What-What?! Week of October 1st

It's October!  That means it's time to get ready for Halloween!

To celebrate this, we made sweet tortilla pumpkin thingers.  Basically, you take corn tortillas, paint them with oil, sprinkle with sugar, then bake.  In order to make the pumpkins more orange, we mixed food coloring into the oil.

The kids had a lot of fun making and eating them.  The pumpkin part turned out to be a bit chewy, rather than crunchy like we were expecting, though.  I think this is the pumpkins were actually kind of large, so we could only bake them so long before the edges were going to start burning.  Smaller cookie cutters would be better.

They came out SO orange!

What-What?! Week of August 6th

This weekend and last weekend we visited Kayak Point, which sits along the coast overlooking the sound.  It's got a nice beach, play ground, and some short trails.  Last weekend when we went, it was super hot and extremely busy; we parked at the top of the hill in the overflow parking and had to walk a ways down the trails to the beach.  We still had a good time.

Yesterday when we went, we came early in the day and brought a picnic lunch.  When we arrived, the tide was very low, so we got to investigate the tide pools.

This was last weekend -- you can see how clear it was.

The trails are very steep.

Yesterday -- there was lots of parking down by the beach, and we even got our own picnic table.

SEAWEEEEEEED!

You see how the sky is all grey?  That's not fog -- it's smog.  The air quality has been horrendous here, with winds pushing smoke down from wildfires in Canada, then that air getting trapped.  There's one little valley I drive through everyday going to work, and Thursday you couldn't look across the valley and see the hills on the other side.  I had never seen that before.

The husband climbed to the top of the rope climb-y thing, 'cuz he could.

Eatin' lunch -- hotdogs, chips, and grapes.  We cooked the hotdogs at home and packed them in a cooler to keep warm -- it was a good thing, too, since fires are not allowed right now.

What-What?! Week of November 13th

Not much going on this week -- mostly just working, though yesterday I did do some crafts with the children.  Saffron very nicely shared her big craft bin with her brothers, and they had a good time making stick puppets and wands:

Making her wand -- pink hearts and sequins.

Little birdy puppet -- the base is a GIANT pom-pom.

Corwin gave his bird the biggest tail.  This is also the only non-blurry picture I could get of him with his bird.

"I cast a spell on you!"

All three reading together. <3

What-What?! Week of October 16th

Not much going on around here right now.  Last weekend, we headed to the thrift store and started gathering supplies for the kids' Halloween costumes.  Saffron is going as a dryad, so she's sewing fake leaves to a shirt, and will have a little nest with birds in it.  Corwin's going to be a bat, which I haven't quite figured out yet, and Ozzy is going to be a blue ninja (like from Lego Ninjago).  They are all ridiculously excited, of course.

The husband did pick up a model P-40 Warhawk kit to do with Corwin, which was a lot of fun:

The kit involved no glue at all, instead assembled entirely with screws.

He very much liked it, and has asked for more... which is good, because we already have another one for him.

Bonus picture of the husband and Saffron. <3

What-What?! Week of October 2nd

Didn't do anything interesting last week, though it's now October, which means that Halloween and Saffron's birthday are coming!

But for right now, how about some pictures from last week?

"Strike a pose!"

 

Also "Strike a pose!"

Saffron, trying to look cool.

 

Ozzy was excited about this dinosaur ride on toy at the new playground there.

And a slide that was actually steep!

Corwin and Grandpa, reading on the couch.

What-What?! Week of September 25th

My parents are visiting, and we have been busy!  I have a million, billion pictures -- too many to post today.  Probably going to post some today, and more next week.

Nordic Heritage Museum

Take a nice picture of the kids?  Never!

Thursday, we headed to the Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle.  I'd been interested in going for a while now, and it was pretty cool.  There was tons ant tons of stuff to look at, and I feel like we could go back a few times still and see new things.

There were lots of boats, of course.

And a whole lot of vignettes of various stores, barns, and houses, showing how people lived.

Sprinkled through, there were items for the kids to look at and play with.

"Big Jake" the policeman, and a news article about him, showing his size in relation to a regular-sized woman.

The logging area.

Playing with a Dala Horse.

The top floor had a Lego display with renditions of various myths and historical scenes.

Corwin, being a troll.

Playing with Legos at the museum.  This kept him busy for quite a while.

I will post more pictures next week...