I’ve been working hard to stay up to date with my book reviews this past month but have focused a little less on sharing life here.
We have celebrated Rose and Peter’s birthdays and Canadian Thanksgiving. The girls both started soccer again. Pearl re-started piano lessons and Rose started them for the first time. Pearl’s level of soccer has weekly practises that we have been trying to fit in. I’ve been attending a fitness class twice a week. This past week we survived Halloween with two young children.
Pearl made her own costume and dressed as Winnie the Dog (as in our pet dog). Rose was Rapunzel. It’s Canada at the end of October so their costumes are obviously partially covered with coats. They had a blast trick-or-treating around our neighbourhood. I have mixed feelings about Halloween but every year I am amazed by how generous people are and the sense of community I feel taking my kids door to door.
Winnie also tried on Rose’s crown.
Entering our second year of having two kids in school has been a nice season for me. I feel like last year when Rose started kindergarten, was a transitional year of seeing how things went. We tried to keep our schedule light for the girls. This year we are more solidly in the school-aged years and I feel like I have greater freedom to think about doing things for myself.
We are very fortunate that both of our kids enjoy school and have some good friends there. They are each, in their own way, thriving in their environment. Pearl’s reading has taken off so much and Rose is right on the cusp of learning to read, recognizing more and more words. They’ve each had some fun field trips and learned a lot about salmon (Pearl) and bats (Rose). (Side question: learning about salmon in grade 3 is practically a rite of passage in British Columbia. Is this a BC thing or do kids elsewhere learn about the life cycles of salmon?)
Happy November folks! Hope you enjoy that extra hour of sleep tonight!
Karissa Reads Books 
I vaguely recall learning about the life cycle of salmon – it was a long time ago now though so maybe I’m imagining it! Happy November!
Definitely did not learn the life cycle of a salmon, lol. Why are you hesitant about Halloween?
I asked a friend who is from Washington state originally and she said she learned about salmon so maybe it’s a West coast thing rather than a Canadian thing!
I didn’t grow up acknowledging Halloween at all. Never trick-or-treated. In a lot of evangelical circles, Halloween is seen as something Christians should not participate in. I don’t agree with that but it’s also a hard feeling to shake off, you know?
Ahhhh, that makes sense. Last year I went to a Deaf church the weekend before Halloween, and they talked about how to incorporate the Bible into Halloween instead of celebrating it. Some of the suggestions surprised me, but I hadn’t read the Bible at that point.
A lot of churches do harvest parties or something on Halloween and while I understand it’s to give people a different option of something to do, it still seems like you’re celebrating the day.
Yeah, my Jehovah’s Witness grandma won’t do a Christmas party, but she’ll do a “family party” on Christmas.