Fall Catch Up

Fall Fun
Well, we continue to enjoy the beauty of fall in Ohio!  The trees hit their peak of fall beauty in mid-October...as you can see from this photo:

We've been able to collect and study lots of different types of leaves from the parks we go to for walks and play.  Jack found the ultimate fall leaf...it was HUGE!

Both boys are so eager to help rake leaves and do chores around the yard with Daddy.  This day, their main goal was to create the largest pile of leaves they could...in order to jump in it, of course!

Here are some funny action shots of the jumping!

We went with Grandma to a local Mennonite shop with a pumpkin patch to pick out pumpkins appropriate for the boys' sizes!  

Oh, these funny little men.  :-) Grandma calls them the "Blues Brothers!"

Trying to take a nice photo on the morning of my birthday before heading out to church...but it is hard to keep these boys serious for very long.  Jack is all about the action shots! 

Friends
Two weeks ago, we were able to drive to Michigan (a new state for all three of our boys!) to visit with our friends Mitch and Paloma.  (You may remember our previous trips to Chicago to see Mitch. His family lives in Michigan, so we met there for a two day visit and had a wonderful time with his parents as well.)

Josh spent a lot of time helping Mitch fix up the house he's been renting out in order to get it ready to sell.  So Paloma and I took all three boys to someplace they've never experienced before:  Cabela's.

It was a huge hit!  The amount of wildlife on display there was just astounding.  I've never been inside one before and I don't know if they are all like this...but it was like an amazing museum of wild creatures for our boys.  Remember, these are the boys who pretend to be the Wild Kratts and they were quick to tell us all the facts they knew about the animals they saw.  Here, they are noticing the difference between Elk and Deer.  We are reading "Bambi" aloud right now, and they couldn't quite visualize why the deer were so enthralled with their bigger, stronger cousins the elk.  Seeing one up close allowed the boys to understand that awe.

Paloma was so good with baby Joe!  She is very loving and he responded warmly to her and was content to be pushed around in the cart by her while I explored with the boys.

We were all stunned by the African display.  While it is pretty awesome to see these creatures up close...it is also sad to know that they were hunted by Americans looking for a prize kill.  But we tried to focus on the learning part of it.

Jack and George said it was the "best day ever" when I let them each play a car racing video game after having lunch at the Cabela's cafe.  :-)  Animals, hamburgers and race cars?  What boy wouldn't think that was the best day ever?

We are so glad to continue our friendship with Mitch and Paloma (who got married this summer!) and to be able to visit with them several times in the past few months.  (Can you see how Paloma is trying to take Joe home with them to Chicago?)

Fire Safety

Last week, our local library had a special Fire Safety day during the usual story time.  Though the boys are well acquainted with firefighters, it was really interesting for them.  They all had on shirts which said "Fire Chief"...so the Fire Chief himself noticed and picked Jack to don the gear as a demonstration.  (I didn't have my camera for that part.)  

Notice the only kid trying to climb into the ambulance?  My curious George.

Field Trip
Though the weather is getting colder, we still try to get outside as much as we can and visit more of the local parks.  One day, we went to a new park...which had a lovely assortment of trees and plants.  It was really colder than we had expected, so we kept it short and plan to go back another time!

A really neat feature of the park is this all-natural "tree tower".  We all climbed to the top and braved the cold wind to take a picture!

(Jack was in pirate mode that day!)

Fun Projects

School with Jack (and Georgie!) is going really well.  It is so fun to be able to spend so much time getting to know how each of my kids learns.  Both love books and stories and hands-on activities.  And they are both very creative, too.  One day we tried to see what would happen if we put paint on a paper plate and spun it around in a salad spinner!  It didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped, but the results weren't bad!

Then, we did an experiment/activity that we just HAD to share because it is SO AMAZING!

Ivory Soap.  What a wonderful invention.  Jack has been using it to do soap carvings.  And do you know what happens when you put a bar of Ivory Soap in the microwave?  It completely changes shape and form after about 20 seconds and billows into a great cloud of good-smelling stuff!

Once it was cool, the boys squeezed the paper-like substance between their fingers and crushed it down into small pieces.

I then had the boys take all the toilet paper off of a new toilet roll (a fun activity in itself) and put that in a big storage bin.  We combined 1 1/2 cups of warm water with the Ivory soap pieces and mixed until it was all smooth and slimy.  Then we poured that over the unrolled toilet paper.

Add some glitter and we had this amazing, sensory material we labeled "clean mud"!  :-)  It really is fun to work with and form into balls or shapes.  And the fact that it came from something like toilet paper and soap was a total novelty for the boys.

Fiesty Little Brother

And what has baby Joe been up to during all of this?  Oh...just being his normal cute self!  

Like Jack, this little guy loves to "clean" by helping sweep or wipe things off.  

Though he isn't walking yet, he is climbing on everything and getting into lots of mischief.  But who can resist a face like this?

Lately, he has been really resistant to taking a morning nap, though I try to lay him down a few times.  This usually means he ends up not being able to hold his head up right when I am in the middle of making lunch or doing school with the boys.  This is a rare shot for a Meyer boy: asleep in the high chair!  (Once he fell asleep sitting up in his wagon while Josh was pulling him around outside!)

He loves to play outside with the big boys.  It is not unusual to see all three of them crowded in Grandma's circular flower bed, digging away to their hearts' content!

Colder weather is heading our way, so our nice sunshiny fall days may be coming to an end.  :( But we still have more fall happiness ahead...with a visit from Jake and Sarah next week to come celebrate Jack's sixth birthday.  So stay tuned!