Trunk-or-Treat

Our church Trunk-or-Treat Halloween Party this year was a huge success!

Kate and Edwin had another adorable year of dressing up together (last year was Lilo and Stitch) and this time around they decided on Rainbow Dash and Spike the Dragon from My Little Pony. :)

Rainbow Dash is a pegasus known for her adventurous spirit and competitive attitude. She loves all the colors, is bright, fast, and FUN! I can't think of a more Kate costume than Rainbow Dash.

Together we made Kate's Rainbow Dash tutu. It was so fun! We were able to pull some pieces from a sparkly tutu I wore at Disneyland earlier this year. << Recycling costumes is our jam. We shaped the back of the tutu to be longer like a tail. Kate made her own necklace with a kit that we found at a craft store, and her shirt was a turtleneck we found at a thrift store. It was the perfect solid blue color! I altered the neckline at home.

Her hooves were made with felt squares, which I cut to the right shape and then added velcro and elastic to so that they would stay on around her shoes. The pony ears were also made with felt squares and a craft-store headband. We tucked extra rainbow colors of tulle into her ponytail, sprayed some glitter hairspray, and voila! Rainbow Dash hair.

The only pre-finished thing I actually bought were her wings. I considered making them, but for the sake of time and expense I found these cute child-size Rainbow Dash wings at Halloween City. They were sparkly, and they already had a cutie mark on the back! (Cutie marks are typically on the hips of the ponies and indicate their special talents.)

Speaking of which... I did actually make Kate a cutie mark out of craft foam for the side of her tutu, but we forgot to attach it for the Trunk-or-Treat! Hopefully I can get a picture of it tonight. ;)

Edwin has also really enjoyed watching My Little Pony with Kate and friends this summer, so he was super jazzed to be Twilight Sparkle's sidekick, Spike the Dragon!

Spike is totally adorable, and I think it was the perfect costume for Edwin. I wanted to make sure the dragon costume was done right, so we found a Simplicity pattern and picked out fabric together at the craft store:

The bumpy purple seemed like just the right stuff for cuddly dragon skin, and the lime green felt was an awesome touch! Elastic went around his shoes to hold on the claw feet. It was so fun to watch him walk around as a little dragon! I didn't get many pictures of the side or back of Edwin, (he wasn't really jazzed about taking pictures that night) but my most favorite part was his tail.

Edwin also had little mittens with claws on them, but decided not to wear them at the last minute.

We were also able to bring some friends along to the Trunk-or-Treat, which was super fun! Pretty much for the first time EVER my bestie Michelle and her family live in the same state with us at Halloween. It's been great to get our kids together!

Liam (who IS Harry Potter) and his Uncle Eli (a guy from Halo) 

Like, seriously...  <3 p="">

We ALSO got to bring our awesome friends Dani, Jake, and Rylan along with us! I love seeing our kids practice trick-or-treating together. :) Rylan and Edwin are both so shy. But they got the hang of it and got quite the collection of candy, haha. Plus Rylan makes the most adorable kitty-cat ever.

We hope everyone has a fantastic, safe, and happy Halloween!!

Family Home Evenings

Every Monday night we have a Family Home Evening (FHE). It's a great way to make sure that we're spending time together at least once a week and don't make any other plans on that night.

We start with allowance. We've been giving the kids their own allowance each week for a couple months now (since Kate turned 5). We learn about paying tithing, choose if we want to put money into savings or into our wallets to spend, and then we track all of our spending by saving receipts and writing down our expenses on a ledger. Kate has a box that she keeps all her receipts in and Edwin has an envelope. :)

Edwin told us he rolls up his money "like a yoga mat"

It's been a fun way to help the kids learn early about budgeting, saving, and how to keep track of their money. It's ALSO been great for us when we go places and the kids ask for candy or toys. I tell them that they are absolutely welcome to buy whatever they like with their own money. It has helped cut down on tantrums, and also has started to help them understand and have empathy for the family choices we make while grocery shopping, or going to other stores. We talk about what mommy and daddy have planned to spend money on, and why we can or cannot buy a certain thing, even though we might REALLY want it.

For instance, we went up to Apple Hill a couple weeks ago, and the kids picked out a few things they wanted. We had agreed as a family to buy some apple donuts, caramel apples to share, and a few bags of apples for baking. Kate and Edwin chose to get balloon creations with their own money:

a flower!

and a cucumber... yep. He was freakin' in love with this thing.

But of course they wanted to do EVERYTHING! From pony rides, to face painting, to bounce houses, it was all going to add up super fast. We checked at a couple of the activity stands, and were told that the pony rides were $5. Kate only had $2 in her wallet. We went to the bounce house and they told us that it would be $5 for access to bounce all day. Kate got super frustrated and said, "I want them to stop saying that everything costs $5!" It was an excellent opportunity for us to talk about how we choose to spend our money, and that if we buy candy at the grocery store every week then we don't have the money to do bigger activities when those events come up. Since then the kids have been adding money to their wallets and saying that it's for doing fun things up at Apple Hill. :) Practicing self control at 3 and 5 years old is hard, but we would rather have them learn money lessons NOW instead of later when the stakes are much higher!

In addition to allowance, our FHE usually involves a mini lesson and an activity. :) For a few weeks we worked on our 72 hour kits and emergency preparedness plan.

We also have had lessons on pornography, family history, and played games like Book of Mormon quizzes.

This last week we started "Missionary Mondays". Our goal is to share each week about a friend of family member that we know who is out in the world serving a mission. We talk about where they are, what the place in the world is like, and then write them letters or draw pictures to send them some mail. :)

The first missionary we talked about is Sister Arnold. She is serving off the coast of West Africa in Cabo Verde.

I met Sister Arnold in my German class at BYUI. She even joined us for Thanksgiving a couple years ago!

Thanksgiving in Rexburg: November 2015

It's so fun to see where she is now, and read her weekly emails about learning Portuguese and teaching the gospel in Praia.

I'm really glad that we've been able to make Family Home Evening a better habit now that we're a little more settled. We've always done weekly activities (and really when your kids are little and not in school yet it feels like every day is Family Home Evening, haha). But it's fun to see how excited they get now about the things we do together. They are much more interactive and love to learn. Having a designated night to be together has been a great way to check in and make sure that at least once a week we are learning and growing together.

Kate and Edwin are growing up so fast! We love having them in our family. Even though I try to document it, it's hard to remember everything. :) I'll end here with a funny video of Kate and Edwin just being themselves. ;)

Counting Down to Halloween!

This last week we...

watched birds together during breakfast:

they like to sit on the string lights around our patio :)

Went to support our friends at their law office open house:

We played FHE Jeopardy!

Candy points were won instead of money. ;) Final Jeopardy was drawing your favorite scripture story:

We did some yoga:

Started gymnastics:

Went to the Golden Eagle Band Spectacular:

got Boo'ed!

and helped make our Halloween costumes!

We're super excited for all the holiday festivities coming up next!

RADDISH

The best part of our homeschool exploration so far is discovering the personalized learning that can be designed. At a neighborhood elementary school you are provided with all the opportunities that the school offers, has designed, and planned. With homeschool we are developing our own methods and opportunites for our individual kids' needs and interests with the guidance and recommendations of our Homeschool Teacher and wonderful charter school team. :)

One of the coolest homeschooling projects we've started this fall is a Raddish Kids subscription box!

(I didn't even know before we started homeschooling that these subscription boxes would be eligible for our charter funding, but there are TONS of varieties, and so much fun already!)

Raddish Kids is a monthly cooking box that gets mailed to you. Inside there is a kitchen tool for the month, and recipe cards that outline your shopping list, there are games to play, dinner table conversation cards, and a patch to iron on to your very own apron!

The goal is to help kids find the joy in cooking healthy meals, but also to build safety skills, help with reading comprehension, learn organization, some cool geography, and how to plan.

First of all, Kate LOVES getting mail. The kids enjoy checking the mail with us, even if it's just flyers and junk. When Kate saw a package show up with her own name on it, she was thrilled! The surprise of things inside was a major bonus. haha!

The boxes are themed for the month, and October was all about Monsters. :) A potato masher is the tool, and all the culinary dishes were monster themed: 5-Eyed Breakfast Bake, Broccoli Swamp Fritters, and Monster Mash Meatloaves.

Together we looked through her box of supplies and she got to pick which recipe she wanted to make first. It was really cool to see her naturally take ownership of the box and tell us what days of the week we would be making each meal. She would also "read" her recipe cards to anyone and everyone. The artwork and pictures in these menu cards are adorable! It makes the steps easy to follow, and even with a 5-year old she was able to easily tell me what she needed and what ingredients to use first.

Kate was very confident that the 5-Eyed Breakfast Bake would be the best meal to start with. This dish is inspired by traditional Shakshuka of North Africa.

We practiced writing our "S" and wrote "shakshuka" on a post-it, then located Tunisia/Libya/Israel on our world map.

We wrote a grocery list together and went to the store. Kate picked out all the food she wanted and we used the self check-out so that she could scan all of her own groceries. :)

At home I was there to assist her, but let her lead on getting all the food out she needed and all the kitchen tools.

I helped with some of the chopping work, like the onions... While covering her eyes with her hands Kate said, "Why do they put so many spices in onions??!" haha. I think it was quite the surprise for her. Kate mixed everything together with a spoon, poured ingredients into the skillet, and cracked the eggs all on her own! She has never been so involved in making an entire recipe from start to finish. 

It was wonderful to see Kate so excited about her food. She helped clean up the counter and asked me to take pictures of her with her dish.

If this was a dinner I decided to make for the family, she hardly would have touched it. But because she got to choose the dish and make it herself she was excited and ready to dig right in and eat lots of bites!

 The very next night Kate wanted to make her Monster Mash Meatloaves for our friends. They turned out amazing! Individual meatloaves cooked in a muffin tin with mashed sweet potatoes on top <3 best="" definitely="" dinners="" ever="" had.="" nbsp="" of="" one="" span="" the="" ve="" we="">

I really appreciate these Raddish boxes already. As a mom of two young kids (who are sometimes very picky eaters), as a homeschooler, and also as a studying nutritionist, it is really cool to see how Raddish has developed these learning tools. I'm sure it takes a lot of research, planning, and preparation, but the result is SO well worth it. Kate has been raving about her meals, and loves to tell everyone about it. We can't wait to keep cooking together!