Sam and I were flying solo for trick-or-treating this year.
Just like pretty much every year, we headed out after I gave him an early dinner and dumped out his candy from last year.
We covered some of the old favorite spots and some new ones, walking longer and farther that we have in years past. Basically what this means it that I'll be dumping out more candy than usual next year.
Here are a (very) few photos...
Sam did his usual excellent job carving his pumpkin this year.
For the last several years, I've asked Sam to do a sketch of what he would like the pumpkin to look like.
There's a few reasons for this.
First of all, his drawings are super cute.
Second, it helps him decide and make mistakes on paper without messing up the pumpkin (which would not be insurmountable -but would feel like a bigger deal than it might otherwise).
Third, with his challenges regarding Working Memory, this gives him something to refer to and not have to try and remember what his idea was.
And finally, I like to think that this helps reinforce the general concept of taking the time to make a plan. I'm not sure it does, but I like to think it.
Anyway, if he gets nothing else out of it, at least he ends up with an awesome jack o'lantern. And I get a super cute drawing to look at.
Sam and I managed to squeeze in one last walk at Temple Woods. This is definitely it for the season. Very pretty but the fallen leaves combined with the steep hills make it way too slippery.
In the mean time, here's a fun activity! If you get bored, you can make a flip book of Sam climbing the steep stairs!
I've been trying to figure out if the Domino's guy was stopping at Subway for his lunch or if the Subway people ordered their lunch from Dominos.
This past summer, I spent several weekends trying to weed through all the 'treasures' that I've somehow managed to cram into my closet over the years.
These treasures included several shoe-box sized tubs filled with photographs, the byproduct of ordering 'double prints' every time I had film developed (which was A LOT. Also, look up 'film', in case you don't know how old cameras worked).
What to do with all of this?
I figured I would wait for a time when the entire family would be home together (a fleetingly rare occasion) and ask everyone to go through the photos and take what they wanted (or even what they didn't want). And I pretty sure it was going to be the kind of ordeal it sounded like.
Celebrating my birthday was the perfect opportunity.
So, yesterday, after the apple picking and after the presents and the pie and the ice cream, I hauled down the tubs.
To my (pleasant) surprise, it was actually a fun time (or if it wasn't, everyone acted like it was a fun time - which is almost as good).
We only managed to go through a small portion of the tubs so, hopefully, some day in the not too distant future, we'll all be able to do it again.
Until then, the boxes are back up in my closet.
Sam went for what will likely be one of our last walks of the year at Temple Woods on Sunday. It was a beautiful day for it but with all of the fallen leaves, some of the trails are harder to see and many of the hillsides are becoming slippery because of them.
Still, we'll enjoy it as long as we can.
Sam and I spent a beautiful fall Saturday morning walking a circus-themed corn maze where they also had some goats to feed, along with a few other activities.
This was another outing sponsored by the same social group that did the apple picking a few weeks back. And much like the apple picking, the morning consisted of us only socializing with each other.
I was going to write a big, long description of how the maze works and how you have to read a map and how you have to answer circus-themed questions, but it was getting too convoluted and wordy.
Suffice it to say that I know nothing about the circus and Sam is surprisingly good at reading a map.
