Trick or Treat

We ended our pre-Halloween activities with a party at My Gym. It was fun to see the teachers dressed up. The girls had fun playing around and it gave us a chance to give the costumes a test run.



Halloween night we headed over to the Andersons down the block, and our gang headed out. We canvased quite a bit of the neighborhood ending at our house. The girls got quite a haul. Before we ended up at the house, we had 2 kids come by. TWO. Then we had 7 (we picked up a couple other neighbor kids along the way). And a couple more neighbor friends stopped by after that. I think our grand total was about 15. I think next year maybe we won't hand out candy and then both Andrew and I can go trick or treating with the kiddos.




I love this picture of little Claire. She looks so NOT thrilled to be in the frog costume. But she held on to that trick or treat basket for dear life. She wasn't going to lose any of her candy.

How cute are they?--Ella, Isabelle, Hope holding Claire, Lily

We headed over to my dad's house after that to help my step-brother Sam celebrate his golden birthday. The girls did one more round of trick or treating with Daddy and B-pa. Then we trouped into the car and headed down to Cedar Rapids for a visit with my mom and Dave.

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

Once upon a time, Andrew set out to find the biggest pumpkin on the lot. He and the girls searched high and low for the largest gourd they could find.

But it had to be the perfect shape, perfect color, and blemish free.
After surveying the lot, they settled on one.

It took two to carry it to the scale. The great pumpkin weighed a whopping 25 pounds.
Andrew paid the man and strapped the plump pumpkin in. Then we enjoyed the harvest set up.

We took our pumpkin home.
Andrew scooped the yuck out and played around a bit.

(This just makes me think of the episode of Friends
where Joey get the turkey stuck on his head.)

(Like father, like daughter?)
Then he set out to make a SP000KY face.

Here is the finished product.
And all our pumpkin friends on the front steps.

Pumpkin Activities

We have a little family owned farm market about two miles from us (Marshall's Farm Market). It's open year round and every year they line up pumpkins and mums. They have yummy baked goods, gourds, hay bales and more. They bring in a huge pumpkin-shaped bounce house. It seems each year they add something to the festivities. This year they added a spook house for the kids to crawl through. I love this photo even though I have no idea who the little kid is in it. But I happened to catch him in mid-air as he was jumping off the hay bale. Anyhoo, we had fun picking out pumpkins and checking out everything else there.

We had beautiful weather and each of the girls picked out a few pumpkins. We brought them home and made glitter pumpkins by spreading Elmer's glue on the pumpkins and shaking glitter over them.

Two artistic-y pumpkin shots.

I love this shot of Lily. She is so happy (she was actually doing a little pumpkin happy dance) and her smile is so natural. Usually, she hates me taking a photo of her; she turns the other way and whines.




The same weekend we attended a harvest festival at the girls' preschool. They each decorated a harvest centerpiece on burlap. These are actually on our dining room table now and will be decorations for Thanksgiving. You know they are suckers for a good art project. ;-) They also played pumpkin games and had their faces painted. It was a fun little family outing.




Okay, that's it for tonight. I'll try and add more posts tomorrow night. :-)

End of the Season

We'll start backwards and work to the most recent. The second week of October, Ella had her last soccer game of the season. They finished undefeated. Ella had three goals throughout the season and still asks me when she can play soccer again. So I think we'll be signing her up for soccer again in the spring. She started swim lessons again last Saturday so she's excited to have something new to do again!

Here are some photos from the last game:

Ella was a captain for the last game (they rotate captains).

Celebrating and Ella getting her "award", a flashlight. A little odd, but kids love flashlights, so whatever.



Just a random note. Ella made this "park" out of blocks one morning. I thought it was so cute. She had slides and tunnels to crawl through. Can you pick out the Portapottys? She was so proud that she remembered to put the bathrooms in there. Funny what kids notice, huh?

Remember me?

Hi! I'm still around. Remember that feast or famine comment I made about my posts? Well, it's been famine time. But the feast is on its way! I promise! I have 5 or 6 posts that need to go up. I was just really busy the last few weeks of October and I've been in Cedar Rapids the whole past week suffering wireless withdrawal at my mother's as she only has dial-up and I can barely stand to check my email.

So coming soon to a computer screen near you: pre-Halloween festivities, Halloween trick or treating, leaf pictures, Knox Homecoming with the girls, and our visit to Cedar Rapids! There might even be more that I'm currently forgetting about. So please don't give up on me and check back soon. I promise, promise, promise to have something new up soon!

Oh, and some very exciting news to entice you...Andrew is getting to meet a BIG-TIME (I mean REALLY REALLY famous) sports star tomorrow for a gatorade commercial! You will have to wait in suspense and check back with me to find out who it is.