October in Review

I just can't believe how fast October has slipped by. Here is a little glimpse of what we were up to the last few weeks.Brandon and Bryce both wanted to try soccer this year (I haven't gotten Brandon's photo yet) and that has taken up a lot of our time the past few months. Neither one had ever played before, and I was not too happy about all the practices and spending every Saturday running back and forth from one game to the next, but oh well. Saturday was our last game, and I am glad to be done!

Bryce really enjoyed the sport and his team. He was one of the older boys in his group and had no trouble catching up to the kids who already had a couple of seasons under their belts. He even scored a few goals and is all excited about playing again next year.

Poor Brandon, on the other hand, having just barely turned 10 at the beginning of the season, was one of the youngest in his 10 to 12-year-old division and had a really rough time. Starting out having never played, he learned a lot over the season, and I was so proud of him for sticking with it even when some the older boys on his team made fun of him and the team lost almost every game.
Over fall break we drove up to Nashville to see the Parthenon and go to the zoo. Brandon really liked the Percy Jackson book series, and had been wanting to see the real thing for a while. (I find it funny to be talking about the Nashville Parthenon as the 'real thing', but it is the one in the book/movie.) The Athena statue was really impressive, and the museum was interesting, however, Emily claimed there were too many paintings of naked people for her to really like it.
We skipped out on our annual trip to the farm this year and opted to just get our pumpkins at a local farm market instead. We got a big kick out of the signs posted near the pumpkin patch asking patrons to stop pumpkin abuse by not attempting to carry pumpkins by the stem. (Apparently, millions of pumpkins are traumatized every year when their stems are ripped off by people who confuse the stems for handles. Did you know that stem loss can negatively affect pumpkin self esteem, and in the worst cases can lead to total internal meltdown?)

For the first time, the kids carved their pumpkins all by themselves--even Bryce. Natalie also did a great job toasting up some pumpkin seeds. The ones I've done have never turned too good, but hers were quite tasty.

All in all, it's been a busy month leading us into the start of an even busier holiday season, but at least it's been fun.