Sunday was a relaxing day.  The girls went to Sunday School and had fun.  Sophia is memorizing John 3:16 for the Christmas play.  Olivia decorated a paper pumpkin and did a Bible story project in her preschool class.

Had a quick lunch and then Mary and Colton came over to pick pumpkins from our pumpkin patch.  They found three rather large ones (I was surprised there were still ones out there that were that size). 

Looked at pictures from their trip to Cancun and the surrounding area.  They did a lot of exploring and really got a feel for the local culture, history, and arts.  

Mike, the beekeeper, showed up as well today.  Sophia went out with him for a while to see how the bees were doing.  She came back a little later with the report:  "Something was out there!  Maybe a skunk...maybe a bear!  The bees are NOT happy right now." 

"Sould we go out there and take pictures like we wanted to?"  I asked.

"No.  The bees are flying all over the place," she said.

This is the first year in several that there's been something checking out the bees and their honey.  

The honey for the season is out of the hives, but it hasn't been extracted yet.  Looking forward to enjoying the honey this year.  It's been a real sweet honey in the past (at our place alone there are apple, pear, and plum trees; clover, and goldenrod).  

After the afternoon "quiet time," the girls played outside for a bit.  Threw a tennis ball and a badminton birdie to them a bit, and then realized that they needed more work on hand-eye coordination. 

So, I tied a couple of badminton birdies to ribbons and hung them from the apple tree for the girls to practice their hand-eye coordination when playing tennis.  Olivia loved doing that...Sophia was getting frustrated.  She just wanted to play tennis normally.  "It's about building skills.  If you learn how to do this and can hit the birdie every time, then you will be able to hit the tennis ball more times." 

The girls finished their tree drawings they started this morning.  I traced their forearms and fingers (but not the rounded tips) onto a piece of paper.  They extended each side of the fingers to make it look like branches on a tree.  They colored the trees in, and then Sophia added ladders and a door for the gnome that was living in her tree.  She added snowflakes on the ground since "winter is coming." 

We read "Rose Red and Snow White" and "Uncle Jed's Barbershop" today.  The first one is a Grimm's fairy tale retold by Ruth Sanderson (who also illustrated it).  She's a beautiful illustrator.  The second book deals with segregation in the U.S., challenges African American people faced when segregation was prevalent, and a man's dream to open his own barbershop during the depression despite the collapse of the banking system (and the loss of his money).  He finally opened his shop when he was 79 years old.  He believed in himself and followed his dreams.  The girls enjoyed both books.