October 2014

As always, fall is going by in a blur of activity.  From school carnivals, to soccer, to pumpkin patches and corn mazes, fall is a whirlwind of fun.  I love how my kids view the year, breaking the seasons into groups of holidays.  Growing up I always loved that my grandma had boxes of decorations for each holiday season, and I always wanted to do that for my kids.  Granted the Easter box could be a shoe box, while Halloween takes up several tubs, and I won't even tell you how many boxes I have for Christmas! But all in all, my goal of creating an event out of every season is on track. 

This year we hosted our annual Halloween party (with a ventriloquist magician even!),  carved pumpkins, explored the pumpkin patch, and so much more.  I love all the memories we create together...

Mommy and the big kid crew got a special trip to Dave's when school was out on a random Monday.

DECS Fall Carnival was a blast, hands down my favorite October night.  The kids had fun playing all the games, I won the pie contest, Milo was happy, the food trucks were yummy, and we got to hang out with tons of great people.

Picking out pumpkins at Dave's one Sunday evening... 

Pumpkin carving with Aunt Megan and the neighbors...

Halloween!

Halloween 2014

We did it - another Halloween in the books!  I took the day off to clean the house, get prepared for the evening, etc. and instead fell asleep and took a long nap.  Pregnancy really screws with your ability to get stuff done!

I did manage to wake up in time to head to the elementary school and watch the costume parade.  Logan decided to go with astronaut for school, and vampire for trick or treating.  Joey was a skeleton for school and a ghoul for trick or treating.  Emmie was the cutest witch on the planet for both!

Costume Parade

Kindergarten class pic

Seriously the cutest!

We got home to find a pumpkin full of chocolates at our front step from neighbors we don't really know. So sweet of them!  Logan immediately began working on a thank you note for them (I was so proud!).

Trick or Treating with our neighbors and their extended family was a ton of fun as usual.  We are so lucky to live next door to such wonderful people.  They have become great friends to all of us, we have never in our lives had neighbors like this and it is awesome!

At every door Logan said, "trick or treat!  Do you have Kit Kats or M&Ms?" and Emmie made sure to say, "thank you" then proudly informed her daddy (after every single house!) that she said thank you.  Two solid hours of trick or treating and Logan proclaimed this was, "the best Halloween ever!" - Until next year!

We missed Cheri last night though!  A bad cold had her out for the night which was a total bummer.  Hard to believe next year we will have another little one in tow - actually two more little ones in tow since our friends Easy and Christina are expecting too.  How fun!

Pumpkin Carving

Pumpkin carving with little kids is basically them telling you how they want their pumpkins to look and you having to do all the work.  We had 7 pumpkins to carve this year thanks to various field trips, and despite our intentions of purchasing a fancy saw (they were out at Lowes and Home Depot) we were stuck with those little kid-safe plastic pieces of crap to carve them with. Needless to say my hand was cramped for hours after I carved 5 of them!

At one point Joey actually said, "okay I drew the face, let me know when it's done" and went back inside to watch a movie.  Oh well, it was still fun and the fire pit and hot chocolate made it even better than last year. 

Dave's Pumpkin Patch ~ 2013

We did manage to squeeze in a trip to our local pumpkin patch before Halloween.  We are lucky to live 5 minutes from a pretty cool one, so a Sunday night trek was totally doable.  Plus I got a Groupon so had to use that!

Emmie was more than happy to let her brothers bury her in corn kernels.

And then she decided to take a nap all snuggled up in corn...

Corn Angels

5th Annual Halloween Party

We did it!  Another successful Halloween party!  We partnered with our family friend Christina again this year, moved it to the Boathouse Community Room (to spare our houses), and sugared the kids up for a couple hours of Halloween fun.

Below are some of the highlights from the party and the party prep.  Looking forward to next year - it gets better every year!

Food ID signs thanks to the dollar bins at Target

I made these treat bags for all the kids to store their candy, prizes from games, and craft projects they made at the party.

My favorite new treat this year - "Monster Mallows" 
Marshmallows dipped in colored chocolate with sprinkles for hair and candy eyes.

Mummy juice boxes

The kids all helped with all the food for the party.  Here is Logan with the sprinkles.

White chocolate dipped pretzels.

A returning favorite, owl cupcakes.

Monster/vampire cupcakes

Cuz that's how Logan rolls...

Dance Party!

Me and the little lion Emmie

Home Decorating for Fall

Okay, I managed to finish most of the fall decorating this past weekend.  The kids disagree with this statement since the inside of our house does not look like a carnival haunted house - they are still working on it!  There are definitely some other things we will be working on as the season progresses.  We have several pumpkin patch trips planned and if I can build up enough energy there is a plate craft I want to try out with Dollar Store plates.  

Below are just a few of the fall decor areas in our house right now.  I was really happy with the front of our house but then a wind storm broke all our corn stalks, so no picture of that just yet.  We also were gifted a very cool little Halloween village of houses that light up, once that area is all set up I will sure to post pics. 

The dining room table.

This display is in our living room. Dollar store crows are perfect!

Entryway table.

I love the feather tree from Hobby Lobby,

Halloween printable free from www.kristanlynn.com in an IKEA frame with a spider attached to it.  

My scarecrow buddies.

A new edition this year, Jack Skellington hanging from the light fixture.  Emmie is obsessed with
The Nightmare Before Christmas so this purchase was a no-brainer!

Fall leaves and spider webs along the staircase.

Even the bulletin board got a little fall love.

The kids made this door hanger.