Pickles and olives...

The other day I made pickles! This is the second time I've done it. This time I did two jars because one is sweet 'butter' pickles and the other are sour 'dill' pickles. They are basically the same recipe except the sweet has more sugar than the other. This recipe is so easy to do, I really want to try it with okra and some other veggies like string beans or cauliflower. It takes 24 hours to be ready and they keep for a couple of months in the fridge.

Today we started to process some olives from the tree out in the front of our house. It is a beautiful tree nestled in the corner of our front yard. At this time of the year, it is full of black olives. If we can harvest some of them, that will be another tree that will produce for us. Rebekah helped me pick the olives from the tree, there are a few branches that hang low so she was able to reach all by herself and put the olives in the basket by herself!

The recipe calls for salt brining (not with lye) for 3 weeks and they should be ready to taste after a month, the last week they are in a marinade. I'm supposed to change the brine each week so we shall see how they turn out at the end of November. More info on these to come...

On the tree

In our basket

2 jars to try

Beach day...

We went to the beach today! It was a beautiful day. The weather has been stormy and cold but it was clear and sunny today. There was still a little chill in the air but that didn't bother anyone! The kids love going to the beach, exploring and having fun. Today we joined up with our Funschoolers group which is an awesome outing group. We love getting together with them, there are so many wonderful families and lots of kids to play with.

Soccer and Party...

This afternoon we were busy with 3 soccer games, 3 games to provide snack for and a birthday party for Noah! Whew! We love being able to watch all the games, we are bummed when we aren't able to watch them all on the weekends that they games overlap. Yes, that does make for a quick day at the soccer fields but then one of us misses a game or two. So, today was nice that we got to go to all of their games.

Noah was in a great mood for his game and Hannah and Ben were excited for him too. Noah knew that it was his special day, he was kind of jumpy on the field and he really tried to get a goal.

The kids love when we host the snacks. We were lucky today to bring snacks to all 3 games. They think that it is one of the coolest part of being on a soccer team. Last year the snacks were complete with "party favor type toys" but this year that was not part of it. I, for one, was happy to see that we didn't have to be peer-pressured into assembling goodie bags with toys and pencils and hair ties for each kid.

The party after the games was fun, we invited family and one of Noah's friends. We had a build-your-own nachos bar with tortillas available for anyone who wanted a burrito (that's exactly what Noah wanted us to have for everyone to eat). The boys ran around and around together and had a great time. He scored some awesome presents too.

Hannah and her team at half-time

Noah - the newest 5 year old!

Dude!

Noah is #7 going for the ball

Noah and Ryan talking about something when they should be watching for the ball!!

Ben is #5

Birthday Party cupcakes for Noah

New stuff!!

Happy Birthday to you!

Marissa and Heather being silly

Heather and Rebekah (what a cute smile!)

Noah's FIVE!!

Noah is FIVE years old today! I can't believe it, time has flown by so quickly. I remember the day he was born like it was yesterday. He is such a big boy now, tomorrow he'll be in college. He is thrilled that today is his birthday. It's like it's a giant number for him. It's really fun to see how happy he is.

Cruising through old blog posts I found this one from Jan 2007: Noah Loves... and I thought it might be fun to re-read that and see how much he has grown and to remember what he was like when he was a little over 2 years old.

Noah is FIVE!

Presents!

So HAPPY!

Bates Nut Farm...

We love pumpkin patches. It is a great way to start out this next holiday season, it comes right after apple picking and the kids get in the mood for Halloween and fall.

We had never been to Bates Nut Farm before today and boy was it far! But it was awesome! We will definitely go back. We went with our monthly homeschooling field trip group that we've been with for about 3 years. We got the basic pack and went all over the place. There was a hay maze with stamp stations that the kids went running around trying to find 8 stamps. There were some barn animals and pony rides as well as a hay ride. It was great.

We cruised around with some of our friends and had a great time. Towards the end we went to pick out the pumpkins that we were taking home and they were giant! We were all pretty impressed by the size of the take home pumpkins! We also went over to the giant pumpkin area and ran around the field together.

In front of the hay maze

Hay ride

In front of the store with some of our group

In the loo

Pumpkin girl

Crawling in together

funny kids

it's heavy!

giant pumpkins!

Back yard...

We have a really big back yard and we love to just walk around and look for treasures. That's what Noah, Rebekah and I did today. We started out looking at the big volcano that filled up with water with all the rain we've been having lately. Boy that looks like fun...

We walked all around the back area of the yard. We have started planting lots of fruit and nut trees so someday real soon we will call that an orchard. A previous resident of this house used to do construction so we find lots of strange things around. Mostly they've been buried and with the rain they are uncovered. We have found lots of tiles, glass and car parts and trash. We love hunting fro treasures because each time we do it (which is pretty frequent) we find more! There's no telling what we'll find next :)

Noah and the water-filled volcano

Rebekah checking out some mushrooms

Pretty!

Grasshopper

I caught it!

Treasures we found today!

School...

We unschool at home, no school. We don't have a time during the day that we 'do school'. Our kids do go to classes though, the ones that they are interested in or want to take part in...They have more interest when they choose what they want to do. I caught the kids playing school this morning and Rebekah was the teacher! See? They are doing a reading of the same text and they are all on the same page, waiting for the teacher to tell them what to do. It was such a sweet moment that I'm glad I caught a picture of it.

Teacher

Soccer...

We have 3 kids in soccer this year! Boy oh boy have our weekends been busy! We are actually looking forward to not doing anything on a Saturday morning (at the end of November we'll do that...nothing). Some days we spend at the soccer fields all day and others are quick because they are all playing at the same time!

Today we had 2 games, Noah and Hannah (Ben had a BYE). Noah and Ryan are on the same team and all they want to do is play with each other and talk to each other on the field. It's so funny! Actually they do play but they'd rather be in the bushes digging dinosaurs or attacking something with a Transformer. Noah is such a hustler on the field. He has no fear of the ball or other players. He has a mean kick too. He is really excited about playing his own soccer game this year.

Hannah has improved 100% this year. Her coach is really good at teaching them the positions and showing them the right way to play. She isn't just standing on the field and staring (like she did last year )but she is going for the ball and it looks like she knows what she is supposed to do! She loves to play goalie first thing and then she gets out and plays the field for the rest of the game. She doesn't have many girls on her team this year so there aren't many substitutions, which is good except for on hot days when they need a break.

Orange Bombers

2-4-6-8 who do we appreciate!

snack time!

Rebekah likes snack time too

Wild Cats

Hannah going for it!

Boy Scout Halloween...

Ben's Boy Scout pack does a Halloween carnival each year and the kids love to go and win candy. They have a pumpkin carving contest but since this years' carnival is so early in the month we decided to have Ben carve a fake pumpkin (as opposed to a real one) and that way his pumpkin won't be moldy by the end of the weekend. He worked on it real hard, carved it out by himself and did some research on different pumpkin decorations. He came up with his design and I think he did really well. He didn't win this year (probably because some adults carved the better pumpkins and they won) but that didn't get him down. He did a great job. That's one thing about Ben, he lets some things slide off his back, so to speak.

The boys went as Magicians, they wanted to match. That made it easy for me because I had one costume but 2 sizes. And Hannah went as a Garden Fairy. That was pretty easy too. I found the fabric in my giant collection of fabric in the garage and got busy sewing. The decorations were done by Hannah and the Boys made their wands and assembled the clothing for the rest of the costume. Everything was here and we didn't spend a penny (well, except for the fake pumpkin)! It was great! Now with Halloween being a couple of weeks away, their costumes are already finished. If they want to put some finishing touches on them, they have plenty of time!

Magician Noah

Garden Fairy Hannah

Monster pumpkin after the Lego men! eek!

Mummy contest (Ben the Magician is wrapping the leg)