More October

Fair warning, this is going to be a long post because we have been sooo busy this month!

Anthony took James fishing one Saturday morning and I needed to pick something up from a friend at the farmer's market so I decided to take Baymax with us. We definitely need to take him places more often, he gets so excited that he forgets everything we taught him about crowds and walking on a leash.

We carved pumpkins outside for the first time and it was so awesome to be able to just throw all the insides and pieces to the ground for the chickens to eat. I'm never doing it inside ever again! James designed his with a sharpie and then I cut it out for him.

Rett told me he wanted his to be like a bull with a ring in its nose. This was the best I could do.

Anthony and James went fishing early one Saturday morning. They had so much fun, and James caught his very first redfish! It was too small to keep but Anthony was very proud of him.

Anthony showed me this picture when he got home and I couldn't stop laughing at James' expression. It looks like someone is torturing him! He actually was just getting upset because he had a larger fish on his line and needed help reeling it in.

James had the day off of school for a teacher work day, but Rett didn't (as we discovered last teacher work day) so James got to spend 3 hours at home alone with us. He spent most of that time getting dirty helping Anthony move some soil around the garden area.

We have two large piles of soil to spread out and mulch to go on top of it. I'm not sure when we are actually going to be planting anything, but we are moving in the right direction.

Anthony put up some chainlink fencing that was given to us to try and keep the goats and the chickens out. So far it has worked for the chickens, but not for the goats. We have to make it more secure before we can keep out those mountain climbers!

I got the proofs for Rett's preschool pictures. Isn't the most adorable, smooshiest thing???

Rett likes to play on the trampoline with me in the afternoons before we go and get James from school. He usually invents new "moves" for us to try.

Since the church isn't going to be doing cub scouts anymore after this upcoming year, we went ahead and signed James up for a local community pack so he can continue on with it if he wants to. His first meeting was a Halloween themed pack meeting so we got to debut his Harry Potter costume. He was so excited, his favorite part is the glasses.

Rett got to wear his new Darth Vader costume too (although Rett calls him Dark Vader and insists that is his real name).

Magic vs. The Force.

They had a costume parade across the street to where the games were laid out.

For this game the kids had to step on a folded up tarp and then try to unfold it completely without stepping off onto the grass.

Hulahooping! Rett trying to hula hoop is seriously the cutest thing I have ever seen.

Dropping a clothespin into a bottle:

On our way to the pack meeting, we saw this diamondback rattlesnake stretched out in the road close to our driveway. Our neighbors have told us that they have seen a lot of rattlesnakes in our neighborhood, but this was the first time we have actually seen one in person.

More afternoon jumping:

It was Biketoberfest here recently which is a really big motorcycle festival, so the streets were packed with motorcycle traffic. I ended up behind this crazy motorcycle! At first I just thought it was funny that he was pulling a trailer with a full drum set on the back.

Then we got closer and I realized that there was a miniature horse in the sidecar!! I gave the phone to James so he could zoom in and get a picture while we were driving. How insane!

Look at this big baby! He never gets enough of being petted or snuggled. While James was petting him, he even put both paws on each of James's shoulders like he was hugging him.

Anthony thought that he was going to be traveling to the panhandle one weekend to help with the hurricane Michael cleanup, but the radiator in our van broke and he had to stay home since we were down to one car. Silver lining: we got to go out on the boat instead!

Rett saw this cloud and said, "Look, a chicken cloud!"

We tried to catch some fish, but nothing was biting so after awhile we went over to disappearing island (a popular sandbar that is only accessible at low tide). The boys had a blast exploring and jumping into the water.

On the way back to the boat ramp we just happened to be going by when they raised the drawbridge for a sailboat. It was the highlight of the day! We even got to follow the sailboat and go under it.

James's teacher planned a "place value party" to celebrate the end of their place value unit in math. First the kids all got to make a paper cake out of different paper units (100's for the cake, 10's for the candles, and 1's for the sprinkles). Then they did different math activities based on the number their cake made (once you count up the layers of cake, number of candles, and sprinkles). Next they made birthday math crowns and then they played math party games.

The first game was to take turns popping a balloon with a math problem inside. Then they all solve the math problem together on their individual dry erase boards. They also did a pin the bow tie on the clown game, but I had to leave before they played it so I don't know how it worked. I just love that his teacher makes things so fun for his class!

I let Rett go late to preschool so that he could stay for the morning mile kickoff at James's school. They had fun, but James hasn't wanted to come early to participate in it since then.

The library had a pumpkin decorating party so we decided to go. They had an entire table of supplies and all the kids got to decorate styrofoam pumpkins. It was such a good idea to use fake pumpkins, no rotting!

A newspaper photographer came and the boys' picture ended up in the paper the next week.

We finally found time to start work on the goats' larger permanent pen. Once we got the land cleared, we had the space to move them away from the house and away from the cars and my front porch! I was definitely ready for it!! Anthony disconnected the weight sensor on our lawn mower so that James could drive it for us. He was in heaven! 

First he had to back it up to our yard cart so that we could bring the fencing, posts, and other supplies to the other side of the yard.

He made quite a few trips throughout the day and he loved giving everyone rides back and forth. Lily even jumped on for a ride!

Moving the big play structure into their pen:

This was after half a day's work. Most of the posts were up and about 1/4th of the fencing. We decided to expand it 25 more feet so it is actually bigger than this now.

Since we had to use posts and fencing from their small pen, once we started we didn't have a way to put the goats away. It was driving me crazy!! They set up camp on the front and back porch, pooping all over and trying even harder than usual to get inside the house or the cars. Then Luna went into heat and started loudly bleating outside our bedroom window at 6:30 in the morning and wouldn't stop. It was madness!! Anthony spent the morning before work quickly putting the rest of the fence up with zipties and tying the gate closed with rope since we didn't have the right latches. I don't care it isn't pretty, it works!! The first afternoon I went out there to check on them Lily was at the top of the slide. Instead of sliding down, she jumped down and ran over to me. They are still adjusting to being so far away from us but they will get used to it. I am loving not having goat poop all over my porches and not having to race out of the car and slam the door behind me so they don't get in!