Six Month Hole

In early-ish October (before it snowed multiple times), we squeezed in our annual family pictures. Just like last year, we combined with the Ps ... because somehow six children behave better than three. It defies logic, but we go with what works. We managed to fit it in between four children/two coaches hockey schedules ... and Mike hit the shower 25 minutes before we needed to hit the road. Luckily his hair dries in a hot second. Everyone had pre-approved their outfits and Dec and I had agreed finally upon a pair of "real" pants - which was legitimately the hardest part of the entire process. It was a beautiful day, everyone had big smiles, and we were able to keep our distance from each other (well, except the children. So much love!). 

It was very exciting a week or so later when the pictures arrived in Mike's Google Drive. Other than the kids looking so old, we love the pictures. It was also incredibly bittersweet to look through them. Because it is the first time ... ever ... that we've had a family picture that doesn't include our sweet Yogi. It's been just over six months since we said good-bye and we definitely have a puppy-sized hole in our hearts. We were sad all over again (sadder? Is it weird that we still find ourselves looking for him?) - and decided to leave last year's big family picture up. We aren't quite ready to showcase a photo without him!

The kids are firmly on the puppy train and Fiona was sure she had found the loophole. She decided they were going to ask Santa for a puppy. If all of them used their single Santa request, there would certainly be a puppy under the tree. What a disappointment when we told her that Santa verified all pets with parents!! Foiled again! 

The kids and I were watching a Hannah Montana episode last weekend and Miley's horse almost died. It resulted in a complete breakdown of three people missing their puppy ... and a Quinn watching the waterworks. Clearly our buddy is gone, but not forgotten! Someday, we'll be ready for a new puppy and we will love him (her? probably him) as hard as we loved our Yogi. Someday. But for now, we're getting used to slightly less fur* in the family pictures.

*There is still a lot of hair. Vanneste women are not lacking in the hair quantity department. And pictures happened on a super windy day. At one point Mike said, "whose hair is in my mouth?!?!" It was really anyone's guess ...

We WITCH You a WONDERful HALOween

As with everything in 2020, Halloween looked a little different this year. But guess what - it was still really great! Declan declared it his favorite Halloween ever and Fiona suggested we just celebrate like this every year. She was big fan of not covering blocks and blocks of houses for trick-or-treating! Further proof that sometimes the simplest things at home are the best [that said, Universe, we would really really really like to be able to see our family for Christmas. Pretty please.]

Without the pressure of being costume-ready by Baker Boo, I was way behind the game on costume selection and procurement. So when my Aunt Marti sent me an email that said she was sending costumes, it was such an unexpected blessing. She told me what she had picked for the kids, but I didn't tell them. All I said was that if they preferred a different costume once they saw the surprise, we could do that. **Spoiler alert: they were all delighted and I was off the hook. Literally everyone was happy. Major Halloween win!

Fiona's costume was a combination of Hermione and Harry Potter, complete with her own copy of the first book. Mike and I [mostly me] have been trying to convince her to start the series. Our hope is that this will spark enough interest to encourage her to tackle what she feels to be VERY LARGE books. Quinn's costume was Wonder Woman. She.was.thrilled. There was even a shield! D's costume was Master Chief from the video game Halo. We do not know anything about Halo in this house (my friend Adam had to tell me the character name) - but there was a cool costume, a weapon, AND a voice changer. This is spot on for a six-year-old boy!

Our celebration started on Friday night, when we finally got around the carving pumpkins. Since it was an at work and at school day - and I forget every dang year how long and messy pumpkin carving is - the kids were up late and we ended up having dinner downstairs at the bar. It was the start of the "different but great" theme for the weekend. It was such a pleasant change and the five of us spent the whole evening laughing together. 

All three kids helped a lot with the pumpkin gut removal (Quinn and Dec loved it. Fiona hates everything about it. But she was a trooper). They were great pumpkins and I ended up making about six cups of roasted pumpkin seeds. We tried a new system and added a "sweet and salty" variation to half of them. Huge success!

The Halloween-on-Saturday situation was amazing. I asked Quinn how we possibly ever are ready for a Halloween not on a weekend. Beside roasting seeds for what felt like half the day, Quinn and I spent the morning stuffing treat bags for our treasure chest. She pulled out most of the Milky Ways for me - and made a strong case to be a favorite child! A couple hockey practices and a few errands were also squeezed in. We had an early-ish dinner of our annual bats and cobwebs pasta and then costumed up for the evening!

We met our bubble neighbor families and the kids did piñatas in each of their yards. This was the highlight of Dec's night - beating things with a shovel. We'll pretend that's not alarming! Then we came back to our yard where Mike and I had put together a scavenger hunt of seven clues that the kids had to follow to find a treasure chest of treat bags. The six of them worked together really well to solve the clues and had a great time. Mike had grabbed mini bottles from the liquor store, so I also put together an adult treasure hunt. 

The rest of the night found us just enjoying each other's company, with the kids running around the yards and the adults standing in the driveway with beverages. It was a lovely day, but once the sun went down, it got chilly. Holy smokes was I cold by the time we came in! But it was exactly what we all needed. We put a big bowl of candy out on our front step for the kids that were trick-or-treating and there were only four pieces of candy left at the end of the night. To Mike's relief, the bowl was easily refilled with what the kids had got from the piñatas and scavenger hunt. Definitely a more manageable amount of candy than we have gotten the last couple years. Maybe this time, it won't last us until Easter!

We were all tired the next day (Halloween + Blue Moon + Daylight Savings will do that to a person), but so happy. Celebrating together with friends felt so good. And being able to do it outside and safely was such a gift.

Winter Prep

Mike and I hustled our buns when we got back from Fall Break and got all our leaves raked, the lawn moved, and mulched, and the trampoline put away. Our neighbor's field (where we dump the - at Mike's estimate - ten trailer loads of leaves) wasn't harvested yet, so we were stuck with an enormous leaf pile in our backyard. Then ... it snowed seven inches. 

On top of a not-ready-for-winter yard, Mike was stressing about his ground stakes. You see, Mike used our cabin fever and shared fear of a socially distant winter to his advantage and convinced me to approve the construction of a backyard ice rink. There was so much research before purchase, but all the supplies have been here for a few weeks. However, the ground stakes and boards are supposed to go in before the ground freezes ... because, you know, it is no fun to sink 40 stakes in frozen ground!

I'm pleased to report that despite Mike's initial fear, the snow has not stayed, the temps are back to normal, and the ground is not frozen. So the stakes and boards are in and the kids are beyond excited!! Mike picked up a used hockey net off Craigslist, which is hanging out in the rink and currently being used as a soccer net. 

And the leaf pile? Well, it's now two huge leaf piles under two tarps. With the need to rake the front yard again because of the crazy high winds on Halloween that deposited what seemed like half the neighborhood leaves back in our yard. Once we get rid of all those leaves, we just need to wait for the ground to freeze, so Mike can put in the liner and flood the rink. It will probably be another month or more before conditions are right - but there is great anticipation for that day. And plans for an inaugural puck drop!

All Dec Wants For Christmas ...

... are his two front teeth, which fell out within less than a day of each other last week. Also, after we sang the song to him, he would like the record to reflect that he is fine without his two front teeth and he would rather have Legos for Christmas thank you very much. That is what we call "clear priorities."

Do you remember the drama of the last lost tooth? Both that it was swallowed and that Mike and Dec were unable to execute their master plan of tooth extraction via remote control car? Well, fear not, dear readers. Remote control tooth extraction happened not once, but twice! However, we're not sure that tooth #2 was quite as ready and it hurt a bit more. So Dec is not sure they need to use this plan for future teeth ... however, there is a plan to shoot it out via nerf bullet. So, basically, stay tuned because it is never boring here.

Last Thursday night, we had nothing better to do, so Mike tied floss to Dec's tooth and to his big monster truck remote control car. It took a couple tries to get the right angle, but then POP - out that tooth came. Everyone was shocked that it worked! So Friday afternoon, they did the same set up and out came tooth two. And a lot of blood. But the dude was super proud that he earned four quarters from the tooth fairy in two days. That's a whole dollar!

He looks like such a big kid with his gappy smile. It's also really funny to hear him work on sounding out words or try to say "Fiona." He tells me that there are more loose teeth in there, so we'll see how toothless he is by Christmas. Maybe he will change his tune and ask for some teeth. But probably not. Legos are more fun.

First Snow

Well, we woke up in GR to the first snowfall of the year! By mid-morning when we headed toward Duluth, there was already an accumulation of over four inches. It was so pretty! My favorite was when Mike's sister texted me a snowy picture (as she always does because she knows I love the snow) and I responded with "I know. We're here." It was weird to basically sneak into (and out of) GR - but I guess that's Fall Break: Covid Style. Go somewhere. See no one. 

The drive east was very snowy with fairly low visibility, which meant it plodded along at a slower speed than we would have liked. But we finally (and safely) made it to the hunting shack, where Gpa V had just pulled in to meet us, 4-wheelers in tow. Mike, the kids, and I walked over to Mike's old neighbors' house to say "hello" and to borrow one of Jim's wheelers (so we had three). Then we popped into the hunting shack, started a fire, and had our picnic lunch while the kids checked things out. Official consensus: they loved it. Quinn loved sitting by the fire and the coziness of the shack. Fiona loved the adventures in the woods. Dec didn't stop smiling the entire time we were there. He's made for shack life!

Once we finished lunch, we got our hodgepodge of gear on to take the wheelers out. We had not expected that much snow, nor for it to be so early in the season. So we didn't have the girls' big gloves, Fiona's snowpants were so short that they stopped mid-shin (and she couldn't zip them), and I didn't bring any winter coats ... so we went with double sweatshirt layers. It was a hot mess, but we made it work! [When we got home, I put in a major winter gear order at Amazon. Clearly everyone grew!]

The first trip out on the wheelers, poor Fiona's hands got so cold and she didn't have much fun. We drove past a few of the deer stands so Mike and Gpa could check them out and then went back to the shack to warm up. We got a better system for F's hands for wheeler trek #2 and it worked much better. We were out for over an hour and had the very best time. We drove through some really wooded trails, where the pine branches were covered in snow and hung over the trails in the most beautiful way. We kept having to move them or duck under them and everyone was laughing and giggling ... and shrieking when snow went down our necks. 

Dec was having the very best time and did not want it to end. So while Q and I went back to the shack to warm up and pack up, Mike and Gpa took F and D out for one last spin. By the time we were changed and loaded back into the car, it was dinner time ... way later than we intended to leave! But it was just too much fun to get of the woods any earlier. We made a pit stop in Duluth on our way through for dinner to go and hit the road toward home. 

We got home around 8:30, unloaded, and tucked the kids into bed. After two great days of outside fun and a lot of fresh air, everyone slept great. While not our normal fall break plan, we really enjoyed the change of scenery, grandparent time, and playing in the snow. Plus Mike is so happy that the kids finally got to experience the hunting shack!