Trick-or-Treat 2010

Halloween was spent carving pumpkins and going trick-or-treating!

(there was also a few snowflakes!)

This year the boys let me carve the open (just the top) of the pumpkin, then Aeden gutted and developed the design before Eric carved the design.

Ewwwww
All finished! It is a vampire pumpkin!

SPOOKY!

This year Aeden dressed up as Link from The Legend of Zelda.

Although a handful (a small handful) of people recognized his costume right away, others thought he was a Leprechaun, Robin Hood, Peter Pan, or an elf (perhaps one of Santa's?).

Off to the forest!

Searching for Zelda is thirsty work!

October 2010

We took a day trip up to Herkimer and Aeden got to sluice a bag of gems.

He found a huge crystal. :)

Eric looking totally cute. :D
Aeden and I saw these clouds one night. Aeden says the ones on the left look like fireworks and the long one on the right looks like a snake!

Working at Sta*bucks.

First 2 months of 4th grade

Aeden is learning New York State history in 4th grade. Here is his salt dough map of NY.


This year Aeden has actual textbooks and he brought one home to do actual homework...

Aeden used a piece of fabric to construct a makeshift hachimaki (his was being heatset) to wear while studying.

The school held their annual harvest festival.

(thinking while playing "Are you Smarter than a ..... student".)

Trying to stack the cups in less than a minute...

Attempting to keep three balloons in the air for a full minute.

Attempting putting...

Turkeys and other things...

Aeden got the highest score possible on the NYS Math test for 3rd grade. :) He is so awesome!

Beyond that nothing much going on, one day I came home to see a rafter of turkeys in the backyard...

This morning I saw this huge bird on a pole down the street. I think it is a Turkey Vulture. While walking down to take his picture a hunting hawk flew by me, he was too fast to photograph though! Two hours have passed since I took the picture and when I went to check the mail the bird is still there.

One of the many views from our street.

A bonus picture of me. :) Those are my new glasses although apparently even though they are a different shape and slightly different shade of brown they look similar to my old glasses. Sorry about the picture, it was the best I could do with the indoor lighting. :)

Independence

Just because I saw it on the computer...2004

What this post is really supposed to illustrate. Although I am finding that 9-year-old Aeden is more flexible and accomodating than 8-year-old Aeden, he is still all about being independent these days. This is evidenced by the poster (flier?) he made during book club:

Picking Out a Pumpkin

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then I have 5000 words for you, enjoy. :)