I love the holidays---starting with Halloween and all the way into the New Year. Ezra and Mason are in a really fun season of life where they are over the moon for ALL the things! I have my own pleasant memories of trick or treating, my mom's amazing Thanksgiving feasts, and decorating gingerbread houses from frosting she would make from scratch. Now being a mom myself and realizing the work that goes into many of these festivities, I have a deep sense of gratitude for the effort she put into our family.
It's one thing to provide the necessities for a family (obviously vital). However, when it came to the non-essentials my mom could have easily not bothered with the extra work and be completely justified. She sewed me a pink fairy dress when I was 5 complete with wings that you could remove. She took the time to make things fun for us simply for the sake of fun. I hope I can do the same for my kids. I want them to feel like their basic needs were met but that we also took the time to have fun with them and sprinkle a little magic along the way.
Homeschooling is in full swing. Ezra seems to have a love/hate relationship with it. He adores the weekly group activities but doing the school part has been challenging. I have learned so much from the mothers in my group. They are both very seasoned mothers with 6 and 4 kids and have been at this homeschool thing for a while. When we go to the activities, I want to soak up their knowledge as much as possible.
This month we made bread and learned about Día de los Muertos. One of the families lives on an amazing piece of land complete with ziplines, swinging ropes, and a vast bamboo forest. The boys also learned about knife safety and made their own pies. They finished off the month with a nature scavenger hunt at a botanical garden and painted turkeys for Thanksgiving.
As part of the homeschool routine we started doing read alouds (I read a chapter book to the boys). I have never thought about this before, but it makes so much sense! My fellow homeschool mammas have been doing this for a while and were sharing all of the benefits for making it a consistent thing for their families. One of the mommas gave us a book to try for our first read aloud called Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. I was a little skeptical with how well the boys' attention spans could handle a chapter book with minimal pictures. However, Ezra really surprised me! He began asking so many questions about the characters as I read.
Other happenings for this month include planting a banana (Dwarf Nam Wah/Kayinja) and fig tree (Vale Negra). Set up the Christmas tree. Enclosing the bottom of our house. Backyard bonfires, fishing at Lake Wilson. Mason is currently obsessed with wearing his old firefighter costume everywhere we go. I attended a witch murder mystery party where I was the murderer. Took Mason on a waterpark/poke bowls date.
Everyone got sick with the stomach bug (that was a LONG day). Had Thanksgiving at the firestation with Annie. Went to the Discovery Center for the first time with Urijah and Rohan. Ezra was quite the MC at the movie theater.
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