I think that October, by far, was the fastest flying month so far. I just can't believe that it is November already! In the following, you will find our pictures for the month of October. You can tell my looking at them that everything was mostly centered around Halloween.
In order to help motivate RJ to clean and do his chores, we have started letting him "earn" money. There are some things that he has to do just because I expect him to it, but "special" chores, we decided to let him earn money. The picture of him holding his new trains is the result of this. I know the picture is not the best facial expression on RJ, but he was SOOO excited to go into the toy store and pick out, not just one, but 2 new trains. He is still learning the concept of money and doesn't quite understand why the 50 cents in his money bank is not enough to go buy another train, yet, but he has been helping SO much more around the house now without tantrums. So it is a WIN so far for us.
RJ and I went down to Utah to spend a Saturday with my old roommates and their kids for our annual Roommate Reunion and we added a Halloween Party so the kids would have fun. RJ and the other kids had SO much fun and definitely ate way too much junk food. I am grateful for this wonderful room mates of mine and for the wonderful friendships that we have been able to maintain and grow throughout these years since college.
As far as family activities, we left the pumpkins out on the vines as long as we possibly could. We finally went out for family night one night and picked them all. We gathered them in the wheelbarrow. There are a couple pictures of RJ helping Dale. RJ was THRILLED to finally pick the pumpkins. He and the neighbor kids had been asking ALL summer if they could pick the pumpkins. We had one happy little boy on our hands. We ended up with approximately 20 pumpkins from the garden. There is a picture with RJ sitting with all them on the porch.
In order to help motivate RJ to clean and do his chores, we have started letting him "earn" money. There are some things that he has to do just because I expect him to it, but "special" chores, we decided to let him earn money. The picture of him holding his new trains is the result of this. I know the picture is not the best facial expression on RJ, but he was SOOO excited to go into the toy store and pick out, not just one, but 2 new trains. He is still learning the concept of money and doesn't quite understand why the 50 cents in his money bank is not enough to go buy another train, yet, but he has been helping SO much more around the house now without tantrums. So it is a WIN so far for us.
RJ and I went down to Utah to spend a Saturday with my old roommates and their kids for our annual Roommate Reunion and we added a Halloween Party so the kids would have fun. RJ and the other kids had SO much fun and definitely ate way too much junk food. I am grateful for this wonderful room mates of mine and for the wonderful friendships that we have been able to maintain and grow throughout these years since college.
As far as family activities, we left the pumpkins out on the vines as long as we possibly could. We finally went out for family night one night and picked them all. We gathered them in the wheelbarrow. There are a couple pictures of RJ helping Dale. RJ was THRILLED to finally pick the pumpkins. He and the neighbor kids had been asking ALL summer if they could pick the pumpkins. We had one happy little boy on our hands. We ended up with approximately 20 pumpkins from the garden. There is a picture with RJ sitting with all them on the porch.
This past Monday, 2 days before Halloween, we picked out the 4 largest ones and had a family carving night. We carved 4 pumpkins-RJ's name, Ryan's name, a heart, and a typical pumpkin face.
On one of the nights that Dale had a late night, RJ and I made our annual Halloween sugar cookies. He was very excited about this. He LOVES cutting the sugar cookies with the cookie cutters.
Also, Halloween related, we went to our church's Trunk or Treat. RJ got his picture taken by the gigantic pumpkin and then got to go Trunk or Treating with our friends the Bagleys. Dale was busy at our truck handing out candy and I was assigned to help make the hot chocolate at the tailgate of another truck. I miss not being able to "care" for my own son on fun nights like this, but I am grateful he/we have great friends that adopt him into their "clan".
October also brought with it its first snow storm. It was short lived. We got about 4 inches one night and a dusting the second. It was a wet heavy snow...packed with moisture that we desperately needed since I can count on 2 hands the number of rain showers we have had all summer and fall. RJ is finally at the age that he is starting to like snow. I LOVE snow. I think that there is something so serene and perfect about it. I am winter/snow kid through and through. Not to mention that shoveling snow is a great "free" workout. So, during this snow, I introduced RJ to the concept of shoveling. He got to use a scoop shovel as shown in the picture because we only have one snow shovel. He didn't necessarily do a great job. In fact, I had to reshovel most of the driveway right behind him as he went. But the important thing is that he had fun and I had a blast spending the 45 minutes outside with him.
For me, I have been so insanely busy and stressed but I have felt like I have really not done anything too productive. I ran and worked out through most of October like I normally do. I am very grateful for this "release" and "alone" time that I have allowed to be a huge part of my life. I thoroughly enjoy every moment that I am running/working out. I didn't run any races in October. My friends and I have signed up to run in the Idaho Falls Run to Feed the Hungry on Thanksgiving Day. I am very excited about this. It is a short race but they use all the proceeds to stock the Food Bank. It will be a completely fun race. Besides that, I have been working on genealogy stuff, sewing, cleaning, reading, working with RJ on new skills, yard work when the weather is nice, etc...the usual. Lately, I feel that all my time is used in getting our book work in order for preparation for tax season-my second favorite season of the year-next to snow. :) I am weird that way. I have also been asked to be the secretary in the Young Women's organization at church....So, I am back to working with the 12-18 year old girls and more directly their leaders. I am excited about it, but man, oh man, the last 2 weeks have been one meeting after another. I looked at the calendar, and the next 2 weeks is going to be one meeting after another too. It has been keeping me SO crazy busy. I had started looking around at online work from home jobs since I had been having more time on my hands with RJ more active on his own, but then I got involved in with the Young Women again, and I haven't had time to do anything else, so I guess I am not supposed to work yet :)
Dale has been even MORE insanely busy than I have this past month. I think that I mentioned in one of the previous months' emails that he was given a zoology class in addition to his biology classes this year. Well, he LOVES the class and the material, but since it is something that he hasn't taught before, he has had to go back to the "intro teaching basics" and prepare all new lesson material and plans...something he hasn't had to do for almost 6 years now. So that has taken alot of his time. His iPad classroom has also been gaining "popularity" and he was again featured on the local news 8. This has lead to other districts sparking interest as well as the community as a whole. So in the past month, he and his students have been on the news, and he has been asked to teach/lecture other districts and community functions about the positive use of iPads in the classroom. He LOVES doing it and we often joke that at 75$ an hour or so that the other places pay him, he should quit his day job and just lecture about iPads. But that is totally joking....he loves his job and he loves iPads, so it works out that he can share his knowledge with others. In addition to all this, he has been taking additional training classes offered through his district. His district's pay scale is really dumb and offers no incentive for the teachers to get their master's degrees. So instead, he registers to take these dumb (yes I mean that too) 1 to 3 credit hour classes. He is hoping to get 12-15 credits a year or so AND that will move him up on the pay scale. It truly is dumb. Anyway, between all this, he has been gone and working insane amount of hours. He has been so busy that he didn't even go hunting this year. THAT says a lot.
And here is one last random picture of RJ. He has gotten to where he LOVES everything of Mom's-including my heels. It is quite funny some days watching him.
I hope that everyone else had a safe and fun October and Halloween as well. :)
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