Ryan & Erinn's Family: October

When we got back from Tennessee, we were thrown right back into regular life. Corinne and Evan decided that "cleaning" windows was the coolest thing in the world.

Co-op continued every Friday. I especially love my Latin class - it's just three third-grade girls, and they are the sweetest things ever! My insects class and mammals class are both delightful, too, just bigger! We have park day once a month after classes, and Corinne took the opportunity that day to show off her superhero shirt.

The first weekend in October was General Conference. I had been challenged by my friend Claire to read (or listen to) all of the April Conference messages, about one a day, before this one started, and it transformed my experience. Not only did I benefit from the wisdom I absorbed while reading them, but October Conference was so much more rewarding because I didn't feel as cheated. Instead of being frustrated that the kids did so much interrupting, I looked at those (new) sessions as more of a preview of things I would study later. It was the first Conference in a long time where I ended feeling satisfied and refreshed!

Waiting for the "Conference Coin Shop" to open.

We almost always carve pumpkins in the same spot in our yard. Coincidentally, there have often been volunteer pumpkin plants that spring up in that area! This one did unusually well, although it failed to produce any pumpkins. It made beautiful pumpkin blossoms each day, which wilted by afternoon.

One Thursday, as I was "assisting" Evan to stand up and walk to his room to clean up dirty clothes, we had an ill-fated collision between his heel and my foot. I've often thought my toe was broken, but this was the first time it actually was. It wasn't too subtle, either.

Eeeeew.

The day after getting my toe x-rayed and buddy-taped at urgent care, I (probably foolishly) decided to go to Rise of the Jack O Lanterns - an awesome outdoor display of pumpkin art at Descanso Gardens. It was quite a long walk on my gimpy toe, but it was really cool to look at.

Note the jellyfish in the background.

The next morning (still on my gimpy toe) we attended the Club 21 Walk-a-thon in Pasadena. This was our second year, and the first year we all officially registered. We also took Elise's friend Ashlee while her family was moving that day. The kids had a great time, both at the walk-a-thon and at the carnival that followed. We even came home with two carnival-prize goldfish, one of which promptly died. Club 21 is a learning and resource center for people with Down's Syndrome.

Hairstyle Booth

After the carnival, and some lunch, we drove to the Pomona Fairplex to look at their RV show. (Yes, this was still on my very unhappy toe.) We found this tiny "TAB" teardrop trailer and fell in love with it. It was all we could talk about for about a week afterward. It's small enough to be towed by a Honda Odyssey, but has all the amenities we would need for comfortable trips. The plan would not be for us to sleep in it (at least until the kids were old enough to do a tent on their own), but to use it as a gathering place, kitchen, and bathroom. Sadly, we discovered a bit later that neither our driveway nor our garage would admit such a lovely toy.

Connor and Elise tested for their yellow belts in October. They both did great, and broke boards with their feet this time. Evan's taekwondo class had their own promotion day, where Evan earned a preschool stripe on his belt. He also broke a board, and was SO excited to be like his older siblings. In moving to the yellow belt class, Connor and Elise started sparring as part of their training.

Promotion #2

Evan's Board Breaking

There were a few days in a row, where a ton of really gross black flies kept accumulating in our living room window. At first I thought someone had just left the door open, but they kept reappearing, even after I swatted all the original ones. We searched everywhere to see if there was something dead or disgusting under the couch or something, but couldn't find anything. Eventually, they stopped appearing. However, a week later, different insects started appearing in the same window area. These were like tiny, hook-legged wasps. I went online, and with great difficulty discovered that the big ugly flies were "flesh flies" and the wasps were called "chalcid wasps". There was a small hole in the windowsill that went down into the wall cavity, so I realized that the flies had apparently grown in something dead in our wall (probably a rat). Some hatched, but some were parasitized by the wasps, who lay their eggs on maggots. The wasp babies ate up the maggots, then hatched out as adult wasps a week after the surviving flies. Isn't nature beautiful? We sealed up the hole.

Chalcid Wasp

Halloween was great this year - not overwhelming at all. Elise's friend Sarah convinced her to be a "twin witch" with herself and her friend from school. Connor, very practically saying that he couldn't think of a better costume, went as the Grim Reaper for the third year in a row, and Evan wanted to be Captain America, mostly because of the shield, since Evan doesn't really know anything about Captain America. Corinne went to the church party as a chick, but did Halloween itself as a black cat. That is the benefit of having lots of hand-me-down costumes to choose from.

Ward Party, with Our Neighbors

Connor's, Elise's, Evan's, and Corinne's (Ghost-Carved by Mom)

After trick-or-treating, they always end up watching Garfield's Halloween Adventure

We also spent October preparing for the church Primary Program. These pictures pretty much sum up the craziness of rehearsal!

On the day of the program, Connor and Elise were among the kids who played prelude music before the meeting started. Our ward newsletter guy took these great pictures, since I was too busy and stressed to think of such a thing. (It's not appropriate to take pictures during a Sacrament Meeting, so there are no photos of the actual program.) The kids all did an amazing job, which was helped by the great writing and directing of my first counselor, Danni. Afterwards, we had our traditional milk and donuts outside!