Okay, so where have I been? I’m so behind on my blog!  I’m such a lame blogger lately.  Even now I don’t have much time so I’ll just do a short little post with photos.    

Aria was happy on this day because she had one of those necklaces made of candy, and she was mighty proud to show it off!

Avery has decided to take the violin at school, which makes me very happy!

Doesn’t she look like a natural?

Aislynn turned 6 just a few days ago!  I can’t believe it.

Quite often I catch Aria alone, reading one of her books.

I love that she enjoys her books!

And I just realized that I never downloaded the photos from our Tanaka Farms field trip with A.J.’s homeschool group.  This was way back in October.  So here’s a few photos of that day.

Only A.J., Andrew, and Aria went on this field trip.  

With our paid admission, the kids got to take home any pumpkin from the pumpkin patch — the only condition was that they had to carry it out themselves (from the fields all the way to the parking lot). This is Tanaka Farm’s rule, not mine.  I suppose this ensures that we adults don’t carry out the BIGGEST and most expensive pumpkins.  So the rule is: your child can take home any pumpkin that they can carry out themselves.   Anyway, A.J. was determined to get the biggest pumpkin, and I’d say he pretty much succeeded in that.  I didn’t see any pumpkins in the fields that were bigger than the one he found.  Yep, he found the biggest.  And he carried it all the way.  By himself.  He stopped here and there to rest.  They never said there was a time limit on how long it took to get from the fields to the parking lot, so we just took our time.  I’m glad the kid didn’t get a hernia.  But he had his mind sent on THAT pumpkin, you know.  There’s no talking A.J. out of something once he’s set his mind to it.  So he gladly carried it all the way to the car, without complaining.  Andrew, on the other hand, complained the entire walk back.  He picked a pretty big one for his size, but he kept saying (whining)  things like  “It’s too heavy!!” and  “I’m tired of holding this!”  and so I would tell him to put it down and go select a smaller one.  And he’d get mad at that suggestion.  In the end, he carried his all the way, too, and so we took home some pretty good-sized pumpkins!

Our pumpkins at home! 

Nice looking pumpkins, huh?  They picked ’em good!

They also had a petting zoo there.

A.J. loved all the animals.

Aria, too.

Andrew?  Not so much.

I wish I had a photo of him at the petting zoo 

but he was pretty much clinging to my leg the entire time.

They also got to pick some vegetables to take home.

I know — it’s the Christmas season and here I am posting photos of Fall.  What can I say?  I’m behind here and trying to play catch-up.  I might be behind in blog-land,  but rest assured I’m actually living in real time ….and it’s Christmas here!  Our house is decorated for Christmas, the Christmas music is playing, our tree is up, and I have a ton of photos of the tree trimming and our Thanksgiving trip to Austin….which I will share in my next post.  And that should bring me up to speed