Fall activities

Noel became scuba certified this year.   Here are pictures of her doing one of her open water dives in one of the big lakes in Madison.

    In the lakes around here, the you can't see more than a couple feet in front of you.  She had thoughts of being a wreck diver, but you have to be over 18 yrs old to go down to the depths the ship wrecks are usually at.  We'll have to wait and see if she decided to do more with this in the future.

 
     Sylvia has started learning the violin this fall.  A music store was going out of business, and we found a great deal on a 1/4 size violin, with small purple flowers painted on the it.  The purple flowers wee the signal that this violin was meant for Sylvia.  She has really taken to it quickly.   Below, you can see her in Rock-Star -Violinist pose.

   Mattias has been working on building a remote control robot that will..... well, who knows what it will actually do when it is finished.  It could fling things or take pictures of things.   Mattias keeps changing his mind.  We will certainly post the completed project.

  This next shot is a picture of our traditional start of the day.  Sylvia will get out of bed, and then cuddle the dog for a few minutes on the stairs, until she is awake enough to continue down the stairs to breakfast.  It is a cute little tradition.

  The boys enjoyed hosting another "Magic the Gathering" booster draft party this fall.    It is a fun time to get together with friends from near and far.

   The competition if fierce at times, but everybody keeps a smile on.   We are really blessed with having some good friends for the kids.

    Halloween brought  much excitement to Sylvia's world.  I think age 6 is the best time for holidays.  The decorating and the preparations for the big day are all so wonderful to a 6 year old.  I love having Sylvia around to keep that joy in our holidays.

   We went trick or treating this year with a group of homeschool friends.

     Sylvia was a fairy princess, and Mattias was her loyal servant.  He was great about helping her up and down steps, and waiting for her to walk along with him on the sidewalk.  He never spoke a harsh word to her, and was very patient.  He was the perfect big brother.

 
   One of Mattias's favorite annual events is helping another family make pounds and pounds of hand crafted chocolates.  They hold "chocolate party" every year, to entice people to view the products of their pottery studio during the Christmas gift buying season.

      Mattias loves the science of chocolate making (getting the sugar crystals to the perfect stage,  raising and lowering the temperature the exact amount of times, and being sure the right amount of liquid is added and boiled off).   He also likes the artistry of it all.   The experiment with making new combinations... vanilla truffles, wasabi chocolates, dipped mint leaves, etc.

The rest of the family enjoys eating the chocolates, but Mattias actually enjoys just the process of making them.