If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, hopefully you already know what geocaching is. If not, basically, it’s similar to a scavenger hunt. People hide a container and then share the coordinates on geocaching.com. Most people go geocaching in daylight, but there are a few caches hidden that are specifically made for night. They give you the coordinates for the first spot, then you use a flashlight to follow reflectors. Aaron and I have done a couple of these in the past, dragging along terrified friends. Well, we took the kids to do their first night cache last weekend.

Some of you probably think that this is nuts or even dangerous. It’s really not. There was an entire boy scout troop camping in earshot and we walked right by a dad and his son fishing. Frankly, I’d much rather be in the woods with 3 flashlights and two smartphones than out trick or treating downtown in a city. Perhaps I should mention that we don’t have a lot of animals which pose a threat to humans around here, beyond fellow humans that is.

We started at sunset.

Both of the older kids were armed with flashlights and Aaron as well. I prefer not to use a flashlight unless absolutely necessary, instead relying on my eyes.

This was a two part geocache. So, you go to the first stage and get the coordinates that you need for the second stage.

Putting the first stage back.

I recently read a book called “Learning to Walk in the Dark”, by Barbara Brown Taylor. I’ll have to share about it sometime. It’s worth reading. As someone who loves the dark, it was fascinating, but I think it would be good for someone who is more fearful of the dark to read as well.

For one of the parts, we had to find this smiley face.

Reed found the cache.

Lots of fishing themed stuff inside.

We had a lot of fun! I think it was probably one of the kids’ favorite geocaches ever, and one of my favorites that we’ve done with the kids.

Happy Halloween!

Meet the cast of characters.

Today was also crazy hair day at school, so this guy was first crazy-hair Reed.

But then, he turned into a ninja.

We also had the king of the forest, the cowardly lion.

Of course, a cowardly lion also means that we had… Dorothy.

Oh, and eventually Buzz Lightyear (our friend Adrian) flew into the picture, too.

We had a mission: candy.

It was very cold here today (under 40 by the time we were out taking these photos), so we went to an indoor fall festival to keep warm. The kids got to play games and had lots of candy, too. Gus would play a game, get a piece of candy and then promptly plop down on the floor to eat it. Wherever he was, he would drop to the floor and have me open up his candy wrappers.

They had lots of fun. And we stayed warm, so it was a win.

Here are the photos from the last 3 years: 2012, 2013 and 2014.

I really do love fall. Cooler temperatures and beautiful temperatures. But, it also brings with it shorter days and the awareness that winter is coming. Instead of wishing it was still summer, I’m trying to get intentional about enjoying the beauty of fall.

I baked an apple pie from all of those apples we picked.

We’ve walked home from school, picking the streets with the most beautiful trees.

I’m normally “too busy” for this, preferring driving, which saves me about 45 minutes.

Little man actually walked over a mile home by himself.

Last week, I also baked apple cider donuts. Yum!

What are you doing to enjoy fall? Any fun ideas?

I’ve shared many times over the past 4 years that Reed and Lena are best friends.

This is still so true. Over the summer, they fight a lot more, but now that they are in school, they really enjoy spending time together in the evenings and on the weekends.

We often talk about the highs and lows of our day. Here is one of Lena’s lows, “At lunch, I was standing up because I wanted to say hi to Reed. And, some girl yelled at me. I didn’t even get to see Reeeeeeed!”

We were trying get some photos to advertise fall sessions for Moose Prints.

“Can you look at each other?”

“Like you like each other?”

And, without any more direction from me, it turned into this.

Don’t get me wrong, they still have arguments. They hurt each other when they choose a friend over the other all the time. But, at the end of the day, they have a very solid bond.

These last two pictures just crack me up, because they remind me more of a married couple than elementary school kids. But, that’s part of what I love about the two of them.

(February 2011)

My mom sent me a fun craft idea, painting leaves. I thought that Reed and Lena would enjoy it.

One Saturday, when Aaron had to work, I got everything out to do it. I covered the table in heavy paper and cardboard. I had the kids change. We weren’t having a very good day, but I was hoping some quiet time at the table might help.

I was wrong.

Yes, that happened first.

The kids did enjoy this. I also gave them the option to paint their pumpkins (hence the smashed pumpkin).

I really didn’t want to include Gus in this activity. Paint + 3 year olds = not my idea of a good time. But, he wanted to do it.

One very blue pumpkin later…

Lena enjoyed this activity the most, and spent the most time on it.

That was one of my biggest frustrations over it. I judge activities based on time spent doing the activity x fun had – time spent setting up and cleaning up the activity. The setup and clean up time made this not-very-worth-it with my boys. By the time I sat down to paint my own leaves, the boys had gotten up and dumped all of our train tracks on the floor. Wood floor + wooden train tracks = quiet time over.

Just keeping it real here. 🙂 In the world of Pinterest crafts and mommy bloggers, it’s easy to weigh everything we’re doing or not doing as parents. Are we planning regular fun activities? And, are we enjoying every moment of it? In hindsight, I think we would have had a lot more fun if I had waited until Gus was napping AND I had set up an expectation with both Reed and Lena before we began… “this is what we will be doing for Gus’s naptime today. When you decide to be done, you need to clean up your paint and go read quietly in the living room.”

Oh well, lesson learned for next year!