Happy Halloween!

Halloween this year started out as a rainy day, but by late afternoon, the rain stopped and the sky cleared for a beautiful evening that was dry and actually quite warm. 

In the afternoon, we decorated some sugar cookies and took them to Shane at work. 

     

After Shane’s work and a dinner of mummy dogs and macaroni and cheese (the ultimate kids dinner), we went trick-or-treating.  We went around our neighborhood, and the boys had fun filling their pumpkin bag full of candy. 

This year, Landon was an astronaut, Davis a bat, and James a monkey.  I only had to make Landon’s astronaut pants, so it was an easy Halloween year for me!  The bottom picture is at our ward trunk or treat the weekend before Halloween.

  

ABC’s

James has recently started singing the ABC song off and on all day.  It is especially because of the Leapfrog ABC magnet game we have on the fridge that I finally bought new batteries for.  He carries it around with him, singing along with Leap, the frog on the game.  Sometimes I find him sitting behind the curtains singing, sometimes in his chair in his room.  I caught a video of him this week singing by the couch.  I especially love his rounded lips for the “L, M, N, O, P,” and in this video, his continued singing despite the gum he’s chomping on and his distracting brothers.

Pumpkin Party

Saturday, we had a pumpkin party at our house, with all sorts of fun pumpkin activities.  Here was the official announcement:

Pumpkin Pizzas:  First, we each decorated our own pumpkin-shaped pizza.

      

Finished pizzas:  Top left: James, me; Bottom left:  Davis, Landon, Shane.

Carving Pumpkins:  After eating pizza, we started the pumpkin carving.  The boys did a pretty good cleaning out their pumpkins, and then they drew a shape on it with a dry erase marker for Shane or me to carve out.  Davis had been saying all week that he  wanted to do a “ghost” pumpkin, meaning a ghost mouth, so he got right to work.  James wanted a ghost pumpkin too, so Landon’s was the only one a little different.  Shane and I always forget how much work it is to get the boys’ pumpkins carved, and then we’re pretty worn out by the time we finally start ours.  (I had some camera issues, so I didn’t get to many pictures of the actual pumpkin carving.)

       

One time, I looked over to see James licking off his spoon after pulling some stuff out of the pumpkins.  He seemed to like it! 

 

The finished pumpkins:

Left to Right:  Shane’s, Davis’s, Landon’s, James’s, and mine – bottom is Kelly’s sick pumpkin.

Pumpkin Rice Krispies and a Pumpkin Show:  After carving pumpkins, we made and decorated some pumpkin rice krispies from Grandma Morris, then watched “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.”  It was a fun night!

       

Tree Painting

On Friday, we painted some leaves onto a tree using q-tips.  The boys had fun making their pictures and painting the leaves.  I drew a circle for them to put the leaves in, but they also thought it was fun to paint some falling leaves too.  Here they are at work: 

     

Rainy Pumpkin Patch

Last weekend, my dad had a conference in Portland, and Jake and Stacey had a Groupon to a pumpkin patch up here, so they all came up to spend the weekend with us.  They arrived Thursday evening, which was great because Landon and Davis didn’t have school on Friday.  My parents arrived a little before the rest of the clan.  My mom made James an ABC photo book of pictures of him and things he likes, so he was excited to see it.

Unfortunately, the forecast showed lots of rain, so we tried to make our plans around when the driest time would be to go to the pumpkin patch.  Friday morning, Stacey, Mom and I went to Ikea with the older kids while Jake stayed home with the youngest three.  James and Ethan had fun eating apples and playing with our ridiculous amount of Lightning McQueen cars while we got some small things at Ikea and grabbed some 50 cents hot dogs for lunch. (I know, it sounds disgusting, but I was surprised at how good it tasted!)

   

James and Ethan, and James hanging out with baby Maggie.

When we got home, the rain had let up, so we hurried and got rain boots, rain coats, and umbrellas and loaded up the cars.  By the time we got Shane at work on the way, it was starting to rain, and it was pouring by the time we reached the pumpkin patch.  We decided to hang out in the barn area eating the delicious pumpkin and apple cider donuts hoping for it to dry out.  It finally let up a little bit, so we went out and tried to enjoy it as much as we could.  Shane, Landon, and Davis had fun in the big hay maze and slide area (it was covered), and then Stacey and I took the kids on a hay ride (it was covered).  That was about all we could do with the rain, so we headed home.

The three kids ready to go.

   

Looking at the baby chicks.

 

Yum!  Donuts!

     

On the hay ride, and Jake keeping Maggie dry.

James driving the tractor and checking out the baby pigs.

Saturday, we went to Landon’s rainy soccer game, then watched the BYU football game.  My parents had to leave that night, but Jake and Stacey stayed around and we had a fun game of Ticket to Ride.

 

James, Davis, and Kallie eating waffles for breakfast, and Landon in his soccer game.

 

We were sad to see them leave as always.  James was sad to see his buddy Maggie go.  He shared his blankey with her and gave her kisses before she left.