The boy has style!

This kid likes to look good . . . he won't even come to breakfast in pjs unless we have a good enough list of reasons why he should. And no play clothes . . . man's in a pair of cool jeans and a sweater, unless otherwise instructed :) The ensamble you see here, he picked out himself for church on Sunday, but wasn't sure he liked the tie not being tucked into something, so we added a vest and poof! Cool Mr. B :) Love this guy!

Candy Collectors

This was arguably one of the easiest costume years ever, and last year was pretty easy. The kids came up with creative, but fairly uncomplicated ideas for Treat Night. Caelan wanted to be Princess Leia and had a picture all picked out . . . cut a head hole in an old sheet, wrap my belt around her waist, braids in buns, and boom, she's Leia! And EVERYONE knew who she was, which she thought was super cool :)

Graysen's costume went along with his big sis'. He was (and I still don't have this right) one of the clone guys . . . Max? That doesn't sound right . . . Rex, I think it was Rex . . . maybe? He pulled this option out of the dress up bin handmedowns from my brothers, sweet!

Brennen did the same, digging in for a hunter's costume supplemented by an XBox hunting game rifle (it might be Wii, I still don't know the difference in the game systems we have).

Doodles decided to be an Olympian, so we made some "gold" medals, she dressed in her gymnastics leotard, and we sewed "Douglas" onto a red sweatshirt and pinned an Olympic rings picture below it. Viola! Although the evening was pretty warm for late October, the kids selected outfits that would keep them warm and in costume all at the same time. Worked out great!

First stop: the library, of course, the librarians love our kids!

Second stop: the square, joining the hoards of children going door-to-door at the businesses, such a fun tradition! And they got sooooo much candy!

Third stop: home for some healthy supper :)

Fourth stop: back out to enjoy games (and yes, gather more candy) at our church's fall pumpkin party. Graysen seemed to like being fed donuts on a string by one of the cute high school girls in our youth group :) Gabby was excited that the older kids thought she would be a good basketball player after witnessing her hurl toilet paper rolls at a points system set up on a ladder, and the other two had a blast posing for some super cute pics by a wonderful photographer who also happens to go to our church. So neat of her to do this for the kids! I will have to snag the copies and put them on here for Grandma to see :)

Fifth stop: our neighborhood, after stopping at home to empty the candy buckets in order to make room for more candy.

Sixth and final stop: our back door neighbor who always chats with the kids across the alley while they are playing in the yard and she is taking care of her pup.

Whew! By the time we wrapped all this candy collecting up for the evening, the town hours were just about over and we only had a handful of treaters stop by . . . which means, you guessed it, we ended up with our Costco-sized bag of candy too! There is candy in our cupboards, candy in our cooking pots, there is half as much candy because I sent as much of it as I could with Buck to work (and there is another bagful in his lunch for tomorrow).

Sweet as can be, the kids had a great time this year!

Punkins!

After several years, I must announce that we have almost completely destroyed our collection of pumpkin carving tools . . . they are bent, falling out of their handles, and possibly missing some teeth (much like the pumpkins they are intended to carve :)

There was about a week delay from patch to kitchen, but we finally hauled our 65 pounds of purchased pumpkins in from the garage. Our neighbor added to the soire by offering our choice of the 10 for $1 crop of gourds she found at a roadside stand. What a deal, and they were just as nice as the ones we purchased!

So now, with 8 pumpkins as options, mom and dad got a chance to join the fun (beyond the inevitable scooping of pumpkin guts, which of course we participate in every.single.year.).

With massive amounts of pumpkin seeds roasting in the oven (garlic, spicy, and cinnamon-sugar, the last of which was a failed experiment), we discovered the girls are now capable of managing the little orange-handled carving tools quite nicely on their own. This freed Buck up to research his design plans, while I charged up the power drill to try an idea given to me by a local childcare gal at the library. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed drilling different sized bits into the pumpkin to give it a swiss cheese look. I even got fancy and drilled the word TREAT into one side, and it showed up nicely when lit (though I didn't get a picture).

 

The lighting is the kids' favorite part, so we snuck outside on a chilly evening and took a quick picture. Don't they look happy?!

What to do on a warm fall day . . .

We found ourselves with an open afternoon, so we took a drive and then a stroll through one of our favorite little parks. It turns out, we missed the fall colors wander . . . all the leaves had blown away, and it seemed as though they took the "river" with them. Not much more than a trickle fed its way through the otherwise dry creek bottoms, but that didn't prevent our dog from getting soaked in the knee deep water nor our boys getting covered in mud from head to toe :) Caelan caught a hoppy handful of tiny baby frogs and we all enjoyed the warm glow of the late afternoon sun . . . before heading home to wash the aforementioned mud-covered children :)