It's Fall!

I've been really excited for fall to come this year. I'm ready for the cooler weather, the changing leaves, and the holiday season. And I am super ridiculously excited for HALLOWEEN! I love the costumes, the anticipation of candy, the fun decorations, and the excitement of my sweet boys.

This year Ryan will be rocking his signature Captain America costume, I'll be a witch, Kender will be Darth Vader, and Rhett will be Lego Batman. Kender's costume lights up and is super cool, and Rhett's is really just pajamas so it's super cuddly and cute. I can't wait to get pictures of those boys in their costumes!

Today we visited our first pumpkin patch. The actual pumpkin picking didn't take long, but they played in the hay maze until we made them get out because I was cold (and I have a cold). We got some awesome pumpkins, and the boys had a lot of fun!

Kender and I have been struggling a little with homeschool. He's been getting frustrated, and it's been making me frustrated, so I did a little research. You know what I found out? The "advanced" Kindergarten curriculum we were using was equivalent to regular 1st grade. So essentially we tried to go straight from pre-k to 1st grade. No wonder he was so frustrated! Fortunately, a new curriculum came out today to fill in the blanks between the pre-k and kindergarten curricula (we really like The Good and the Beautiful by Jenny Phillips, so that's the curricula I'm talking about here). The timing couldn't be better.

Kender was still learning a lot with the more advanced curriculum, but I want to make sure he has a solid reading foundation before we start more challenging things. We're also going to use the book Teach Your Child to Read to help build that strong foundation. So far the lessons are boring for Kender, but they get more challenging as we move along so we just have to be patient and push through until we reach his level. I'm learning just as much as Kender, if not more, on this little homeschool journey we're on. Every day we pray for happy attitudes and help with our learning!

I spend most of the day today laying in bed because this cold's got me down, but Kender and Ryan were pretty productive! They harvested our potatoes and we got some awesomely big ones. Way to go my farm boys! ♥

This last picture is a flash back to our stay in Newport Beach. Can you tell that our boys were NOT having a good morning? I'm actually really impressed that Paul and Scott were able to get a picture this good of us with our grumps!