Creeper Pumpkins

The boys' babysitter very kindly brought them some pumpkins.  Matthew decorated them to look like Minecraft creepers!

Back to Soccer

 Fall soccer season began this past weekend. James's team played pretty well, even though they didn't win. 

First of Fifth

 The boys had their first day of fifth grade (middle school!) on Tuesday.  (And thanks to Auntie Nora for their new favorite shirts!)

Middle school starts later than elementary school, which is a pleasant change (except that I now have to leave earlier than they do on the days I teach).  However, they were up early and all ready to go.  Mike was going to walk them over to school, but unbeknownst to us, they had already planned to walk with their friends!  So the friends showed up at the door, and they went off happily!

It sounds like the first few days have generally been pretty good, even though they aren't in many classes with their best friends from elementary school.  Hopefully it will be a chance to make some new friends as well!

Decorative Gourd Season

We stopped by the farmer's market this weekend, and they are already making the transition to decorative gourd season!  (Fortunately, they also still had corn on the cob and tomatoes!) 

The boys didn't actually want to get pumpkins this time, since they thought they might not last until Halloween. :)  No worries, I expect we will have other opportunities!

WhittleWorks

 The boys and their friends set up a whittling factory (WiddleWorks) in the backyard yesterday -- they had a whole production line with getting twigs, whittling them (one or two-sided points; bark or no bark), then sliding them down the slide to the distribution center. :) They even had a sign and nice decorations (branches/vines), and you could order custom whittling.

(It was all fun and games until one of the friends cut his finger on the whittling knife...he was okay, though!)

Robotics Camp

Since my school started a week before the boys' school does, we signed them both up for Robotics Camp last week at the same place where Matthew has been doing (and loving) his coding camps.  (And bonus, it's super-convenient to our house!) The robotics coding language wasn't Matthew's favorite (it's very visual, compared to the other ones which use words), but they both had a good time.  They were able to program their robot to go through several different tracks and even parallel park!

Middle School Orientation

The boys had their middle school orientation on Monday morning (parents not invited). Matthew was not as unhappy about it as he looks in the picture!  :)  I think it was helpful for them to see their classrooms, etc. -- it's going to be a bit of an adjustment with all the class changes! 

Then on Friday we were allowed to go in to set up their lockers. There wasn't too much setting up to do.  (Some of the girls there were decorating their lockers, but Matthew and James were not interested in that at this point -- they'll have another chance next week if they change their mind.)  However, it was good for them to have a little practice opening the lockers!  (It's also nice that these locks are built in to the lockers -- and the teachers have a key in case the kids have problems.)