Another Week in the Books

This week has been full and exciting.  On Thursday I got to volunteer in Asher’s Kindergarten class for the first time.  I think he was more excited than I was and I was pretty excited.  In the class room he kept winking at me and blowing me kisses.  I had to keep pointing to the teacher and making sure he was paying attention to her.  

This last week his class was doing a section on apples.  I got to teach the kids about Johnny Appleseed and help them put together the story, then color it.  As it turns out, Asher told me he was surprised to find out that Johnny Appleseed was not actually an appleseed but a real person.  I’m looking forward to Thursday mornings with Asher’s class.

Cainan happens to love apples—about better than anything else.  Tonight when Ron came over with a “surprise” for Cainan and revealed that it was a bag of one of his favorite types of apples (Gala), Cainan started jumping up and down and exclaimed in his highest voice, “Mommy! Mommy! Great news! Papa brought APPLES!! Can I have an apple for bedtime snack?”  You’d think it was chocolate cake or pizza.  I’m a lucky mom to have a son who loves fresh fruit so much.

Our little caterpillar that we found last week has turned to a chrysalis and we’re excited to see the swallowtail butterfly soon.  I found out from Joe that as a child he would always catch monarch caterpillars and had desperately searched for a swallowtail, but never found one.  I told him he would finally get to fulfill a childhood dream when our little guy emerges.  

Well, today I was walking out front again and saw another swallowtail caterpillar! I called Asher and mentioned it to Joe, who jumped up like a giddy little boy and rushed outside.  He helped Asher pluck the caterpillar from our brick planter and we put him in the basket with the other one.  Joe’s pretty excited.

We also visited the pumpkin patch today.  We’ve gone to Seven Oaks several years in a row.  It’s a nice place but I was pretty disappointed in their maze this year.  The last few years, they’ve had a big maze constructed of hay bales covered in black plastic.  It smells of fall, it’s dark and the boys love running through it.  This year when we pulled up, we saw that the maze is inside a big green canopy tent.  The boys went right for it.  When we got inside, we found that it’s all constructed of plywood that’s only about five feet high.   It was also not dark at all.  Kind of a let down…

The boys still had a good time and they got to ride ponies, so that made up for the maze.  We walked through the pumpkin patch but decided it was too early to buy pumpkins.  I think we’ll try out Pheasant Farms at some point before Halloween.  I like their corn maze, hay ride and other fun activities that they have on their farm.

 
I’m really looking forward to a quiet family Sunday.  I gave the boys haircuts this weekend.  I’m getting ready to clear out the rest of our garage sale stuff and take it down to the consignment shop on Wednesday.  And next weekend is my grandfather’s 80th birthday—our whole family is going to spend the weekend at cabin in the woods and I want to make a spectacular cake.  So, yeah, I really need tomorrow to be a relaxing family Sunday.  We ‘ve got a lot of ahead of us!