We had such an awesome October 2020! The tide of the pandemic was looking more positive, which meant that we were able to do more things. This made such a positive difference for us!
Apple Picking
We started the month with an apple picking trip to Julian. (We’ve managed to go apple picking nearly every year since fall 2008). This was our second year at Julian! We explored the town, ate at a fun restaurant and tried to pick apples. The town was packed with people, even more than we remembered from last year, despite this being the end of the season for apples.
We came late in the season, so there were not very many apples left (and I guess it wasn’t a great year for apples due to a late frost in the spring). Several of the orchards weren’t even open because they had no more apples. Luckily, we managed to find an orchard that was letting people explore their property. We found plenty of apples on the “dud” trees in the parking lot by the highway. Then, we had a lot of fun roaming the orchard, where we found some tree swings and shady hiding spots where the boys could play.
Both boys tried out their new sling shots that they each bought in town with their own money. It was so fun to shoot rocks and apples into the orchard.
Tanner looked so grown up in the tree.
We sat and enjoyed the scenery for awhile. It was very tranquil.
Back at home, the boys kept busy with their playing and chores…
The boys made apple pie with the apples we got from Julian.
Dallin did a Zoom art lesson with school. His pumpkin turned out really good! (At this point, art was the only type of zoom classes with the school that I could get Dallin to participate in).
I had some guest visitors attend the class I taught in the park called Meet the Orchestra. Teaching this class and the early childhood class in the park was a major highlight of my fall season with work.
The boys were always found with their head in the comics books.
Houston Trip
Our trip to Houston Texas finally happened! We were supposed to go in May, but it was canceled by the airline due to Covid. By the second week in October, we were able to make up for it! Sort of.
I decided to stay home since my body took so long to recover from our summer trips. This was the first trip of my life where I sat out because my body was not cooperating. A part of me was really sad, especially because this was the trip where I would get to meet our niece who was already 15 months old! But a big part of me was really relieved to not go through the pain and exhaustion and long recovery afterward. It felt great to rest at home alone while the boys had fun and told me about it through phone calls and pictures.
It was a quick 4 night, 3 day trip. The kids basically just played sports games and pretend the whole time- exactly what a trip to see cousins should be all about. They developed a game called “family,” where Dallin and Tanner were football players and had to go to practice and do interviews. Leila was the mom or coach and Zoey was involed a lot too with drawing pictures for them. I got to play pretend on the phone with them, I was one of Dallin’s fans.
Jeremy took Leila and the boys to the NASA museum in south Houston, where he met up with Katie and a few of her kids. They all spent most of the day together at the museum.
Opening all the books I had sent to the each of my neices and nephew.
While they were gone, my dear friend Taryn came to play with me. We took a walk to the Shwarma Food truck in South Park and talked for hours.
Meanwhile Jeremy made Texas sheet cake with Grandma Davidson’s recipe and they ate it with some delicious Texas Blue Bell ice cream.
One important thing I want to note is that while Tanner had a wonderful time each day with his cousins, as soon as the door was closed each night to his bedroom with Dallin and Jeremy, he would get into his very strange mood of self-deprication. This happened at home nearly everyday all through Covid (and it’s happened other times throughout his life). Some people thought that being in a new environment would make Tanner stop having these difficult thoughts and behaviors. But just as I suspected, he still had trouble. He stopped around others on the trip, but at night when he didn’t have to “save face” with anyone, his true feelings came out. Jeremy said it took a long time to help Tanner calm down and go to sleep each night. Tanner would just keep chanting and punching himself and clawing his face, saying he is a bad kid and he wants to die and kill himself. Absolutely heartbreaking.
The boys came home! Dallin and I made an obstacle course for the razor scooters. Jeremy took a picture of it from the balcony.
How cute is this kiddo?
Tanner got out his baseball cards. He likes to read them and organize them and read them some more. After a week or two, he was disinterested in it all. (He often goes through these phases of obsession.)
SarahLynn’s Birthday
My birthday popped up and I turned 37 years old!! We got delicious take-out for my birthday dinner, which was awesome because it meant no doing the dishes. They boys made the table look extra nice for me. I was really happy to be one year older, I think it’s fun to get a bigger number each year, even though I had felt especially frail that year.
For my birthday service, I felt inspired to create a book lending program called “Books By the Batch.” I was getting sick of seeing all my beautiful books just sitting on the shelves. My kids read a lot, but I felt like the joy of the books could be shared with others during this dark time. It really bothered me that all the libraries were closed due to Covid and that our school library was also closed. I hope that will always sound wierd to people that all libraries and schools were closed for over a year in America! I decided there was a way for me to share my books with other families during the pandemic.
I started sharing with the neighbors in late Aug early September. Then on a whim, I gathered a few piles of books into common topics. That was really fun. As a prayed for ideas for my birthday service, I knew got the idea to call them book batches and to share them with even more people. I reached out to the school and ended up sharing the books on a weekly rotation with 4-8 families each week. I continued doing this throughout the whole school year! It was so much fun. Each time I shared the books, I just got this rush of teacher excitement just knowing that children were able to read books they’ve never seen before. It was a really fun way to share and receive joy.
One family stayed really loyal and got to read almost all of the picture books I own. I shared about 10-20 books with them every week from Oct to June. That’s a lot of books!!
Doing this “Books by the Batch” helped save me from utter depression many a time. Sometimes, the moms that took the books were the only people besides Jeremy and the neighbors that I talked to during the week. Some weeks, it was the only thing that got me out of the house. This was a huge faith building experience on very many levels.
Cute sleeper, often not wanting to fall asleep in his own bed. Change with routine from his Tx trip, plus the stress of zoom school.
I cracked up at this image someone posted on FB and twitter. It is a poster from a Kinder classroom adjusted for grown-ups who feel a need to call the cops over every single thing.
A few random pictures of playing outside!
Sunset on the beach!
Pumpkin Patch and Sunflower Farm
Dallin kept begging to go to the pumpkin patch. We finally found one that was open and that was a real patch. When we arrived, we discovered that there was also a ton of sunflowers to harvest. We had a blast exploring the farm, taking pictures and finding pumpkins. We also got to ride the hay wagon. Dallin chose a tremendous 22 pound pumpkin and proved that he could get it in the wheel barrow to take home. We took tons of pictures of this outing!
After 3 tries, Dallin was able to put this 22 pound pumpkin into the wheelbarrow.
Back at home, Tanner started shooting some hoops again. It was really great to see him back at it. But it didn’t last long becuase he realized how out of shape he was and got discouraged. Tanner really is very good at basketball. Jeremy and I really wish he would play it more.
Dallin lost another tooth! It felt like the boys were real jack-o-lanterns with all their missing teeth.
More pictures of me teaching “Meet the Orchestra.” We were in heaven!
Parents requested to return to the studio for lessons. I was so excited to offer that.
A few random photos….
Jeremy’s Birthday
Jeremy finally turned 37 with me. We did take out with him too! I think he made his own birthday cake to avoid the catastrophes I’ve caused with cake making. For his birthday service, Jeremy took the time to buy 4 beautiful teddy bears to donate to the Ronald McDonald stuffed animal drive.
Tanner made this hilarious comic for Jeremy’s birthday gift. The dialogue says:
Dad, let’s play ball!
Maybe later. I’m reading a book about parenting. I’m on the ‘playing with them’ chapter.
Sheesh, he should be!
October is when we switched from Zoom school to Renegade homeschool. Our main focus the first few weeks of homeschool was to allow the boys to detox from zoom. It was really great to have full control over my kids schedule and to let them do things that best met their needs. More details on this later. Just note it was a very big part of our October life.
Another tooth fell out!! That took the total to 8 for Dallin. What a swell looking jack-o-lantern!
He made a nice envelope for the tooth fairy. Jeremy and I gave him notes that were signed by us so that he knows we are the tooth fairy. He liked it.
Friendship Hike
We enjoyed another outing with our Friendship Pod. It included us, the Cavey family and the Steadman family. We hiked at Mission Trails and had a blast. I brought a nature scavenger hunt for everyone, which kept them occupied for the first half of the hike. They climbed trees and rocks the second half of the hike!
More fun music lessons in the park!
Stake Fall Activity
As the Stake Primary President (which means the president of the children’s ministry at church for several congregations), I hosted a drive-thru fall activity at church. We were diligent to keep the activity Covid safe, so people came to the church parking lot and drove through 7 stations where they participated in a service project and trick-or-treating!
The first station was to donate stuffed animals to the Ronald McDonald Charities. We collected 90 new stuffed animals, about $1200 worth of donations!!
The following stations gave out goodie bags with candy and toys. We had members from all 6 congregations represented, and a total of 140 people participate! This was the first time I got to see most people from church since March. It felt really good to see people and talk with people in person!! I was so grateful to everyone that helped my vision for this event become a reality.
My Kids!!
It got pretty busy for awhile, so I helped direct the traffic and talked with families while they waited in their car for the next station. Jeremy got pictures of me dancing. I told the kids I was a “Friend of Princess Jasmine.” Dallin honestly said, “Mom your costume is just what you normally wear plus some jingly things.” I took that as a huge compliment!
Our family theme for costumes this year was “What We Like.” Jeremy likes baseball, I like Asian clothing and scarves and dancing, Tanner likes basketball, and Dallin likes Minecraft.
The boys and Sister Soto helped me make all the signs. They turned out so cute.
Here’s the loot that each kid got from the activity!
Later that day we met up with the Durbins at the park for a meet and greet with new church people.
Carving Pumpkins
Dallin had been looking forward to this all month. He had quite a big job on his hands with his ginormous pumpkin that he chose at the patch! The kids had fun and worked hard. But they didn’t seem as excited to pull out the guts as I was when I was little.
A fort in the boys bedroom!
Danse Macabre
During one of these weeks, I got out every dancing prop we had and invited the boys to dance to this famous halloween story with me. They’ve heard the music before and liked listening for themes with me. We ended up choreographing a dance together, where Tanner was Death with the violin and Dallin was a mixture of fairies and goblins with me. We had a pretty awesome set up and we were going to film ourselves doing the dance, but then I had my flare, so we never got around to it. I hope the boys remember it! It was really fun going crazy with them during the finale of the song!!
Voting
Casting our ballets in the presidential election was a big deal. Everyone was encouraged to do mail in only to prevent the spread of Covid. I showed the boys my ballet and helped them understand we vote for so much more than the president. They were genuinely interested. Tanner’s class about elections with Auntie Tanya and Uncle Clay really made an impression on him, so he was all ears here.
I put my ballet in the post office drop off near our home. I thought it was really neat to think that this election was also the 100th anniversary since women were granted the right to vote.
Quick stop at the dentist
Dentist
Music Map for a very important song
Me and my cuddle bug
Zoo Trip during Hal-glow-een!!
Jeremy took this picture. I think it’s to honor all the people who died from Covid.
Friendship Party
Halloween party at the Steadman’s house with our friendship pod was really fun. They had cookie decorating, a halo-hunt, and pizza. I did a music game with the kids: “Old Mother Witch.” They liked being able to cast spells on each other when they were the witch. The boys had a blast at the party.
The spells that the witches cast on us included having to do squats, push-ups and the chicken dance!
Outdoor movie night with the neighbors!
Thanks to Laura and Adrian for putting that on for us! It was a beautiful full moon.
Finally, it was Halloween day!! We had a fun time making homemade applesauce, mummy dogs and pumpkin pie!!
On our way out to Trick-or-Treat with the neighbors!! Dallin didn’t have any problem masking up.
I decided my “friend of princess Jasmine” costume could also pass as a genie, and then I could use my genie bottle as a prop!
We thought switching props would be funny.
Trick-or-Treating
With Covid still being an issue, we had no idea how many people would be handing out candy. There were all kinds of mixed messages about whether or not it would be safe. I personally felt that being outside with masks on and being handed candy from people didn’t pose anymore risk than going grocery shopping or to the park, but we knew not everyone felt the same way.
We decided among our 5 families that share the driveway to exchange goodie bags and walk down to a few homes on our street to see what people were up to. The kids had fun trading and giving their goodie bags. We got this cute group picture of them all!
INSERT GROWN UP PICTURE HERE
We then started on our trick-or-treating adventure. Turns out there were a handful of people on our street passing out candy. That was really fun surprise!
As we neared the end of the road, my hope was to get in the car and drive up into the streets around the Elem school. (That’s where we went last year). Some families had announced they would have candy shoots and Covid safe ways of handing out candy. But, the kids were having so much fun with our neighbors that we decided to stick with them. We ended up walking up the big hill and down. There were about 20 homes giving out candy. One family had a big party outside and hung buckets of candy on their fence posts for kids to take gobs of candy home. That’s what Dallin is doing here.
Another house we trick or treated to was lit up beautifully, but turned out they weren’t prepared for us. We tried to apologize because they said, “I’ve lived here 18 years and have never had trick-or-treaters.” And of course the year of 2020 would be the year he gets some. He happily ran to the kitchen and grabbed some treats for the kids.
Then, we took the trail through the canyon back to our house. It was a full moon and very creepy and fun to walk through the trails in costumes.
Sorting the Stash
Back at home, I could tell my body was going to be upset with the amount of walking that I had done. I tried to ignore it a little longer so I could enjoy watching the kids go through their candy. Dallin immediately went to stuffing his mouth full. Tanner ate a few pieces, but was very excited to sort out his candy. We were able to convince Dallin that this is really fun, so he finally joined in with sorting his candy after he had eaten at least 1/4 of it.
Considering how uncertain we were if there would even be houses giving out candy, the boys cleaned up pretty well! They got tons of candy!!
This was me and Jeremy’s view while the boys sorted their candy.
It was so much fun watching our kids enjoy Halloween. This year more than ever, we really appreciated the ability to walk around the neighborhood and interact with other people. Looking back at all we were able to do this month still amazes me in lieu of everything that was going on with continued closures and uncertainties.
My little pumpkins sure made our October one amazing, rocking month!!
