Halloween and all things sugar

Soccer has ended, 


the leaves are mostly off the trees, 

and Halloween has officially passed (although I'd slow to take down my festive decorations and put up my Thanksgiving ones!....I'm just not ready for the BIG holiday season to start!) 😟

We lucked out with a great day at the pumpkin patch the weekend before Halloween.

We did our usual cow train, which rattled my brain even more than previous years (but it's probably because I'm just getting older!!!)

We also captured another year in the life of our family under the beautiful, glowing fall trees.

                                        Family pictures 2019 was a success!

Halloween is one of the most anticipated holidays in our home.

Levi and James quickly knew they were going to be San Fransisco 49er football players; finding their official maroon and gold helmets and uniforms in the mail was like Christmas morning for them. They were beyond thrilled to strut down the street and show off their team alligence, making Dad proud.

The boys in the hood

Caleb, on the other hand, had no interest in being a football player...or any sports hero for that matter. He had his eye set on a dinosaur.
The vision was narrowed down even more when he saw on Amazon a blow up costume (yes, with a continuous pumping of air); it made him look like he was riding on top of the dinosaur.

Ride 'em Caleb!

He was also excited to get his costume in the mail; he immediately began riding it around the house.

Evie's inspiration for her costume came this summer while staying at my parent's house in Chicago. Whenever she is there, she likes to play with my special childhood American Girl doll (Samantha).
Evie has never really liked dolls. But whenever she goes to Chicago, she admires this one. I would gladly pass along my treasured collection to her if I thought she would hold it as dear and treat it as kindly as I have; but I know my daughter, and the appeal to the doll is that it's home is with Grandma and her opportunity to delight in it is once a year.
This makes it special and adored, something it simply wouldn't be if it were in her room all the time.

This year my Mom and my Grandma planned to come to Oregon during Halloween. Evie convinced my Mom to bring Samantha with her so she could dress up like the doll.

I realized that she wasn't the only one with the idea to dress like her doll because Amazon had a lot of options when it came to matching doll clothes.

So, Halloween night, Evie walked the block dressed like Samantha, holding tightly to her..until she got tired of her and wanted someone else to take over. 😑

The kids ran from house to house, collecting as much candy as they could. James made a game out of how many Snickers bars he could gather.
I think his total by the end of the night was 28.

After counting their sweet treasures and eating probably too much, Evie packed hers up to donate it to her school's raffle. Each year the school entices kids to turn in their candy; for every pound they donate, they get a raffle ticket for a prize. Evie cares way more about winning an electronic gadget than eating candy (it's probably because she knows she can convince her brothers to share theirs with her, so in the end she gets both)

Caleb immediately dumped his candy in with James. He probably cares the least about candy and the fun comes from throwing it around.
James loved that Caleb gave his candy to him because it is more for James to count and collect and dream about. The joy for James is saving his candy; thinking about eating it is just as exciting to him as actually tasting it.
And then there is Levi. Levi would eat the whole bag in one night if I let him. He is a sugaraholic. He will happily eat a king sized Snickers for breakfast with a side of Skittles.

It was a night that the kids truly delighted in with the parade of their Gramie and Grandpa and my Mom and their Great Grandma and their Mom and Dad adoringly following after them.  

And the next day, John and I delighted in the fact that we were catching an early morning flight to sunny San Diego for the weekend with friends! 

We had a great little escape, eating and drinking our way through the city. John made reservations at some of the greatest spots which included an epic Tiki bar and a mysterious speakeasy.

One of the best moments was spending a leisurely afternoon on a beach in Cornado drinking a grapefruit spritzer. (However, I know why I don't day drink normally... 😴

Coming home, I found four very happy kids. 

I suppose that's what a weekend of non-stop attention, outdoor games and fun (and probably liberal candy consumption) will do! 

Commence the season of sugar and excess.

James is already talking about the pumpkin pie....😬

Fall Time Fun

I don't know why we are sending our kids to a private school when we have Miss Evelyn who is capable (and very willing!) to educate our boys and make them literate!

Each afternoon she asks the boys, "Ok, who wants to learn how to read?" 

There is always a taker (unless they are playing or watching football...and even then sometimes Caleb volunteers) She leads them up to her room, shuts her door and the lessons begin. I smile when I hear her instructing one of the boys to say a letter and then elongate the accompanying phonetic sound. "Levi, A....Aa Aa Aa Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaapple. SAY IT!"

I have to say, the boys obey her instruction, repeating the sounds and learning the words. Often times after one of her sessions the door will suddenly swing open and Evelyn will bound out with a  book and an excited boy following her, "Mom, listen to this. Levi can read!" 

Levi (or whoever her current pupil is) will read through SPOT or another early reader and then both of them will beam.
I've finally come to accept how my daughter was made, and I'm realizing she's exactly right for the "brother situation" she was put in.
I've always wondered (and got so frustrated!) why she never wanted to really play "make believe" for hours by herself with her dolls and toys like I so enjoyed doing when I was a child. Why couldn't (can't) she be satisfied with the stillness and simplicity of herself and being alone?!
I don't understand how she was crafted, but I've learned to accept it and I see the goodness in needing people and engagement. She was born to be with others.
Evelyn thrives in a school setting. She loves the structure and loves the responsibility. She is absolutely THRILLED to be getting homework this year, although because things have always come easy for her, getting challenged by spelling words is something she has had to work though. She gets frustrated if she is not instantly excellent at it.
School will hopefully smooth out some of those rough edges and develop in her a perseverance and humble tenacity.

Being in school now over a month, our fall days have developed a cadence.
We have our morning routine down.
 I still wake early to ready the house and make sure I'm in order before I try to go about and order everyone else. James is the absolute hardest to wake and get out of bed. He is a log, and then when I try to move him against his will he moans and gets mad and puts the pillow over his head.

This picture was not taken in the morning

One time we were eating breakfast and he was still in bed. Missing a good sit down hot breakfast is his only incentive for getting up and that one day when he did miss his sit down breakfast, he realized that there was a reward for actually moving his body so early.

Except for getting them out of bed, having three boys to get ready in the morning is quite easy. I couldn't imagine dealing with more than one female.
Untangling and figuring out one mass of girl hair each day is quite enough, thank you very much. Evelyn's hair is always a battle in the morning, and we usually end up putting it in a pony tail and calling it good.
She's been wearing my huge early nineties hair bows she discovered in my parent's house this summer. I guess they are kind of coming back into style (I have notice people wearing scrunchies!)
It's fun to see her proudly clip the bows in her hair. The other day I said to  her, "Evelyn, your bow matches your dress perfectly." 
She looked at me, and noticing the pronoun I used  responded, "So I guess they are my bows now and not yours?"
"Yes, Evelyn, they are yours."

The boy's kindergarten teacher has a daughter in Evie's class and they have become good friends. Evie was invited over to her house to play this weekend and when I picked her up with the boys in tow, they just couldn't believe that they were at their teacher's house! I do remember the unbelievable realization that in fact teachers do not sleep at school and they do have a life outside their classroom. This, I believe, was their moment.

I started volunteering in the classrooms last week. When I entered the boys room, Caleb accidentally walked right into me as I was coming in the door. He stopped, looked at my legs and when he saw my face looking down at him,  he was in disbelief for a moment. His two worlds were colliding.
Again, it was another moment for him trying to reconcile his two worlds of homelife with Mom and school life with his teacher. Now MOM was in his CLASSROOM at SCHOOL. He just couldn't believe it. He started laughing uncontrollably. It was just about the cutest laugh and reaction I've ever seen.

 I love being in their class, although I feel a little bit like a distraction.
They felt comfortable to casually call me over ("MOM!") when they needed help with something, and Levi reverted to his usual frustrated self when he couldn't get something perfect on his art project. During story time, they all sat on the carpet as the teacher read from a book. In the middle of the story, Levi looked at me from across the room and called out, "Mom, Evie was wrong. She said I didn't have enough to buy the Gatorade but I actually had two dollars and it was enough!" I sheepishly looked at their thankfully understanding teacher and put my finger over my lips and nodded my head at Levi.

I don't know when Evie will outgrow hugging me a school in front of her friends but she hasn't yet. Every time I walk down the hall to her classroom she always runs up to me and gives me the biggest hug. She wants to walk by me and hold me hand. I just soak all this PDA up because it is a gift that my kids appreciate me being apart of their day so much.

Caleb admitted that he did miss me during the day. Since school started he has made it his little habit of sneaking into our bed in the middle of the night to cuddle.
It is the most precious, sweetest thing. John and I have never endorsed or allowed the kids to sleep in our bed with us. We just value sleep way too much and believe everyone should have their own sleeping space. However, I don't have the heart to tell Caleb to stop doing this.
His nightly ritual is however, starting to disrupt John and my sleep, so I've given him certain days when he is allowed to come in. It's amazing to me because on the nights when he is allowed, he somehow wakes up at that exact time in the night. It must be very important to him, so important that he has adopted a little internal alarm clock.

These beautiful fall days are full. Weekends are really starting to become family times. We are having so much fun with soccer. So far we haven't had to sit in the rain. We've been blessed with really nice mornings.
We've been enjoying the outdoors as much as we can.

If you know me and my obsession with fruit picking, we just had to fit in an apple picking afternoon.

I could get used to this type of life.

A memory forever

"Got it Mom!"

"I want you to make apple pie"

Intense concentration pays off

Glorious!

We also paid our annual visit to Chapman School downtown Portland and watched the swift birds do their thing in the sky as they swirled and seemed to preform magic, swooping down into the chimney for the night. We brought a picnic dinner and as James lazily laid on the blanket on the side of hill, eating his roast beef sandwich watching the birds swirl around in the sky, he commented, "I can't believe those birds do that." 

I can't either James. Every I am simply enchanted by the spectacle I witness above the Portland skies.


Afterwards, we paid a visit to good ol' Ruby Jewel for some ice cream sandwich indulgence!

Loved the ice cream, not the photo op

These are good days and good times with our family. I'm treasuring every moment, especially now that not every moment is a moment. :)

This past week the boys had their class trip to the pumpkin patch.

 All these muddy years accompanying my children to their class pumpkin patch trips and this one was my final time.

West Hills Kindergarten!

I expected to be a little sad because I LOVE the pumpkin patch and bringing my kids to these farms to climb on hay bales and run around corn mazes was always a highlight.

But I have to say, as I was walking back to the car loading up their three pumpkins, I felt closure. The words "I've done the pumpkin patch" actually went through my mind and I felt ok about it being over.

It's a good feeling to know you've done something well, to have completed a season fully and be ready to move on.

The teacher said they were allowed to choose a pumpkin the size of their head.

That feeling was the feeling I strive to have throughout my life with every passing season with my kids.

I want to have a feeling of satisfied accomplishment, without regrets and a knowledge that there is more wonderful things ahead.

 I have never ever taken a single moment for granted yet during this school year.
I am truly enjoying every day and savoring the precious family times we get together and the precious times we have apart. :)

A different kind of Fall

My house is different.

My life is different.

                                                  I feel balanced and really really happy.

John and I enjoying some brew in Ireland ; we celebrated together this coming milestone

I feel guilty saying that I'm happier when I have some distance from my kids; but, then when I think about the last few years, I know that my mind and heart needed a change of pace.

Mealtime was such a process

It was truly all consuming all the time

But here I am.

I feel as though I am reaping the reward of having three children at once. Despite the tornado of activity and diapers and all that comes with all of them, I have launched them together at the same time into full time kindergarten.



And I have myself.

Going to the store is so easy compared to what it was five years ago

So far I have been focusing on several things in this new season of life:
1. organizing and order in my home (I totally took apart my kitchen and decluttered, cleaned and rearranged)

2. reconnecting and spending time with friends (found that I like the social lunching thing... ;))
3.  Being more purposeful about my health, what I am eating and exercising (I have the freedom of taking different classes at the gym and I feel like I can stop and chat with friends and acquaintances without rushing off to the next thing; I can prepare and calmly eat a healthy lunch)

I recall this disastrous moment of trying to "walk " the boys outside

4. Figuring out my volunteering schedule at the school (I plan on being in both the boys' and Evie's classrooms weekly as well as being on the PFW executive council board at the school)
5. Taking an online writing class at the community college (my whole life I have felt the draw to write....to really write....and I'm beginning the process of something.......)
6. Enjoying the peace in my home, truly. (sometimes I sit on my couch and stare out the window at my trees for a moment in the quiet)

I am able to prep dinner, fold laundry without interruption and take a little longer shower. :) 

When John is working from home, we can hang out and TALK without interruption. We are even making it a habit to go out to breakfast once a week and schedule in some occasional runs together. 

It's all these small things that give me peace and meaning, and I am relishing them. 

It has been a week now of school and for the first few days I held on to my phone, thinking at any moment it was going to ring because someone was having a problem at school. I just think it was too good to be true.

"You mean someone doesn't NEED me right now?!"

On the third day of school though,  it did ring.
 It was the nurse, trying to determine if Levi's fall at recess was serious. Levi had convinced her that he was seeing double and claimed that his pain was "a 10."

I got on the phone with him and he causally said, "Hi Mom. Can you come pick me up?"

I explained to him that "coming to pick him up" would not be an invitation to spend the afternoon watching TV and playing games.

We hung up; but several minutes later, the phone rang again.

"Hi, this is the nurse again. I just don't know. His left eye looks strange."

The phone conversation ended with me coming to school to get him in the nurses office where he was waving to his friends walking down the hall and triumphantly bidding everyone farewell at his early exit from school.

I knew he was ok. In fact, he was better than ok, and when he got home, John had a stern talk with him about what a pain level of "10" meant.

This was his one pass on this stunt. ;)

I have memories of Evelyn visiting the nurses office frequently at the beginning of her kindergarten year too.
She seemed to always complain of an ailment, requesting band-aids, cough drops and icepacks.

I assume Levi will tire of the extra attention the nurses office brings and cease requesting visits.

In today's litigious society, school nurses are required to fill out a long form upon each visit to email  to the parents.
The assessments are detailed. One I recently received stated, " James is in from recess stating he was laying in the grass playing with his brothers when Caleb accidentally "kicked him in the neck."

They noted that there was no bruising or  temperature and that he didn't seem particularly upset. They gave him an "ice pack" for comfort and he was permitted to stay in the nurses' office for the remainder of the recess and play a quiet game. 😏

I chuckled  when I thought of myself logging all the incidences that take place daily and imagined the thick files I'd have if I tried to record them all like this.

The nurses office is a comforting, soothing space with caring women who sympathize and attend to any ache or pain. It is probably a good mental break from the day. No wonder they put the nurses office right across the hall from the kindergarten classroom.

Not seeing the kids all day I genuinely am excited to pick them up at 3:00. I car pool with one of my friends and neighbors. She has two girls.
With six kids loading up into the mini van, we always have to pull over and spend ten minutes situating and securing safety belts and straps. It's crazy and chaotic, but since I had a whole day without crazy and chaotic, I can do it!

Car Pool Craziness and FUN!

Life after 3:00 is full -on "Mom Mode" again. It's amazing how great your kids are when you haven't seen them all day.

The afternoons have been full of soccer practices and homework!
Evie has spelling words and daily math assignments and reading.
The boys have month STEM projects that truly take the whole month to do.

Saturdays are soccer games, and John and I have a blast with the kids. John has been on the sideline with the boy's coach encouraging and instructing our sons.
There is a HUGE difference between the aggression and energy in the boys game and the girls game.

Our little soccer Squad

All our kids have smiles on their faces the whole time, and the boys are actually passing and using strategy during the game. Levi scored 7 goals last game.
When they are all on the soccer field together I can just see them as teenage boys all hanging out someday.

I always make sure they have time in the woods just being boys 

When I see other Mom's in the grocery store hauling babies and toddlers around, I have a great compassion and empathy for them. I feel an immediate connection and love for them. I want to go over and tell them, "Hang on Mama! It gets better! Your kids will be little independent people and you will get peace in your life again!" 

These years...these hard hard years. :) 

Forever a memory. Forever a part of our story.