Pumpkin Patching and Carving

Better late than never, on Monday mom and the kids went to the pumpkin patch.  The kids got to do a whole bunch of fun things like play with the barnyard animals and explore a feed pit.  Dad had to work so there is not a ton of stories that I can share other than Parker and Hadley went with their friends Nate and Kathryn.  See how much fun they had below....

The bad part about waiting so long to go to the pumpkin patch is the selection of pumpkins was pretty picked over.  After they were done at the pumpkin patch mom and the kids had to go to Price Chopper to get pumpkins for us to cover.  Again they were so picked over that we got some awesome white pumpkins.  We were able to carve a Kitty and Minnie Mouse into our pumpkins!

Hadley got in trouble and was forced to sit on a piece of paper while we were carving pumpkins.

We Have a Skater and the Last Soccer Game

Saturday mornings are a little rough around the Harms house.  The wakeup call came at 6:45 am in order to get Parker on the ice at 8 am.  Admittedly we were a little late :-(  The good news is that Parker felt brave enough during practice to get rid of the walker that he was using and was willing to skate all on his own.  We even captured a video of how well he did.  Don't be fooled though, there were several times that the butt pad we bought him came in handy.

After 8 am hockey we had to get moving to ensure we made it to our 10 am soccer game.  This was Parker's last game of the season.  This fall he made a ton of progress from a skills and tactics perspective.  It sounds like he is really starting to fall in love with the game.  Here are some of the last pictures of the season.

Satruday wasn't over yet, after sports we remembered that one of our family members turned seven yesterday.  Paisley was serenaded by the kids and given treats to celebrate her birthday!

A Little KU Basketball

For whatever reason Parker likes to watch KU basketball and roots for them when they are on TV.  Last year he went to his first game and we are trying to start a tradition of going to at least one game a year.  Tickets are insanely expensive once they start Big 12 play, so that is why we try and go early on in the season.  That brought us to Thursday night against Emporia State University, not exactly a basketball powerhouse.  

We were running a little behind and ended up parking the car a 6:40 pm and had about a 10 minute walk to Allen fieldhouse.  We were able to get in the arena with 2 minutes to spare.  Since we were running so late we ended up getting a hot dog a pizza at the game.  We made it through the entire first half without leaving our seats and got gummy worms as a reward.  About halfway through the second half Parker said he was getting tired and waned to go.  With seven minutes left we got up to leave and were about to head to the exit, but after standing up and starting to move Parker wanted to stay (proud Dad moment).  We ended up making it through the whole game without any dependency on devices!  BTW, KU ended up winning 93-55.

Volunteering for a Good Cause

Admittedly, we have been pretty blessed as family.  We are all healthy and happy, all things considered, we have it pretty good.   Parker and Hadley seem to have hearts of gold that mom would argue they didn't get from their father :-).  Last year we bought reusable water bottles and filled them with candy and essentials and drove around to hand them out to the homeless around Halloween. Parker was the one who had the idea, he saw homeless people around town and wanted to do something to help them out.

This year it was mom who did some investigation into doing something where we could volunteer as a family and found the Kindcraft Organization.  Last night we attended on our first volunteer opportunity where we turned recycle plastic bags (think Wal-mart and Hy-vee plastic bags) into plarn (plastic yarn) which will be used to create plastic mats that will be distributed to the homeless to sleep on this fall.  The video below gives you an idea of what we did, the end result and how they help the homeless.

The kids love arts and crafts and loved the idea of helping out those in need.  We spent an hour and half working on our plarn as a family, we all had a blast.  Here is some pictures of the process and our ball of plarn!

Back in the Saddle...Two Sport Saturday!

Parker was cleared to play at 10 pm Friday night because his strep throat was no longer contagious.  So at 6:45 am on Saturday we woke him up so he could get ready for his first day of hockey.  It was an early morning for everyone (mom didn't get home until 1:30 am), but we made it to the ice by 7:45!  Getting all of the right gear and skates took a little bit, but Parker hit the ice promptly at 8 am.  Here is some pictures and footage of his first day.

After hockey we were able to come home for an hour before we had to turn around and go to Parker's soccer game.  Soccer season has flown by this season.  At the game Parker ended up scoring two goals for his team and the game ended in a 2-2 tie.  Parker was pretty bummed they couldn't score one more goal to win!  After watching Parker play soccer last year for Olathe Rush we are pleasantly surprised how well he has done this season.  He is much more aggressive than he was previously and he has turned out to be one of the better kids on his team!

After soccer we went to Brent and Dani's place for the 6th annual pumpkin beer and college football extravaganza!  Unfortunately we do not have any pictures, but everyone had a blast.

Even Kids Pay When They Have Too Much Fun

With the kids off school all week, Mom was finding awesome activities for the kids to do to keep them occupied.  On Wednesday the kids had the opportunity to go to one of their favorite places, DAVE AND BUSTERS!!!!

The kids had a blast, unfortunately on Thursday morning someone was feeling the repercussions of being in a communal area during fall/winter.  When Dad woke up at 4:30 am on Thursday he was greeted by Parker coming in his room to go to the bathroom (not an uncommon activity, but it took place at an uncommon time).  Dad was going to take Parker back to bed, but Mom got a hug from him before he was going to go back to bed and realized that he was burning up.  Parker's Thursday was spent like this...

He was able to bounce back after some Motrin

Unfortunately it was short lived...

On Friday morning Mom decided to take Parker to the doctor, turns out the poor kid has strep throat.  The good news is, by 10 pm Friday night he will no longer be contagious. That means our Saturday plans still include hockey, soccer and uncle Brent's house!  Hopefully this stuff will do the trick