365 ~ 2015: Day 303

Happy Halloween!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2015!

I love Halloween!  We decorate the yard with skulls and graves and flowing ghosts, carved a pumpkin and of course trick or treated in the neighborhood!  This year, for the first time ever, we did the entire neighborhood loop.  Needless to say, the boys ended up with an obscene amount of candy this year.

Dad prepping the pumpkin for carving!

The boys are excited to start digging out the goop so Dad can carve it!

Starting the design.  The kit we bought was not a good one and the finished product didn't turn out as it was supposed to.  Lesson learned!  But we still had fun!

For the past few years I have done Halloween portraits of the boys.  This year I was able to use my studio light!

Master Chief

Ant-Man

Thor

On Friday night, the city put on a Halloween Howl downtown.  We had never been before but Shaun was invited to go with a friend and so we decided to take David and Evan to check it out.  The city closes down Main Street, the various businesses downtown open their doors to pass out candy to kids and the local radio station plays music in the streets.  We walk around for a bit before stopping to get one last ice cream treat from one of our favorite places before they stop selling ice cream for the winter.

Halloween Howl

Trick or Treating for our city is done on Halloween night so we all got ready and had some Chinese food for dinner before getting ready to head out.  David's friend and my cousin joined us and because I still had my studio light set up from the day before I did a few more portraits!

My cousin the demon!

Ready to Trick or Treat!

Me and my boys!

After we were done the boys dumped their bags to check out their loot!  That is a lot of candy!

Happy Halloween!

365 ~ 2015: Day 302

Presenting: Master Chief, Ant-Man and Thor!  I think we'll be safe in our house for at least Halloween!

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Tonight we had the annual Harvest Fest at David's school.  Here are the boys decorating their giant cookies.  It's the favorite activity of the whole night!

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Last night the boys school hosted a "Parent Academy" on the new math curriculum.  The idea was to help parents understand WHY math is being taught different from how we were taught.  We learned some of the basic concepts of the curriculum and were given tools and tips on how to help our children solve the problems in their homework.  The idea is to avoid parents becoming frustrating and saying things like, "this is dumb do it MY way!", and then having the kids missing the point of the lesson because we as parents don't get it.

It's no secret that Charlie is the math genius in the house and I've been lucky that he has taken on the roll of "homework helper" in this house.  But I was still curious about the new curriculum.  It's scary!  My kids are coming home talking about number bonds and pulling out all these parts to a number, making it appear to be 3 times more complicated, to add them up and in my mind I'm wondering why they didn't just line the two numbers up and add them like "normal people".

What I walked away with from this presentation is that the math might look complicated on paper but it's actually quite simple.  They are doing that addition in their heads very quickly by making numbers into base 10s.  The reason you see all those lines and numbers is because they are now being asked to SHOW how they arrived at their answer, not just memorize the facts.

I'm honestly amazed at how quickly the boys are adding complicated numbers in their heads because of this system.  And if you are so "annoyed" by the new math and thing it's "dumb".  I suggest that you go to your school administration and ask them to put on a math curriculum night for parents and see for yourself.  Get your questions answered and become educated.  Just because it's different than what you're used to, doesn't mean that it's dumb or wrong!

Here is my Kindergartner excited to try using the number bonds his brother is using in his math!  He was working on finding the parts to various numbers.  The number bond insert and plastic sheet was compliments of the curriculum night.

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I love when they create things to play.  They are obsessed with golf...and creating golf courses is a favorite.

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Evan got some practice at Family Center cleaning out a pumpkin and so when it was time to do our own, he said he was an "expert!".

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Another Fall bucket list item checked off!  Kicking off Halloween week with a little pumpkin carving!

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Taking a break from his leaf pile work!

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First piano recital of the year! So impressed by how far they have both come!

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How the littlest enjoys his ice cream treat.  Down to the very last drop!

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Having fun at Family Pizza Night at the boys school tonight!

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Brotherly love!

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Now we just wait for the offical word for braces.  It's only a matter of time!

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Yesterday we met up with some of Evan's friends for some Halloween fun at Charmingfare Farm!  What a fun place.  And the Lindt chocolates they passed out were the icing on the cake!

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Today we dropped David off in the morning where he spent all day signing for the New Hampshire Master Choral Childrens Chorus Festival.  At the end of the day they put on a concert with the pieces they had worked hard on learning and memorizing!  It was a great experience for him and he had a lot of fun.  Seeing him up there on stage brought me back to my own music festival days!

The Fall Bucket List!

Most people I know have their Fall Bucket list items.  We typically do the same ones year to year, but I was really happy to be able to cross off the Deerfield Fair off my list this year.  We missed it last year.

Deerfield Fair

Clam Chowder in a bread bowl!

The BEST Chicken Fingers around - made with love by his friends Mom!

TURKEY LEG!  Nom, nom, nom!

It would not be the Deefield Fair experience we love so much without waiting for the Flying Walenda's show!  It's pretty much the reason I go.  I'm not into smelly farm animals.  I like the food and the Walenda's!  Lucky for me the boys love it just as much and this year they won a copy of their DVD!  It was an interesting documentary on their family history in walking the wire.

Waiting for the show to start!

Cousins!

Evan and Momma Selfie!

The show was awesome and after the boys got their autographs and pictures with their favorites!

Alex Walenda!

JP the Clown!

Grammy getting her picture too!

Elvis pumpkin!

And because they waited for a long time so we could watch the Walenda's they got to choose a few rides!

Shaun and Evan in the front row!

This is awesome!

He liked the little dragon one so much he decided to try the big one too!

David being a good big brother and riding with Evan!

Shaun wanted to ride his favorite, the Tilt-a-Whirl (or as some people call it the Tilt-a-HURL!  My sister took one for the team and rode with Shaun!

BEST. AUNTIE. EVER!

I think she is cursing me in this one!

So happy to have his Auntie take him!

After the rides, it was time to go grab some dinner.  We ran into some of our friends.  And then mayhem ensued!  It was such a fun day at the fair and I got my soup, donut as big as my face and saw the Walendas, crossing off a good portion of my bucket list!

The gang!

We didn't get to do any official apple picking this year, but I did get my apple cider donut and Evan and I enjoyed a quick trip with Family Center to a local orchard.  It rained on us for a good portion but it was still fun!

I spy Evan Michael!

Happy Fall!  Now we get ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas bucket lists!