Happy Fall, Y'all!

 For some reason all the time that I thought I would have to do fun things with Elijah, seems to be non-existant.  But we did manage to go to the pumpkin patch.

 Luvin' the kittens... again and again.  They were pretty tolerant of him.

 Netina, the girl we went with.

 Hay maze was a big hit.  Funny how I always take longer to get out than the kids do.... and I can see over the hay.

 Driving the tractor was the BEST!!

 But rubber duckie racing was fun too.

 As was bowling with the pumpkin.

And we didn't even get rained on.  A very fun day!!!

Early Fall Concerts

Oh sure.  Out of all the days in October (there's 31.  Really!  I counted) the boys had to both have  their concert on the same day.  So we had to divide and conquer.  I took half the girls and went to Caleb's concert.  And all those years of beginner orchestra concerts and practicing have really paid off. 

Pictures taken by Elijah (in an attempt to while away the time during tuning)

 I love going to hear my children play their instruments any time.  But I thoroughly enjoyed this concert.  For the music as well as the little heart pitter pattering seeing my children perform. 

Wish I could have seen Jonas play, but Keith said that he sounded wonderful!

Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere....

Apparently, I'm still trying to play catch up.

The boys spent the summer hiking, working on the hiking merit badge.  They went on quite a few nice sized hikes.  Obviously, since I wasn't invited, these pictures were from Brother Tolman.  You are hired, Brother Tolman!

 I always worry about how Jonas will do with breathing.  But my fears were foundless.  While he did seem to tire easily (we're no stranger to that) we had NO wheezy problems all summer.  (But the second it starts to get cold and school starts, bring on the meds) 

 They loved going hiking and this particular hike, to Shriner's Peak, got them saying that they would like to go back in the winter and go tubing there.
How could you not fall in love with these views???

 Brother Johnson, Jonas' leader,  the spearhead for the hikes and the go-to-man for all things hiking.  Thanks for all your hard work, Brother Johnson!!

In case you can't read that it says "US Geological Survey Benchmark, Shriner Peak, Elevation above sea 1961 feet"

Halloween 2011

Considering that 4 of the children didn't even have any costume ideas yet, I think we did pretty well.

Jonas- Assasin

Miriam-  Siamese princess, the only costume that I really made.

Anastasia- Italian dinner- we found this idea, last minute, on the internet and Anastasia fell in love with it

Elijah- Spiderman Extraordinaire

He has been soooooooo excited for Halloween.  Since school started he has been asking "How many days until Halloween?"

Ryah- Beanie Baby.  For weeks everyone has been speculating on what they were going to be.  Ryah did only once, weeks ago then promptly forgot what it was.  I came up with this idea to freshen her costume from last year.  She didn't understand it, but loved everyone's reaction to it.

Alina- Pippi Longstocking.  This was her umpteen millionth choice and I made her stick to it the day before Halloween because I was getting whiplash.  She was very creative putting it together.

Kristina-Half Man, Half Woman. Got this idea off the internet, to, and she loved it.  Wish we could have had a little more time to put some more details in, but everyone loved it.

She had no idea what she wanted to be and then finally decided on a dress "like Miriam's" but we had no time to make it on Saturday.

Caleb- Don't know, but something with knives.  He wasn't going to dress up but I encouraged him to.  He was then glad because where we went Trick or Treating he was able to see a lot of his friends and they were all dressed up, too.

I don't like trick-or-treating so I usually find a carnival to take the kids to.  This year was no ecxeption.  However, we got running so late we figured it wasn't worth the drive.  We walked the neighborhood and another neighborhood in the ward, saw some friends and tried to visit one if Keith's co-workers (he wasn't home) That was just enough time and candy.  Fun times!

Oops, missed a gem

Found another one that at first I thought was a "California" picture but then saw the writing on the back.

This one says "With the Old Fortress in the background in the old part of town.  Town of Kamyanets- Podilskiy. 2008" 

I'm curious about the date.  The girls were in the orphanage for 2 years before we adopted them and we adopted them in 2009.  I even looked closer on the back and sure enough it isn't a typo, it really does say 2008.  I think odds are someone wouldn't have put the wrong date on it unless they were dating it long after the fact and the date was old.  It doesn't look like winter so it would be about mid-2008.  Maybe this photo was sent to them in the orphanage?

All treasure doesn't glitter

Imagine our delight when in the hotel we see these pictures, scattered among the millions of pictures of the girls in California.  This is a picture of the girls' biological mom.

We had our facilitator translate what is written on the back.  This one says "Half way up to the top of the Goverla (Hoverla) Mountain... little "Goverlian" Girl."

"07.24.2000. Kristina at her Angel's Day with her God-mother"

What a treasure to have these pictures!! 

'Arry Po'er

You know the book about Jay Berry, who discovers a troop of monkeys roaming the woods near his home and decides to try to capture them to earn money to buy a pony and a gun.  What follows are many adventures leading to the "Summer of the Monkeys." 

Well, around these parts, having a serious lack of Monkey, this has been

The Summer of Harry Potter. 

Kristina came home, near the end of school reading HP #4 (after reading the first 3 during the school year). 

We watched HP #3-- around here you have to read the HP book BEFORE you get to watch the movie.  All the older kids had read up to #3(I had read #1, #2 and some of #3 to the kids pre-adoption then they lost interest).   That got Miriam interested in reading them again.   Over the summer Miriam read #4, #5, and most of #6 (that is really saying something for Miriam, given her reading challenges).  She would get her chore done quickly so that I could read a chapter or two to her after supper.  

Then that got too slow for her and she read most of #6 and all of #7 all by herself.  She begged and pleaded to have a set of HP books for her birthday.  "Really Mom, it's all I want!"

Then Anastasia jumped on the band wagon.  The chugged and huffed through some of #1 and begged and pleaded for anyone to read to her.  Her most prized birthday present was 4 coupons for Mom to read an hour of HP to her.

Of course, Caleb and Jonas read each of the books over again...... several times.

Then started a spate of wand making. 

No stick in the neighborhood was safe. 

 The kids would spend hour after loving hour, cutting, peeling the bark off, sanding and painting each wand. 

Great imagination and discussion was used in deciding which magical object would be the core of the wand and what special power it was good for.

The house was filled with cries of "EXPELLIARMUS,"  "PETRIFICUS TOTALUS," "ALOHOMORA,"

  and, my personal favorite from Elijah "MAXIMUS."

 (Don't ask, I don't know what it means, either)

 Of course, many a mealtime discussion centered around the scarred wizard and the whys and where-to- fors of his foibles.  Well, that, of course led quite naturally to a Harry Potter Party to celebrate the end of the summer.

 We decided to do it early so that Kelly could be a part of the celebration.

We made Cauldron Cakes (admittedly, they don't LOOK much like cauldrons, but they were YUMMY!)

 

Licorice Wands

And butter beer (which I don't have a picture of). 

It was quickly decided to make it an annual End-of-Summer-Beginning-of-School tradition.  We even have a list of new Harry Potter Recipes to try.

Shhhh.  Don't tell the kids that I had much more fun with it all than they did.