The Girls' October Fun Stuff

While Jack had a lot going on with band and dances, the girls were busy doing fun things also. Alice was nervous to go to a new school this year but is slowly getting used to it and liking it more all of the time. She even received an award at their first assembly of the year for "Courage". She wasn't the only one in her class who was new to their school either and at least one other student from her class also got the same award. Courage was the character trait of the month of September for the entire school.

The girls got in a baking mood early in October, which usually happens to me this time of year also, and baked some Halloween sugar cookies. Then they delivered them to some friends with a message "You've Been Booed". They really got into it and dressed in dark clothing to hide themselves and be sneaky delivering the goodies to the doors. They hid themselves so that they could see or hear the reaction of those answering the door. Then they would run and jump in the van where I was waiting.

Dressed and ready to deliver.

One of the reasons Curtis and I did not go to Spokane for Jack's band competition is that one of our good friends' daughters, one of Alice's best friends, Laila, got baptized. I wanted to make sure we didn't miss it, especially since they had come to Alice's baptism. And this time I made sure to get a picture of the two girls afterward.

Her friend is a year younger than her, but a lot taller. She comes from a tall family.

For Activity Days in October, we made leaf banners using dried leaves and flowers ironed between sheets of wax paper. It was a big project that took longer than expected, so we decided to have an extra activity day in October so that we could finished them the following week. It made up for us only having one activity in September. Our second activity was making decoupaged pumpkins using styrofoam pumpkins that Sister Gale bought either last year or the year before. She had been saving them to try and use, so we decided we better make that happen. I bought some Fall printed napkins from Hobby Lobby and we brushed glue on the pumpkins with foam brushes and then ripped pieces of napkin and pushed them down onto the glue. Then brushed glue on top. The glue we used was just Elmer's glue that we added a bit of water in it to make it easier to spread. Then we glued twine around the stem. Sister Gale brought out some fake flowers and leaves that some girls added to their pumpkins as well.

This was practice for the leaf banner. I wanted to make sure it was going to work.

Alice holding the other one I made.

Charlotte's banner.

Alice's banner. They can be seen better if hung in a window that gets a lot of sunlight, which is where hers is.

Our plethora of pressed leaves and flowers to choose from. We worked in Sister Gale's garage.

My decoupage pumpkin that I did for practice. I love how it turned out. Later, Charlotte added a small fake yellow sunflower by the stem.

Charlotte used two different prints of napkins and mixed them on her pumpkin. 

Some girls discovered that the pumpkins could open in half, so Alice decorated the top half differently than the bottom. I love their creativeness!

The girls still had roller skating passes to use up before they expired on 10/31 that they had received from finishing the summer reading program, so I looked at the skate times available and we decided that a Wednesday afternoon would work the best, and to do it before the week of Halloween. The girls invited their sister friends, Jane and Ava. We ended up picking a great time to go because there were very few people there. I decided that this time I was going to sit and watch them. They all had a good time, and no one fell! 

Charlotte decided to try a new hairstyle because of someone she saw at school who had a similar hairstyle. It's to pull most of her hair up in a ponytail and then curl the hairs that are left in front, like long bangs. Alice decided she wanted to try it also. They wore this style multiple times because they liked it so much, especially Charlotte. It had been a while since we last used the curling irons.

Alice liked her hair halfway down/up.

Charlotte made a project for science on a plant cell. She was so proud of how it turned out and said she got full marks on it for her grade.

Charlotte also had her very first band concert performance at her school, playing the trumpet. It was short because the 6th graders learned very simple songs since they are so new to instruments and had only been playing for about a month or so by the time they all had instruments picked out and learned basics. It's fun to see the progress she has made. I hardly get to hear her practice because she forgets to do it at home, but I did hear her before school started and right before her concert. It was a big difference! Jack has even helped her a few times when practicing. We are going to pay him to give her lessons eventually.

We were able to find her this cute black outfit from Burlington for her concert attire. She did NOT want to wear a dress.

The 6th grade band.

One of her best friends, Ivy, and her mom came to watch.

Jack was super busy with homework and didn't think he was going to make it, but he came last minute and stood in the doorway to watch while we sat in the bleachers. Garrett was the only one that didn't come. We're hoping to get him to her holiday concert in December.

We have known that we were going to need a new pool liner, and we had hoped to get it done this Fall, but we missed the deadline. Because we know we are going to replace the liner, we have not put any chemicals in the pool since September. It was fine for awhile, but then the algae started growing and it got very green before we finally had the pool people come out and blow out our lines and cover it for us. Curtis worries that he did something wrong when blowing it out last year himself and thinks that's why we had a leak this year. Well, it's one reason. We did have a couple of small rips in the bottom of the pool that we were able to patch temporarily. The pool is so green now that Milo dropped his small Kong toy in there and we could not see or feel it to scoop it out. That toy is now gone. It's okay though, because he's had it for two years since we first got him. We will have to wait until next April toscoop it out and get our liner replaced. 

Here's what it looked like at the end of October, the day before it got covered. I wonder how bad it will look next Spring.

The liner was tearing around the wall in multiple places as well.

This is the worst spot where the liner is torn.