Halloween!

So, we like to pick out pumpkins, and we like having jack-o-lanterns glowing on our porch, but the whole in between stuff isn't all that fun. You know, scraping the guts out of the pumpkin and cutting out all the pieces to make the face. Luckily, Mom took care of most of that for us.

We picked our faces and marked them up on the pumpkins...

And then Mom carved them out.

Pretty cool, huh?

Mom made us a yummy Halloween dinner: corn dog centipedes, witch's brooms string cheese, and our traditional mad scientist potion and candy corn fruit cups.

Then it was time to head out!

Pocahontas

Ghostbuster

Here's a close up of the proton pack Mom and Dad made for me:

Peyton loved her monkey costume.

 And just so you can get the full effect of her overstuffed belly...

Peyton loved taking pictures. She wanted to be in everyone else's picture and kept saying, "Cheese," over and over.

Peyton also loved carrying her monkey bucket and going to the doors for candy. She only went to a few houses with us, and then she spent the rest of the time passing out candy with Mom. She loved that too. Every time the doorbell rang she would make a beeline for the door to see who was there.

And after two hours of trick or treating, this was our final haul--11 1/2 pounds of candy. Oh yeah!

Pumpkin Patches and things

October was a fun and busy month. We visited THREE pumpkin patches and took way too many pictures which you get to enjoy right here!

First up, I had a day off school so Mom took us to our first pumpkin patch of the season.

Sydney went for a ride on a cow train.

I swung a giant hanging tunnel while kids were crawling through it.

And Peyton loved putting giant beanbags into giant holes over and over again.

Then we headed to the giant corn maze. It took forever to get out of that thing. And Peyton kept trying to go the opposite way that we all wanted to go.

 We played in a HUGE bin of corn.

And I drove a giant four-wheeled bicycle.

It was a really fun day, but we ran out of time to actually pick pumpkins in the pumpkin patch. So the next weekend, we took Dad with us and visited a small little patch that didn't have any activities, but had lots of cool farm equipment to check out.

I didn't go to the last pumpkin patch because it was for Sydney's preschool field trip. But I Syd said they had fun. It was raining, raining, raining, the day before and the morning of the trip, but they got lucky and it stopped raining during the two hours they were at the patch.

Peyton loved the puddles and kept trying to play in the mud. Unfortunately, she didn't have rain boots on like Syd did.

I didn't go on Syd's field trip, but I did get to go to her preschool pumpkin party because I was home sick from school that day. I don't look very sick (and didn't feel too sick), but I was coughing a lot. And the cool thing is that her preschool is the same one I went to when I was three!

The kids all got to dress up in their costumes. Sydney was Pocahontas.

Peyton liked the party too. The kid in this picture is lucky Mom picked Peyton up before she helped herself to his snacks.

Lucky for Peyton, Sydney didn't finish everything on her plate.

It was ridiculous trying to get 15 three years old to look at the camera and smile at the same time. About two seconds after this picture was taken, these kids were done. Ah, brings back such memories.

And of course we decorated a pumpkin and took it to Cooper. It had been raining for days before we went to visit him, but the afternoon we took him his pumpkin, the rain stopped. In all the years we have been visiting him, we have only been rained on once. Amazing. Putting the hat and goggles on the pumpkin was my idea. But we only left them on for the picture. I needed the goggles for my Halloween costume. :)