It’s October now and I’ve started to see the fall decorations going up. It’s a fun time of year with pumpkins, hayrides, fall festivals, and corn mazes.

When C was three years old she was attending a preschool program at our church. She absolutely loved it and every week she would come home with crafts and papers she had worked on.

One week in October we were told they were going to be painting small pumpkins and to dress accordingly. When I saw C that evening she triumphantly handed me her pumpkin. She was so incredibly proud of it.

I was confused for a moment because it just looked like a pumpkin… an orange pumpkin with a green stem. But then I looked closer. It was indeed painted. She had painted the body of it orange and the stem green!

I had to stifle a laugh as I told her what an amazing job she had done on it and we displayed it proudly for weeks. Over the years the kids have painted or carved many pumpkins, but that one is by far my favorite!

The focus of our curriculum this year is countries and cultures. The past few weeks we have been focusing on North America. I’m impressed with how much the kids are retaining, especially when they start naming off the island countries in the Caribbean.

We’ve also been reading a biography on Cameron Townsend, the founder of Wycliffe Bible Institute.

They’ve learned a few Spanish phrases and songs to go along with their lessons.

Today we did a ‘paint with yarn’ project during art class. Big E and I made cats, C made a cattercorn (cat/unicorn).

I think they turned out cute!

I feel like we have finally gotten into a good school rhythm for the fall and our school days have gotten drastically shorter, which is awesome.

Baby E came wandering into my room this morning while I was editing. He stood patiently next to me until I looked down at him.

“Is Pennsylvania a country or a state?” he asked.

“It’s a state,” I replied.

With that he turned around and walked out the door without another word.

I’m not sure what it is about Pennsylvania, but Baby E is mildly obsessed with it and needs to know everything that is going on there. Are there black widows in Pennsylvania? Are there earthquakes in Pennsylvania? Is there a desert in Pennsylvania? Does my piece of Cinnamon Toast Crunch look like Pennsylvania?

I’ve answered a lot of questions about Pennsylvania in the last few weeks.

At least he has chosen a state I actually know about. I’d be in over my head if he mentioned Montana.

Happy 1,401st post with Eating With Savages. (If you add in the posts from the blog I used before this one, it’s actually 1781!)

That’s a lot of blog posts…. in a row.

So tonight I’m not going to write much. Instead, I’m going to amuse you with a whole bunch of memes that have caught my eye over the past few months.

You’ve probably seen a bunch of them, but I hope a few make you smile. Let me know if you have any favorites!

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Tim and I have taken on a side project that we are really excited about. I won’t be going into a whole lot of details at this point, but it involves disassembling a bunch of wood pallets.

So this afternoon while Tim was picking up C from a visit with her cousins, the boys and I spent time breaking some pallets down. We have a pallet buster, which helps considerably. Both the boys wanted to help so I let them take turns using it. Baby E lost interest pretty quickly, but Big E really enjoyed himself and pretty much disassembled a large pallet all by himself.

On top of breaking down the pallets, you also have to get the nails out of the boards so I split my time between break down and hammering out nails. I was really happy with how much we got accomplished in just a few hours and I am particularly proud of how Big E chipped in. He’s a kid that loves to work with his hands and this was a perfect outlet.

When the kids were younger, we would sometimes turn on Bob Ross in the evening to calm them down before bedtime. It didn’t take long for the kids to fall in love with the show and look forward to it each night. They would lay on the couch watching him paint, smiling at his comments, and be in complete awe of his paintings. Before I knew it they were pretending to be Bob during their waking hours, walking around the house ‘painting’ trees and happy little accidents. Needless to say, Bob Ross has held a special place in my heart since then.

When we heard that there was going to be a Bob Ross exhibit nearby, we couldn’t wait. We’ve had our tickets for weeks and this morning was out time slot. When we got there they had a documentary about him playing in the theatre. When we were done with that, we went into the gallery where we got to see about two dozen of his paintings. It was interesting to see his works up close. The kids loved seeing the vibrant colors and they were excited each time they saw a painting they recognized!

I try to make it a habit to take a few pictures every day. They don’t always make it to the blog, but I still have them to look at. It’s great to go back on the same date each year and see how the kids have grown and how life has changed.

Well, it’s 11:06 at night and I realized the only pictures I took today were of our apple head dolls… So, without further ado… you get a bonus picture of Moses this evening.

Did I forget to tell you that the Pawpaw Bread made me sick?

After eating two slices of divinely delicious pawpaw bread and some Little Caesars pizza, my sister and I went to the grocery store. About half way through our excursion I started not feeling so good. Not horrible, just off. But by the time we got to the register I was rather queasy and my sister didn’t look much better. We made it home, but by then I was feeling really shaky and Tim wasn’t well either. Needless to say, my dinner didn’t stay down.

Of the two things I had eaten, I honestly felt the pizza was to blame. I don’t picture Little Caesars as the height of restaurant hygiene practices and the Pawpaw Bread had been made in my own kitchen!! Also I had eaten plenty of pawpaw when we were harvesting and they hadn’t bothered me at all.

Finally I decided to consult Dr. Google. Come to find out, pawpaws can make you sick when you cook them!! Wait a minute?? Since when does something make you more sick when it’s cooked than when it’s raw??? And if they do make people sick when they are cooked… WHY ARE THERE PAWPAW BREAD RECIPES?!?

The heartbreaking thing about this sad pawpaw tale is that the bread was probably one of the best breads I had ever eaten. RIP pawpaw bread… If only we’d had more time.

With that said, I’m not deterred. We are on to our next foraging adventure. We have a large black walnut tree in our back yard and it has been dropping walnuts for the past few days. So this afternoon, the kids and I donned our bike helmets (safety first!!) and collected our walnuts. There’s a whole process to harvesting them, so we will see how it goes. Hopefully better than our Pawpaw shenanigans.

If you have any walnut experience or sage words of wisdom to pass on to me, now’s the time to do it. Hopefully in a few weeks our harvest will be complete!

Oh and we found an American persimmon tree back there too! They aren’t ripe yet, but they are next on my list!

A year ago this morning I was woken up by a phone call. The phone call. My dad had coded in the hospital. He was on life support. We needed to come to say our goodbyes.

But today isn’t the story of how I lost my dad. It’s the story of how he survived. It’s not a sad day, but a joyous milestone in a year of small and large victories. God is so good.

So here’s to my dad… I’m so incredibly proud of him. He has come so far. ❤️❤️

Tim often makes fun of me over the fact that I watch the same shows over and over again. I’m a sucker for British dramas, as I have said here many times. So when I am working, there is usually one playing in the background.

The other day Baby E came running up to me and told me that he and his siblings were playing Downton Abbey and that he was allowed to turn into the black Spiderman whenever he wanted.

Mixed genres aside, my kids really enjoy Downton Abbey- at least the parts I let them watch. I fast forward through the adult stuff when they are watching, but they enjoy seeing the weddings and hearing the accents. They have each chosen a favorite character, and get excited when they come onscreen.

When I heard the Downton movie was coming out, clearly I couldn’t take the kids (though Baby E begged to go.) My sister said she would come with me if no one else wanted to join me. Tim said, since every movie he has seen in the past 10 years in the theatre was a Marvel movie, he would branch out and take me, but I could tell he wasn’t thrilled. But I was sure I could do better than those offers! I called up my sister-in-law and she said yes!

So this evening, Laura and I, along with about 30 gray haired women (and a few gray haired men that accompanied them) went and saw Downton Abbey. We saw it at an Alamo Drafthouse, which neither of us had been to before. We ordered dinner and ate as we watched the movie.

The film was about what I expected… It had some fun moments and some sad ones. It wasn’t the best film I’ve ever seen, but it was enjoyable and I’m glad we got out to see it. The best part was spending the evening with my dear sister and friend!