Late October

Joshua got a science kit for his birthday. We made a "volcano" with it. He and Hannah enjoyed it and thought it was pretty cool.

I have had a life-long aversion to frying. I just don't do it. But I broke my streak to make donuts. They were good and I'm glad I made them because I feel like I conquered frying. However, not sure I would make them again because I actually don't love the whole frying thing. But I am glad I did it.

I took the kids to the pumpkin patch. They had a lot of fun.

The girls were excited to ride the train, but Joshua wouldn't go near it. Why? Because he discovered pop-a-shot. He pretty much thought that was the best thing he had ever seen and I had to drag him away after quite a long time.

Mildale Farm Fest, or Maybe Mildale Fish Fest!

Instead of going to the pumpkin patch at Faulkner's this year, we decided to try someplace else.  This year we went to the Mildale Farm Fest, which is a free one put on by JCPRD and hosted by Mildale Farm in Edgerton, which is a beautiful property with a huge commercial barn and a sloping, beautiful green grass yard, and a couple ponds.  There were lots of activities (crafts, hayrides, petting zoo, story telling, etc.) but there was also fishing.  I took Joshua and Clara, with the idea that we would primarily fish.  Joshua loves it, and Clara has been really interested in it, so I thought today would be a good day for her first real fishing trip.  She was pretty excited about it, as you can see here.

I still only have one fishing rod for the kids, so we alternated.  Joshua struck first, and it was kind of a dream come true.  Since we started fishing, he's been wanting to catch a largemouth bass.  I'm not sure why.  I think he heard about that fish somewhere, and he really latched on to it.  And his first fish today was just that!  He wasn't too sure about touching it, as you can see.  But he was pumped to have caught one.

Then it was Clara's turn.  Joshua coached her (well, mostly I coached her, but he liked to give tips tht he could think of, which I'm not sure were actually that helpful).

Then, the fish started rolling in.  On their next turns, they each caught one.  Joshua was more willing to hold his than last time, but Clara wanted no part of that grossness.  And then...

This happened!  Check out this bad boy that Clara hooked!  It's a big channel catfish!  And yes, it's massive.  I wasn't sure what she hooked, but I could tell it was big, though at times I wondered if I was reeling in a log or something.  I did most of the reeling in, because I was worried she was going to lose the pole, or even that the pole or line would break.

Here you can see a close-up.  I wished I'd brought a scale or tape measure to find out exactly how big it was, but I'd estimate it was about 18 inches long.  Clara was so excited to catch such a huge fish, and I even got her to reach out and touch her finger to it, but no more than that.  I'm not sure she could have held it anyway, given how heavy and floppy it was.

Joshua finished us off with a sunfish.  We took one last shot with Clara, but couldn't get anything before time was up, as the farm was closing.  Joshua passed the time by stringing the worms out on his arm.

We had a really fun time, and it was by far our best fishing expedition ever, and certainly an impressive debut by Clara!  She said she really liked fishing, and since there probably won't be another opportunity this year, we'll be all ready for next year, as I'll buy my fishing license early in the year to give us plenty of opportunities.

A Very Distinguished Tiger

Recently we were notified that Joshua won an award at school! He won one of the two Ravenwood Distinguished Tiger Awards for his grade.  The Distinguished Tiger award one of the highest awards a student can earn at Ravenwood.  To earn this award, a student is nominated by a staff member at school as a role model exhibiting the positive character traits they strive to show at Ravenwood.  Here's what his placard said, which contains the words of his nominator and his teacher, Mrs. Haun:

 "Joshua is a Distinguished Ravenwood Tiger because he models Tiger Blue every day.  He comes to class with a smile and is ready to go.  He works hard and tries his best.  When his classmates need a friend, Joshua is always willing to step in.  Joshua had done an amazing job growing as a Ravenwood Tiger.  Keep up the good work Joshua."

There were only two kids chosen from all of the kindergarten classes, so we are really proud of him!

Today also happened to be Crazy Hair Day, so I used purple hair spray to color his hair purple, for obvious reasons.

Hansons' Pumpkin Party

Every year our friends the Hansons have a pumpkin carving party.  Last year I brought Joshua and Clara, and this year I brought all the kids.  There's lots of food, and we started with that.

Aside from their most important addition in the past year, they also added to their household in a much less important way: chickens!  Jason built a chicken coop on his own without instructions (I'm very jealous of his skills), so now they have chickens in their back yard.  It's not the first time Joshua has held a chicken, but he was still very excited about it nonetheless.  Clara wasn't as sure about it but wanted to do what her big brother was doing.

Like last year, Joshua was totally pumped about carving his pumpkin.  The girls were less interested, and plus it takes a little strength with a serrated knife, so it's not really an easy thing to do, so I mostly did theirs for them,

Joshua told me he wanted a scary face, Clara told me she wanted a happy face, and Hannah told me she wanted a frowny face (I had recently been talking with her about what a frown is, so I think that was on her mind).  Those were all pretty easy to do, so after some additional guidance, such as on eye and nose shapes, I was able to make them the pumpkins they wanted.
Getting pictures of the kids with the pumpkins was harder, as they were almost all blurry because of the lighting.  The best one is this one on the left, but the one on the right is notable because Joshua is doing a scary face that, even when blurry, makes me laugh.

Jason Hanson cooked some pumpkin seeds as a snack for anyone who wanted it, and of course Joshua, who is often into snacks other little kids might not like as much, really liked them.  He and Jason sat by the fire for a bit and bonded while munching on some seeds.

We had a fun time, and I think it's pretty likely that next year I would take all the kids again.

Shinedown, Improved

In July I saw my current favorite band, Shinedown, at Starlight.  As I mentioned at the time, it wasn't the best show ever, and I guessed that it was maybe limitations due to the venue.  It turns out that that was probably right, as I saw them tonight in an arena in Wichita, where there were none of the restrictions on pyrotechnics that Starlight almost certainly had.  As a result, the show was much better from a visual standpoint, and maybe because of being indoors, it was better from an audio standpoint as well.  It was a long drive there and back for me.  I thought Jeff was going to go with me, but he ended up not going, so I went by myself.  But it was so worth it, because I love seeing Shinedown, and the show was awesome.  I will still go see them every time I have the opportunity.

Laser Sharks

Up until now, all of Joshua's outdoor soccer seasons have been through Johnson County Parks and Rec.  For this fall, though, we moved Joshua to the Olathe Rush soccer club.  He'd not eligible to play in the competitive league until next fall (we're not sure yet if we want to do that anyway), but this year is recreational only at this age.  But if we stay with it, I think we'd want to do it through Olathe Rush, so we're at least going to get him in their rec league to start.  It's mostly the same, but the main difference is that there are only three players on the field at a time, per team, and the coaches cannot be on the field.  Although that could also be a function of the age difference, because he also moved up in age.  Also, the games are at Lone Elm Park instead of Stoll Park.  It's about the same distance from our house, but in a completely different.  But the problem is when the girls have a game at Stoll Park (they are still in the JCPRD program) and Joshua has a game right after that at Lone Elm.  That makes it hard to go from one to the other, but we've worked around it.

Coach Ryan is the head coach, and I'm the assistant coach.  The team collectively decided to be the Laser Sharks, which is about the coolest youth team sports name I've ever heard.  They always wear their green jerseys, and one of the parents suggested they put their names on the back, which was a good idea.  The other nice thing is the team is almost exclusively from Joshua's kindergarten, so he already knows some of the kids.  Nolan and Thomas are in his class, and Josh, Carson, and Beau are from other kindergarten classes.  Only Sully is from a different school.

Joshua had a really good season.  He didn't score as much as he did in the last season or two, but I think that was largely a function of having more skilled teammates than he's had in the past.  Beau, in particular, is really good.  Joshua doesn't seem to try as hard as he did in past seasons, which could be due to a number of factors.  But when he does, he's probably the second or third best player on the team, and probably the fastest.  He still struggles with trying to be too silly, but we're also still trying to get his medication situation figured out too, so I'm sure that's affecting it as well.  But overall, he's done well, scoring several goals, and being an integral part of the team's success.  And he's still really enjoying it, so I'm sure we'll play it again in the spring.

Joshua's Outdoors & S'Mores Birthday Party

On October 15th, we celebrated Joshua's birthday with a party at the Oak Shelter at Black Hoof Park.

He had said he wanted a Batman party.  I didn't do a fondant cake for Hannah's party, but the best design I could think of for a Batman cake worked a lot better with fondant, so that's what I did.  The skyscrapers on the side were a little rushed, as that was the last thing I did, so they weren't the best, but I was pretty happy overall with how the cake turned out.  I combined that with black and yellow cupcakes, and black (and gray) and yellow plates, plasticwear, and napkins, as well as some hanging decorations in the shelter to complete the theme.

The shelter was a great venue.  One thing that they don't do well is make it clear when it's reserved.  We had the shelter for the whole afternoon and evening, but when I showed up to decorate prior to the party, there were a couple other groups in there, including a pretty large wedding party.  But  I needed to get set up, so I let them know that we had it reserved, and they relocated elsewhere, which was kind of a lengthy process  This left me scrambling to make up for lost time, but thankfully Kirk and Joanna showed up early and helped me finish the decorations.  As you can see, the shelter was large, which we needed, since we had invited his whole class from school in addition to a few select kids from church (Grayson was the only one who could come), and his cousins, the Hansons, and Alex's kids and Alaina's kids, and the adults our family and also Halie.

Ron helped out by doing all the hot dog cooking, and Matt helped manage the bonfire, both of which were a huge help to me, as I had to manage many other things as the night when on.

When it was time to do cake, all the kids were drawn in like bugs to a light on a summer night.

And speaking of summer nights, even though it's October, the weather was unseasonably warm, so it was a very pleasant evening.  And speaking of lights, the lights in the shelter apparently come on automatically, and it seemed they came on way later than they should have.  It was quite dark for awhile, and I was getting concerned that the lights might not come on at all.  But finally they did.  In the meantime, one of our coolest decorations had their chance to literally shine, as we had some light-up balloons hung throughout the shelter.  They were regular balloons that you blow up, but they have little lights in them to make the balloons glow and flash in the darkness.

When we asked Joshua what  kind of party he wanted to have this year, he said he wanted it outside at nighttime, and he wanted s'mores (likely remembering the kids' joint party from last year).  That's what led us to Black Hoof, as it's a park we already like to go to, and one of the shelters they have, the Oak Shelter, has a huge firepit.  Again, thanks to Matt making sure it was ready to go, we had a nice fire in the firepit, which allowed us to cook s'mores (thanks to Halie for managing the s'more station).  They were a hit, because everyone loves s'mores, of course.

Finally we opened gifts, and Joshua got a lot of cool new toys and activities that he's very excited to get to play with and use.  It was really a pretty great party from every perspective.  The weather was great, and everyone had a lot of fun, especially our birthday boy, Joshua.