Happy Reformation Day! (warning: long post)

A day late, I know, but I would be remiss not to mention it. I just didn’t have pictures yesterday because I ran out of space in my laptop’s memory and Ed had to delete some old pictures so I could put the new ones on. So Happy Reformation Day! My children came home on Friday stating that they had in fact discussed Martin Luther that day. Whew. I’m so thankful for those amazing teachers who remember to talk about Martin Luther and the Reformation at the end of October.

I think I’ll go backwards with the photos of the day on this blog, starting with Reformation Day itself. We celebrated here at home with some good old-fashioned pumpkin-carving. And yes, of course we read the “Pumpkin Patch Parable” and discussed the spiritual significance of the activity. And we had fun. That was so great because it’s been a while since we all were at home just simply having fun together.

After getting very messy carving pumpkins, the girls had their showers and baths and then decided, on the spur of the moment, that they should dress up in order to answer the door for trick-or-treaters. Everything came from their closets or the dress-up box. Those girls made me laugh with their creative get-ups! Here they are giving me “surprised!” Sarah is a spy-girl. Bethany is Hawaiian Veterinarian Kit, Becca is Cowgirl Samantha, and Elise is a Pooh Bear cheerleader.

Then we made apple cider donuts. If you want the actual recipe, send me an e-mail. For now, here’s the basics:

First mix the dough. Then form the donuts. Refrigerate for 20 minutes. Then deep-fry in vegetable oil.  Coat with cinnamon and sugar and enjoy!

Of course, I need more sweets in my house like I need a hole in my head. We still have brownies and cupcakes from various birthday parties, cookies from friends who came over, and Halloween candy! I did something very sneaky with the Halloween candy, though, to try to prevent myself from eating all of it. First of all, I didn’t buy my favorite stuff. Second, all the leftovers went into a Ziplock baggie in the freezer. Hopefully “out of sight, out of mind” will work for my 4:00 snack attacks.

All these activities brought about very sleepy children. I couldn’t resist this precious face:

Backing up through this past week:On Friday I had the pleasure of helping out in Becca’s classroom. We had fun doing crafts together. I’m so blessed that I have my mom here who is willing to watch Elise, yet again, so that I can do more stuff at school.

On Thursday the bridge into town re-opened! Since April, we have been making our way into town via various routes due to this bridge being torn down and redone (and other road construction detours in the county) and we I am so excited about the bridge being open. It makes my commute to school only 10.5 minutes instead of 14.75. I know, 4.25 minutes doesn’t seem like a lot of time, but it sure is when there are 3 or 4 round trips in a day! So I was thrilled when I finally got to drive over my bridge again. Yes, I took this picture while driving. As you can see, it was raining. I didn’t want to stop and pull over and get out in the rain. And, as you can see, the bridge isn’t totally done – they still need some guard rails and paint, but it’s traversable and that makes me so happy.

Also on Thursday Becca had a birthday party with her 3 fellow church girl Kindergarteners. They had a great time!

On Becca’s birthday we had dinner at a restaurant in town and Becca opened her presents from us there. She was pretty thrilled to get the holiday dress for her American Girl doll. We bought it a whole year ago because Samantha was going “into the archives”, along with all her stuff. It was fun to surprise her with that.

Our precious girls, who actually behaved in the restaurant once again.

Okay, so there are a couple PotD’s missing. Sue me. Life happens.