Peter was assigned to bring the pies for Thanksgiving dinner this year. He found just the right recipes for apple, pumpkin, and pecan pies. He even tweaked a couple recipes according to how he thought they could improve. Then he made a shopping list of the things we didn’t already have on hand.

And off we went to the grocery store to gather ingredients.

Check that list.

He thought it would be way more fun if his cousin Hannah could come over to help him bake. So she did. And it was.

They ran the kitchen like a couple of professional bakers, with minimal parental intervention. In fact, I even left to run to the library at one point, and when I returned, all six pies were out of the oven AND…this was the big surprise…the kitchen was perfectly cleaned!

The proud bakers.

The hungry bakers.

The eager audience.

A little too eager.

Can you blame them?

Here’s a video of the action:

We all got the eeby-jeebies (Molly included) when we found a big spider by the front door. And then there was Jeremy–undaunted by the eight-legged creature–who tried to catch it by its leg.

Baby Derek had his inaugural ride in the double jogging stroller.

He and Jake logged countless miles during my marathon training days.

And now…it’s all I can do to keep up with him as he runs alongside me.

There’s just something about a soft, snuggly dog that brings a smile to the face.

The geese are back.

And the BB guns are loaded.

They have no idea what they’ve flown into.

We went to the Shedd Aquarium last month with a big homeschool group. Derek hung out with the big kids…doing silly things like wall sits

while the rest of the kids hung out with cousins.

We got to pet fish

an watch sharks swim by. How thick is that glass, anyway?

Jeremy imitated the puffer fish.

And Ruthie discovered her life calling: penguin caretaker. This woman sat on a stool petting the penguins one at a time while the rest waited their turn at her feet. It was all I could do to keep Ruthie from jumping in and joining her.

Yesterday we visited the Museum of Science and Industry. They have a new exhibit called Numbers in Nature, all about the patterns that we see in the world. A “highlight” of the exhibit was a mirror maze that was so confusing that some of us began to feel sick to our stomachs trying to find the end. Here’s the crew at the beginning of the maze:

If I had taken a picture of the same crew at the end of the maze, you would have seen relieved faces, and one teary-eyed Jeremy holding his forehead after running slap-bang into one of the mirrors.

Jeremy found an outlet for his crazy faces.

Ruthie visited the tornadoes.

Here the kids were waiting for lightning to strike.

Hanging out…

The boys had some fun in the farm exhibit, trying their hand at milking a cow.

You can make just about anything into a competition these days!

As one of the boys’ friends said, these field trips are for “a lot of fun with friends, with a little bit of education added.”

I don’t know many dogs who actively watch what’s playing on the television. Whether it’s college football or Monster’s Inc., Molly is tuned in.

These boys. They keep me on my toes. Thanks to some well-placed clear Thinking Putty, they got my heart rate going the other day when I saw this.

Peter is proving to be quite a renaissance young man. He goes from the football field

to the kitchen without missing a beat.

I signed him up for the free kids’ cooking classes at Williams Sonoma, and last Saturday he learned to make mashed potatoes. He put his new knowledge to practice by making a batch for the company we had over yesterday.

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men (Colossians 3:23)

We had a triple birthday celebration at the end of last month. Ruth, my mom, and me…three generations all born in the same month. On the morning of Ruthie’s birthday, Peter made pink birthday pancakes. He even went a step further and carved a pink princess out of one of the pancakes.

We took the pumpkins that grew in our backyard and carved them to look like…us. Can you tell who’s who in this Johanik pumpkin family?

On Halloween day, we added to the packaging of the candy we distributed to trick-or-treaters.

We likened it to scattering seeds throughout the neighborhood ‘garden’.

Jeremy was at a birthday party, and Jake was busy finishing up school work while the rest of us put labels on all the candy.

Then we waited for the trick-or-treaters to come.

We also went trick-or-treating. Even the big boys. Don’t be fooled by Jake’s serious face in this photo. He (dressed as a runner) was more excited than everyone else to stockpile as much candy as he could.

Molly welcomed everyone back and was happy to help them sort their booty.

Derek has officially renamed trick-or-treating to “Trading Candy”. He observed that we buy candy and give it away to the neighbors, then we walk around  and collect candy from those same neighbors. We trade.

We ended the night (and the month) by going to Sonic for 50 cent corndogs and Chipotle for $3 burritos.