Fall Homeschool Party

I love how since this was at my house, it makes it look like I was the one who created all this. Ah, no! Jennifer brought it all!

Awhile back Jennifer got the brilliant idea that we should do a fall homeschool party for our circle of friends that homeschool. Blake goes to an umbrella school four days a week and had been talking about various parties that go on at his school which made Evan (who is purely homeschooled) start feeling bad. So Jennifer said, "That's it! We're having a party." And that was that. Jennifer kicked into party mode and planned the whole thing. It's so nice to have friends like that! The only thing I had to do was host which I was more than happy to do. We picked the date of October 8 with the hopes it would be feeling "fall" like.

On Monday the girls had their homeschool gymnastics class which consists of seven girls and one boy (including themselves). After the class, the boy, Noah, came right up to me and said "Calleigh said you were having a party at your house for homeschool. I go to homeschool. Can I come?" I was like "Sure, but you have to ask your mom." I thought there may be a good chance the mom would politely decline or whatever since she doesn't know me at all. But Noah came back and said "Yeah, I can go. Can you go talk to my mom over there in the red shirt." So I made my way over and introduced myself and it turns out she's a lovely lady named Kat who homeschools Noah who is eight and his twin brother, Joshua, and also another son who in in 9th grade. She seemed thrilled to be invited and said they were trying to meet other homeschoolers. About this time, another mother, Rebecca, who I have chit chatted a bit with before, came on by so I invited her along too (her girls are Katherine - 8 and Lizzie - 6). She was very happy about it too. After we exchanged numbers and information and we left, I started feeling pretty bad about the fact that it took Calleigh mentioning it to Noah to get us mothers talking. Granted, I'm usually quite busy running after/keeping track of Colby which prevents me from having some nice in depth conversations during the class but still...It was a teachable moment - - by the student to her teacher.

Sunday morning when the kids had soccer, we went outside to get into the van and their was a noticeable chill in the air. When we got to the fields, we noticed that some of the people there had these strange coverings on their arms and legs. What in the world? I think they call them long-sleeved shirts and pants but it's been so long. It was such a nice reprieve. But, if there was such a thing as Mother Nature, she would have been laughing in our face and saying "Haha, fooled you" as we gathered for our fall party as the mercury climbed to 90. Despite the hot weather, we had such a good time. We had nine mothers and 24 kids (includes homeshoolers and other siblings). The girls were particularly excited because many of the kids hadn't been to our house before and they really wanted to show them their rooms and toys.

Everybody brought a food item with them and a game so there was lots of eating and then we were mostly able to withstand the heat by playing the games in the backyard afterwards. I had a nice chat with Kat and Rebecca and they expressed to me again before they left at how appreciative they were to be able to come. That evening when we were on the way to Adventurers, Aubree asked me "Are they going to be our friends from now on, like how we are friends with Braelyn? Like are we going to be friends with them forever?"

Colby let Rosa hold him. Yay for me!

Get the cookie from your face to your mouth game.

Pumpkin ring toss. That's new friend, Noah, in the yellow shirt.

Nothing says a fall party like bobbing for apples. I just realized that Colby is drinking out of that sippy cup that we had lent to Addison. Oops!

Another new friend, Katherine, who won this round of eating the donut without hands.

A much healthier and neater alternative to a chocolate donut.

A less violent alternative to a pinata. You punch a cup and get the prize inside.

The neatness was short lived. He just had to eat a chocolate covered Oreo.

Back to soccer...we finally had our second week of it following a week off due to an event at the church and then a rainout. All went very well for the girls but Brady has basically decided he doesn't want to participate. When you're three, I think it's cool if you don't want to do it even though your parents already plopped down the money for you to play. I'm not sure why he doesn't but oh well.

Fortunately the church has a playground so the boys can play while the girls do soccer.

Following the game, we were going to go to New Smyrna Beach for the triplets birthday party but Duncan wasn't going to be able to join us and that quickly squashed that idea. On my list of 100 things that I would hate to do, this is this is how it looks (1) Watch an entire soccer game (other than my kids) (2) Watch Forrest Gump again (sorry, thought that was incredibly boring) (3) Take my kids to the beach by myself. Have I mentioned that Duncan is building a pergola in our back yard? He is such a stud muffin. It was going to be like $4k to have someone else do it so he decided to just do it himself and so watched some YouTube videos and voila! He is now in the midst of building one. Obviously it is absorbing his Sundays and also the remaining minutes of daylight when he gets home from work. So that put the kibosh on our party beach plans.

Progres...The staining of the wood was very time consuming.

A lot of progress. Just kidding! This is a picture I had just pinned on Pinterest because I liked the black lantern thingys (well, I liked everything!)

On that note, I found these at a yard sale today for $15 so I was very excited!

Fortunately I had a Plan B up my sleeve because the kids were mighty disappointed in not being able to go the beach. I had noticed a few weeks ago a new kids' indoor playground place called Lucky Monkey had opened in Altamonte Springs and thought the kids would enjoy it. A few people I know have gone recently and gave it a good review so I decided we would go for it. However, it is a little costly, $10/kid. Yikes! Have I mentioned that having four kids can be a little expensive at times? What was I thinking! I did notice on their website that you could buy 5 passes for $35 or 10 passes for $70. Aren't they clever? Anyway, I thought that $7 a pop sounded much more reasonable so off we went. I tried to go back on their website on Saturday night to check out a few more things but it was down for maintenance or something. When we walked on, the little sign on the desk said "10 passes, $70 or 15 passes, $105." (Seriously, who is running their promotions department?). There was no mention of the $5 for $35 and when I asked the ladies at the front desk they said "Yeah, we aren't doing that one any more." Well, I was in no mood to fork over $70 so after a little back and forth (they were very nice but it was clear they weren't in a position to cut me a deal), one of them said they would go speak to the owner. A minute later she came back and said "No, he says no discounts." I was ready to just walk out right then but the kids were staring longingly at all the fun and exciting things to do. So I asked if I could speak to the owner myself. Out he comes and I stated my position..."I came here to try this place out and I had read on your website that you could get 5 passes for $35 but now I get here and that's not the case. Your website is down so I couldn't check the price last night." And he says, "Yeah, they're updating it to lower the age from 12 to 8." I replied "Well, that's not my fault. I came here thinking it was the one price. I guess I'm going to leave." After a few moments, he finally relented and said he would do $8 a piece and that was the best he could do. Honestly, I think he was a bit of a pompous jerk and I totally would have left if the kids wouldn't have been so disappointed. As soon as he was gone, the two ladies were all apologetic and ended up saying I could just take Colby in for free since he was so small.

I was glad I stayed though. The three younger kids, particularly the boys, had a grand time. It claims that it's for ages up to 12 but that's just downright ridiculous. Calleigh was bored after a short time and I don't think we would pay to take her there again. But it's perfect for the boys and Brady is still talking about it. And then the kicker is, when their website was finally back up and running on Monday, I went and looked and sure enough, it still shows 5 for $35. Is that even legal to have a price on your website and then not honor it?

This was Aubree and Brady's favorite thing.

I will use pictures to show what else we've been up to the past week.

Went to a consignment sale last Friday afternoon and had to take all four kids, unfortunately. They were surprisingly good (this smily faced kid being the usual main culprit) so I let them play in the playground there afterwards.

You may recall from last week that Brady said he would "darpissitate in Sabbath School this week." And sure enough, he did! At the end of class, Duncan says he gave Duncan a sly smile and said "Did I do a good job?"

The girls did the offering for Adventurers Sabbath.

Another puzzle. Since they laid down next to the last one, they now think they are supposed to do that every time.

It can be tough having an older sister. Sorry, Shawn, for all the times I did this to you! Not that you read this blog...

The boys at gymnastics.

The girls with Coach Kori, their teacher on Mondays. Notice she gets the cool, feminine looking spelling of the name. She is really awesome (and not just because of the name).

The world may have quite possibly stopped spinning on its axis at approximately 7:10 pm on Monday, October 6. Brady took a bite of a new food. A homemade eggroll!

A science experiment on what happens when you mix yeast and sugar.

Our memory verse this week starts off with "I am the Bread of life." So our theme has been bread or dough. Here the girls are making homemade play dough.