A couple of weekends ago, we had a rare free Saturday. We knew the hurricane was coming, so we wanted to get out and see some fall foliage before it struck. I'd recently read a Civil War era novel that mentioned John Brown and Harpers Ferry, so I thought we should go check it out. While I'd heard of Harpers Ferry, I don't think I'd ever been there before.
It was just the right distance away, about 1.5 hours, split between highway for the first part, and winding country 2-lane roads for the second, with plenty of rolling vistas and fall colors on the way. When we got to the National Park parking lot, we learned there are two ways to get to the main historical town area - take a shuttle bus or hike (an easy terrain 1.5 miler.) Guess which we did.
When we got down there, we found they were commemorating the War of 1812, so we sat and listened to some fife & drum, and an explanation of uniforms and other military traditions of the time.
Hazel was so into it. She loves learning about other times, and especially pretending she is in them. There's a lot of historical play at our house right now, and she is devouring the Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House series.
Poppy, however, was "so tired", you know because she had such a hard job of riding on Dad's back during our hike.
But tickling brings out a smile.
After the demo, we wandered the town. Harpers Ferry is really an impressive spot, with something for everyone (a difficult feat for our family), and history from several eras. George Washington, Lewis & Clark, 1812, Civil War, manufacturing & industry, civil rights, and on top of all that, it's the halfway point on the Appalachian Trail between its two ends in Maine and Georgia. We saw several Trail hikers throughout our day, reminding Ed that hiking the AT is high on his bucket list. And if that's not enough, Harpers Ferry is at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers, which was pretty awesome to look out at, and which fascinated the mountain man in Ed. We saw some kayakers out there in super hero Halloween costumes.
Ed's a reader. Meaning, in any historical spot, scenic outlook, museum, etc. - anywhere that has a marker or sign to be read, he reads it. That's good, because he learns a lot, and then can tell me about it if I'm interested. Me, I glance or skim, but I like to keep moving. I like to take in a place, not scrutinize it.
This is easily my favorite photo of the day. This fellow was playing some mean banjo; Ginger and I watched him for a long time, enthralled. I love the banjo. Then when the others joined us, they all broke into spontaneous dance, and danced uninhibited in the street for quite a few minutes. There's nothing like music, dance, views, history, (and a little frozen custard) to make a fabulous Fall family day.
And speaking of pumpkins, last Saturday I wanted to take my girls out to get some, but I wasn't up for the drive, expense, or crowds of Cox. I decided to try out a new place (new to us) - Krop's Crops. As you can see, the day was perfect, and it was just what we wanted - a simple hay ride out to the pumpkin patch, a few pens of animals, and a small store with apples and local honey (which supposedly helps with allergies - gonna try it out.)
A bonus discover when we got there, and the hit of the day, was a sizable corn bin to play in. And since this place is low-key, we had it practically all to ourselves both before and after the hay ride.
Then we went to Wendy's for lunch, and Target to buy Halloween candy - pretty much a perfect Saturday. When we got home the girls colored their smaller pumpkins.
And that night I went with grown-ups to the Mariinsky Ballet's Cinderellaat the Kennedy Center. Yeah, I'd say a perfect Saturday.
Pumpkin, Pumpkin by Jeanne Titherington
I always love the little tidbits about the kids, this is what I noticed:
*Poppy
was quite the chatterer. Though I find this hard to believe, I've never
conversed to Poppy! It was fun to hear her speech patterns which remind
me so much of Ginger. So fun.
*Henry was our man of color. For whatever reason, half the time I asked
about the colors on the page, or the paint, or what color their pumpkins
were the other kids were not interested in responding. Henry never let
me down. He was always enthusiastic about the colors.
*Bodie was passionate about whatever he was doing--playing with the
cars, tackling the other kids, or painting his "pumpkin," this kid does
not lack enthusiasm.
*Jackson was our resident noise maker. He was an
enthusiastic singer, noise maker, and crier. Oh yes the tears flowed
strong today. It's so hard to share our toys!
Here's
the synopsis (I just kind of filled in my lesson plan, sorry it's not
beautifully narrated, but my nap time is still too preciousl! Also,
pictures were difficult to manage, but I did get a few)
9:30 Arrive/Free Play (LR):
-Farm Animals
-Cars
- Mixed pumpkin muffins together [found the recipe on Kari's blog--thank
you] (Bodie had no interest, so he kept playing while the others mixed
these up, Henry was really anxious to crack the eggs, but I decided I
wasn't quite ready for that adventure)
9:50 Circle/Welcome (BSMT):
-Welcome Song -Passed around pumpkin to touch, smell, and describe
**interruption to take out muffins from oven
-Sang "pumpkin pumpkin" while waiting an extra min for muffins to finish -Counted 12 paper Pumpkins
-Alphabet Song (marched)
-Read "Pumpkin Pumpkin" 2 times (first w/ discussion, 2nd going through)
-Gave each child a (butternut squash) seed, talked about pumpkins growing from seeds, sang "little seeds" (children's songbook)
10:15 Snack (DR)
-wash hands, potty (only henry had to go to the bathroom)
-pumpkin
muffins, grapes, carrots
-Discussed Pumpkin Patch and sang "pumpkin pumkin"
[In case you can't understand her, Poppy is saying she will get an "oranges" pumpkin - she uses the plural all the time and I never correct her because I love it. Then she gets excited to point out that the carrot she just ate is also "oranges."]
10:30 Art Pumpkin Making (BSMT)
-showed kids my "pumpkin"
-we stuffed the bags, and taped the top
-Showed kids how to paint the
pumpkin with the sponges, and let them go at it. This was harder than I
though it would be, but they all did a great job. (No one liked when the
paint got on them! Poppy and Bodie were especially studious, Jackson
and Henry painted and then left for the looming balls)
-Sang more of "pumpkin pumpkin", and introduced "5 little pumpkins"
11:00 Activity (BSMT/Garden)
-Handed out seeds again and discussed digging in the dirt
-Sang "little seeds" multiple times, pretending to grow into pumpkins
-Went outside to plant our seeds.
-found a worm, planted our seeds, and watered them
11:15 Close (BSMT)
-Re read book
-So long king kong
11:20 After Party (BackYard)
-Brought balls outside to shoot some hoops
-Sang "Scary Skelatons" 5x
-Bodie
stuck the basketball in the garden, and pretended it was a pumkpin. He
kept saying and acting out, "it's heavy! it's heavy"
-Looked at the flowers on the zucchini plant, and picked some zucs. Poppy kept exclaiming, "oh wow! oh wow!"
-ran around the house to distract Jackson from his inability to share
Um, it was a little more work than I expected to get a good shot of the kids in their costumes. Everytime I said, "1, 2, 3..." Poppy ran towards me, and my stupid idiot camera was never fast enough.
Finally Knight Hazel laid down the law with her sword and I got a shot. Baseball bat and all. But can we all still please agree I need a new camera? A GOOD camera? You know I'd use it. This is the beginning of my Christmas hinting. I've only done this five Christmases in a row. Maybe one of these years it will stick.
But back to the kids. They were really cute, right?
Trick-or-treating in our neighborhood is awesome. The neighbors really deck out with decorations, scary-but-not-too-scary music, costumes, etc. One house even had a platter of pumpkin muffins for the grown-ups, and another had a full spread on a table in their driveway - hot dogs, cookies, and big thermoses of steaming hot chocolate. So thoughtful because it was kind of a chilly night, and it got us through the last stretch. Several groups had fire pits going in their front yard and were making a fun night of it with friends.
We took Poppy with us to a few houses, then brought her home to stay with Ed while he ate dinner and carved our pumpkin - never too late! After only a few trick-or-treaters at our door, Poppy caught on and took that duty upon herself. First, watching out the window for people:
Then handing them the candy when they came and calling, "Happy Halloween!" Then her favorite part was closing the door and watching out the window again.
Here's the jack-o-lantern Ed carved - not bad, eh? Love those template books! A NICE camera could have taken an amazing shot of it in that low light.
The girls had a good haul - Hazel liked the Tootsie Rolls and Ginger discovered the wonder of Skittles - they are her new favorite treat by far. I still go for the Reese's and Snickers myself.
And just for some final spooky fun, here's a picture of my brother Dave and me, circa 1981? He just loaded a bunch of pics to his Facebook page in an album called, "Look Who Found a Scanner", and this was one of them. Don't you miss the days when you had to make your own C3PO costume? And you know I was working that wig!
This post has it all: photos. Parades. Parties. Cakes. Giant inflatables. Videos. Everything Halloween should be and more. In no particular order.
First of all, thank you to FX for playing "Twilight" several times over the last few nights. It's been real.
Last year I mentioned an enormous, house-sized black cat our neighbor put up. The girls called him "Scary Skip" and were scared to walk by him. This year we were thrilled to see his return, and instead of fear, we greet him heartily each day. (And let me just say - it is SO amazing to be able to send videos straight from my phone to YouTube!)
Last week Ginger's preschool had their annual Halloween sing-along and outdoor parade, always a crowd-pleaser. I have got to get a playlist from their music teacher, some of those songs are super cute. Her class had a small cupcake-decorating party first.
We got the ears headband from an Etsy seller, the leggings at Target, and a red sailor dress from ebay that my Mom added the collar and tie to to make it look right. She was lacking some girth but not much we could do about that.
Poppy was the same ladybug that both Hazel and Ginger were at her age. Easy peasy.
This month my friend Sheri traveled to England to see, among other things, the Bears play an NFL UK game - see her awesome write-up here. While galavanting and basking in kidlessness she also managed to remember I LOVE Cadbury creme eggs, and picked me up a bunch of these Halloween versions - "Screme eggs" with green in the center. Oh, yes, they are all the Halloween candy I need. YUM!
In preparation for our church Halloween party, a bunch of chicks-in-aprons got together one night to assemble this cake and this one, which would be prizes for the pumpkin carving and chili cook-off contests. It was a great night of gabbing and frosting.
Last Friday night Hazel's school had a Halloween party, so we all donned our costumes and schlepped over to the school. There was a movie, stories, crafts, a "spookhouse" (= the music room draped and darkened with a few scary things), and DANCING. Yes, a DJ was there, and from the moment we got there to the moment we left, Hazel was cutting the rug. She's got moves and she loves to dance. It's kinda dark to tell, but she was a knight.
Saturday was the church party. But before that, we got the season's first SNOW! The girls were beside themselves and talk of Christmas immediately ensued.
But we did still go to the party. From the decorations to the activities, to the astounding "Thriller" dance performance at the end, the whole event left me speechless. Games, cupcake walk, Pirate's Cove, live music (yes, a BAND). It rocked.
It was also fun that I got to be a chili judge, tasting 19 different concoctions, and realizing there is a very wide berth when to comes to interpreting "chili." Another thing I always love about the church party is that the adults dress up. Ed and I were salt and pepper shakers. Unfortunately my costume snagged on a door and fell apart before we could get a picture together, but here is Ed with Poppy. I looked like him but with black pom-poms and balled up newspaper in my shaker.
Here were some of my other favorite adult costumes -
Alex Trebek and Jeaopardy contestant - nice winnings, Ashley!
Mr. & Mrs. Pacman
Facebook page and National Geographic cover - this NG fellow had the most rocking homemade robot costume last year, he is one to keep an eye on!
I never did get a proper shot of all the girls together, but maybe tonight I can take one. We're all looking forward to trick-or-treating since we skipped last year (Halloween being on a Sunday.) Speaking of candy, both Hazel's school and a local scout troop are collecting leftovers for Treats 4 Our Troops, do you know about this? Genius everyone-wins program. Or there's this feature on candy-filled treats (but like I said here, does anyone really have Reese's left over?!) Let's take Halloween candy and ADD MORE SUGAR! Who's with me? You couldn't pay me enough to make or eat the Taffy Ice Cream Bomb (who gives out taffy for Halloween?) but I could be persuaded to try the Kit Kat Crescents...
Finally, I got this "tasteful" black wreath for door, what do you think? I went out to get the paper one morning, and when I turned around this was what I saw. What on earth could be more welcoming?
So there's our Halloween except for our actual Halloween. What are you doing and being this spookiest day of 2011?
