Impulse

They're not the greatest pictures,

but it was a great moment.

Theia just saw the huge pile of leaves neatly raked by the sidewalk and on impulse just jumped in.  She couldn't help herself.  The other two couldn't either, as they joined her moments later jumping and romping in the leaves. 

Autumn Applelooza V: It's All Fun & Games

Autumn Applelooza, our annual celebration of everything fall, descended upon our house the weekend before Halloween.  An unplanned snow and freezing temperatures

 could not dampen the celebration or the fierce competition.  It did however, bring all of our previously anticipated outdoor activities to the indoors.  Three teams of two competed in a day's worth of activities to be named Autumn Applelooza V Champion. 

It was all fun and games with bobbing for apples

three legged races through the house,

a sensory tub loaded with autumn related things that our competitors had one minute to touch (no sight involved)

and then put their heads together to create a list of what they had felt,

or thought they felt,

pumpkin carving,

and pumpkin Jeopardy!  The competition for Pumpkin Jeopardy! was so fierce, we forgot to take pictures.

Of course, as happens every year, Team Shuman won the first three events and anticlimactically secured the overall crown at the earliest mathematically possible time.  Their eternal nemesis, Dan Yi, repeatedly came up short, each time when he was certain that he had defeated the Shumans in an event for the first time ever.  (The last five years have given Dan many opportunities, but the Shumans always beat him.  It's quite remarkable, because every year all of the events except pumpkin-carving are new, never-been-tried-before.)

So, in a desperate attempt to inject some faux drama into the final event for the evening, we instituted a capricious and utterly unprincipled midstream rules change.  We declared, ukase-style, that the winning team in Pumpkin Jeopardy! would be this year's overall champion as well.

The teams were well matched, and the contest came down to the wire.  Through the combination of a proper alignment of the stars, baby Jacob distracting the Shumans, domination of entire categories of questions by Tim Johnson, and timely answers provided by late-arriving reinforcements, Sarah & Beth, Dan's team eked out a narrow victory.  The Shumans' reign of terror over Autumn Applelooza was broken. 

 As for the younger set, the girls enjoyed playing with Jacob

and they thought Jacob's daddy was a good reader.

Joey stayed awake for more of the festivities this year.

And when all the guests left, the girls enjoyed their favorite Autumn Applelooza tradition:

a closer look at their pumpkin (carving by daddy, direction by Xandra)

with the lights off, of course.

Contributions of text in Italics by Joe Pull.

Running in Circles

These three are a hoot.

even when they're just running in circles.

Weekend Projects

Fall at our house has meant lots of small home improvement projects.  We've torn down, repaired and painted a fence, painted the shed outback, painted the ledge that goes around our house, painted some steps on a patio, painted the area around our house numbers, repainted our famous trash rack, touched up paint on the firehouse, cleaned out a shed and disposed of three dead rats, got rid of a brush pile with three trips to the dump, replaced the outlets and light switches around the house, ripped apart a rotting bench and threw it away, gave away two broken lawn mowers, and that's just the list I can remember.   It feels good to take care of these projects.  It's tidying up our house and making it look fresher and cleaner.Sometimes, however, it's good to just stop on a weekend and do something different.  Here's a look at another kind of Saturday afternoon project we worked on last weekend.

It was a family affair.  Even I helped.  I tend to think of blocks and building as daddy's territory.  He's very good at it.  He spent many, many hours as a child building out of legos.  This time, however, they were having so much fun, I couldn't resist joining in.  Theia and I worked on the yellow part of the great tower.

The finished project was taller than Aliyah,

with lots of steps that I was glad I didn't have to climb,

and three very proud architects/builders/designers.

While it didn't spruce up the outside of our home, it sure made the inside a lot nicer. 

It's my favorite project all fall.  It didn't involve any paint and it only took an afternoon to create!

It also only took about 30 seconds for this guy to demolish. 

What are little brothers for?

Kittens & Candy

On October 31st we had three little kittens,

who lost their mittens.

and one little brother who found them.

Our three little kittens, had three unruly tails,

cute little faces,

small black ears,

and signs inquiring if anyone had seen their mittens.

They also had a little brother, even more unruly than their tails,

who made off with their mittens and our neighbor, 

Ms. Carol's entire bag of candy.

 Ms. Carol thought it was funny.  The kittens did not.

After recovering the candy and the little brother, we took another, happier picture,

visited our other neighbor, Ms. Lena

and set off for our friends' place, The Holmes, in search of mittens and more trick or treating fun.  Before the trick or treating got under way, we carved a pumpkin with Mr. Brad.

While he carved, he talked about our sin being like the inside of the pumpkin...gross!

He shared about how once we allow God to take away our sin, like we scoop out the pumpkin seeds,

His light can shine bright in us from the inside out, just like a jack-o-lantern.

Once the pumpkin was finished, we headed out for more trick or treating  with this crew.

Front row:  Minnie Mouse x 2 (Ava & Annie), Spider Man (Ellie), a princess (Faith), a knight (Andrew),

Middle Row:  Three Kittends (Aliyah, Theia, & Xandra), a princess (Jillian), Joey (as himself)

Top Row:  a flower (Anna), and Nemo (Bennet)

After trick or treating, we enjoyed another Halloween highlight.  Our three little kittens (aka farm cats) who lost their mittens, found their mommy and daddy some $2.00 Chipotle burritos for dinner (Chipotle ran a promotion that if you dressed like a farm animal, they would sell you a $2.00 burrito on Halloween).  For their kindness to us, they each enjoyed an extra piece of Halloween candy.  We have found in the weeks since that despite their difficulty with mittens, our kittens seem to have no problem keeping track of their individual buckets of candy.  Funny how that works.