Halloween

We headed out back to carve our pumpkins in the nice weather this year.  Sylvia now enjoys scooping out the gooey inside.  Eric was just an onlooker and then became the photographer.  Unfortunately, he dropped our camera while taking pictures from the top of the slide while shooting.

The older two choose what they wanted to be for Halloween this year and Drake was a big fan of dogs at the time so I chose that for him.  I lucked out and found Eric's homemade skeleton costume at Goodwill.  Sylvia knew early on that she wanted to be an astronaut so I got to work on her costume.  It was a ton of fun to make and see her so excited about it.  All the candy was worth getting a little worn out walking around in such a stiff snow suit all night.

Kindergarten Halloween Party

Sylvia's school had a Halloween parade followed by classroom parties.  Grandma and Grandpa brought Eric and Drake over to see all the costumes and then headed home so I could help out in the classroom.  My little astronaut got a lot of compliments on her costume.  At the party, we made a spider web crafts and pumpkin stickers.  Snacks included pumpkin shaped cheese, pumpkin water bottles, clementines "dressed up" to look like pumpkins and monster grape cups.

Sass Family Farm

I took the kids to the Sass Family Farm again this fall.  It was a little harder to find a time now that Sylvia is in school but I'm glad we made it out.  We spent lots of time playing on the swings, tractors and playground before taking a look at the animals and picking out pumpkins.  The kids also found gold coins in the corn bin and got to pick out a special prize.  It got a little chilly while we were there so we enjoyed a snack indoors before heading home.

Colony Pumpkin Ptch

We joined Grandma, Grandpa, Bill, Becky, Ben, Katie and Great Nana at the Colony Pumpkin Patch in October to celebrate Grandma's birthday.  It was our first visit to the pumpkin patch.

I was glad to have some help getting me through the corn maize.  There's no way I would have gotten out of that thing by myself.

I figured out a way to tie Drake into this with my belt.  I didn't trust him without it.

Eric spent a lot of time on the tractors convinced he could make them work.

Great Nana enjoyed the beautiful weather and time with the grand kids.

 

Drake also enjoyed checking out the tractors.

I took a few attempts at a sibling picture and I believe this is the best one I got.

Halloween

Sylvia helped me gut the pumpkins this year.  She goes back and forth each year about whether or not she likes the pumpkin guts.  She wasn't sure at first so she used our salad tongs but she eventually stuck her arm in and said she liked it.  She drew her face (and arms) and then took pictures of me carving it.

 

Eric also helped gut and decorate his pumpkin.  The salad tongs came in handy again.  He told me the shape, size and location of his pumpkin's eyes, noes and ears so I could draw them on.  You can see that he likes big circles and wanted a sad face with teeth.

 

Sylvia decided a while back that she wanted to be a clown.  I showed Eric some different costumes but I think he heard Sylvia talking so much about being a clown that he wanted to be one too.  I had a baby clown costume so Drake got to wear that on our visit to Great Nana.  My aunt made Sylvia and Eric's costumes many years ago.

 

A friend from our old neighborhood joined us trick-or-treating this year.

 

Drake's clown costume wasn't warm enough for Halloween night so he got to be a dragon.  We set our candy out on the front porch so we could all go trick-or-treating together.

 

The clowns were both very excited about all the candy.

 

I wore my dad's "Dodo the Clown" costume out.  I put together a ring master costume for Dan but it will only be seen by those of you that visit the blog.  He did not wear it trick-or-treating.

Sass Family Farm

Shortly before Halloween, the kids and I went went to the Sass Family Farm with our friends, Ashley, Pierce and Cal.  A trip to the farm has become a yearly tradition.  There's a straw maze, corn bin, tractors and play equipment to enjoy.  We also took a stroll by the animals and picked out a pumpkin to carve.  Sylvia has walked through the haunted barn before but didn't want to this year after she took a couple of steps in.  That was fine with me since they aren't my favorite anyway.  These pictures show my kids personalities more than some do.  They are each so unique.

I Love Fall

A trip to the park to enjoy the beautiful weather and fall colors.

It's easier to get a good picture when funny faces are your goal.

Emily and I made pumpkin faces out of felt for the kids to play with.

I made a letter matching game for Sylvia to work on her lower case letters.  She matches up the lowercase letters on the "pumpkins" and "apples" with the uppercase letters on the trees and vines.

 

Eric and Sylvia made pumpkin shaped cookies together.  We decorated them together one night after dinner.

We've also been doing some counting with candy corn.

Sylvia helped me make a "haunted" house with pictures of our family.  She decorated it with roses, hearts and moons.

Wilson's Orchard and Pumpkin Patch

We headed out to Wilson's Orchard with some friends last weekend.  There aren't any apples on the trees so we checked out the pumpkins

 

Sylvia was so excited to look for a pumpkin that she picked up the first one she saw before we even made it to the pumpkin patch.

 

Drake snuggling with mommy during the tractor ride. 

 

Looking for a pumpkin in the sparse pumpkin patch.  Dan noticed that most of the pumpkins on the vine were rotten.  The nice ones looked like they'd been set out there.

 

Eric and Eli hanging with Andrea and Josh.  The guy in the background is strapping his pumpkin into the stroller.

 

Eric and Sylvia got to take an extra trip on the tractor with daddy.  Sylvia and I found a red ticket out in the pumpkin patch and she won a free donut.

 

After eating some apple donuts and turnovers, Sylvia took a picture for us.

 

She was able to get this one too after I asked her to make sure daddy's head was in the picture.