am quite impressed with myself. ;)

Legos. We still have lots, and they got plenty of play this October when the boys weren't otherwise occupied. This is just one part of the table in the Lego room...you can't see the multitudes of Lego sets and loose pieces on the floor throughout the room and under the table and on the shelves in the closet (shelves that are each almost as big as the table surface area). We keep waiting for the interest to shift but it doesn't look to be happening any time soon...  

And that, friends, is part of what's been going on here in October. :) I've got about four more posts planned to finish catching up. Stay tuned...