Our family had a lot of fun this year at the Sault's Downtown Trick or Treat event. We always park at the library, so I made sure to capture a shot of Autumn with one of the books from the book series she just finished reading that inspired her costume this year. She is dressed up as the character Omakayas from the books "The Birchbark House," The Game of Silence," and "The Porcupine Year," which are all written by Louise Erdrich. While we were there our librarian informed us that this author will soon be publishing a fourth book in the series that will be titled "Chickadee." Autumn was really excited by this news because she obviously likes these books a lot and can't wait for the new one to come out.
Alaina is Minnie Mouse of course. We came upon this polka dot dress at a thrift store and immediately thought it looked perfect for Minnie, and so I crocheted her a hat and found her a pair of white gloves and voila!
FRANKENSTIEN!!!!
This is at the AMAZING carnival put on by the Salvation Army. The girls walked away from this carnival with Barbie dolls, cakes, stuffed toys, popcorn, cookies, etc! We almost didn't walk down to their building because it was a bit out of the way...but we saw balloons and thought we may as well go check it out. We sure were glad we did! This was definitely the girls favorite part of the evening and we are just so thankful to all of the volunteers of the Salvation Army for hosting this.
The girls doing the Cake Walk.
There were live ballerinas standing in the showcase windows of STARS 'en pointe' pretending to be mannequins. Alaina thought this was awesome. The girls were doing an amazing job. This was right before we went through the haunted house which was also hosted by STARS. Alaina laughed and thought it was lots of fun, and Autumn shed a few tears :)
Even Snoopy was out on the streets giving out hugs!
It was 7 p.m. when we finally finished checking everything out, and we went and got some pizza at Guidos for supper. It was a really fun evening. We think the best part about the evening is that it is still light out and so we get to see everyone's creative costumes and run into lots of friends and say "hi."
The past few days we have had gorgeous warm weather. Indian summer days are wonderful reasons to homeschool. We were truly blessed with this warm day. The girls had a blast jumping in the big lake with their clothes on an I got the chance to sit back in the sand, and soak up their exuberance. What wonderful memories are created on days like this.
Tonight we are experiencing high winds and rain, and they say snow might be in the forecast for this weekend. Maybe it's the end of the indian summer?
Here are a few more songs to help us say goodby to our recent warm weather:
The Annual Turkey Trot 5k that is hosted by Steve's LSSU cross country team is coming up in just a few weeks, so the girls and I have been getting outside and training every day for the the race.
Today I had a running experience that I will never forget. About a mile into our run the girls sprinted a bit ahead of me, and I was jogging along watching them leap over leaf piles when all of a sudden I felt my foot kick somthing wierd feeling. I looked down to see a chipmunk doing barrel rolls down the road in front of me, and right before I stepped on the poor little guy my mind realized what was going on and jerked my foot up. I screamed so loud! The little guy hobbled to the side of the road and then just sat there staring up at me in disbelief. He was obviously in shock, as was I. The girls sprinted back, and we all walked up to him as I "apologized." He slowly hobbled into some leaves and then sat down again, and I began to think that maybe he was hurt. He let us get so close that we could have picked him up in our hand. So, we just sat there for a while with him. It was such a strange experience because I literally almost squashed the little guy with my foot, and the way I sent him tumbling could only be equal to me getting kicked by an elephant.
After about five minutes the chipmunk slowly crept under a log and hid. I hope he is okay.
Maybe he wanted to be a timing chipmunk? :)
Well, if you need some motivation to get out on the road and run over small innocent animals with your own feet (just kidding PETA), then sign up for the Turkey Trot 5k (and win yourself a yummy turkey for Thanksgiving ...not kidding). The race brochure is below:
The other day I gave Alaina my very first leotard that I ever wore when I did competitive gymnastics at Joan Boyers School of Dance and Gymnastics. The competitive team was called "The Rainbow Company", hence the colorful blocks along the side. (As a kid I always thought that our team name was more magical than all the other teams, and I was really proud of it and all of the rainbows....so to this day I am still a little bummed that my magical rainbow was "taken from me" to symbolize other things.....) Doing gymnastics was one of my favorite things as a kid, and I still like to do a cartwheel here or a handstand there, so I am pleased that both the girls enjoy flipping and dancing around in the living room. There is a "dance production" or "show" of some sort almost every night and the girls love turning up the music, putting on crazy outfits with wacky hairdos, and entertaining Steve and I.
Anyways, I am thankful that my Mom saved this leotard for me because it brings back such happy memories and it is very special watching the girls wear it. But, the leotard is very old, and the elastic around the legs is really worn out, and I am thinking that after Alaina outgrows it, that will be the end of my leotard. So, I got the video camera out and decided to tape Alaina fooling around in it so that when it is gone we would still have a memory of it. Alaina was being really cute on camera, and I was enjoying watching her leap back and forth and cartwheel etc....and then at the very end of this shot, she gets really into her leaps and winds up pulling a mini "Funniest Home Videos" moment. I thought she hurt herself, so the camera immedietly shut off, but she was OK. We have watched the ending of this about 5 times in a row now because it makes us all laugh hysterically!
This is Alaina reciting "The Land of Counterpane" by Robert Louis Stevenson. She really liked this poem when she saw it on a cartoon called "Little Bear," and she has also listened to a song version sung byTed Jacobs. We really like his musical versions of Stevenson's poems.
This is Autumn reciting the song "What Is A Youth" written by Nino Rota, and Eugene Walter. She just finished watching the 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet and she really liked this song. When we were at the lighthouse the other day she saw a rosebush still in blume and thought it would be the perfect place to recite this poem. Although, when we taped it off today the sun was shining right in her eyes because we were experiencing an unusually hot 70 degree day!
