A Second Attempt

Today was beautiful! The sun was bright, the fall color was just right and there was very little wind - a prefect day for taking family pictures ... unless the babies of the family are camera shy. This afternoon we put everyone back in their fall clothes and met some friends at a little lake to take pictures. First pictures of their family, and then of the kids. I think we got some good shots of our friends, but as you can see below, we're getting closer but we're still not quite there yet. Maybe the old adage of "third times a charm" will work out better for us.

Out with the old, in with the new

Happy Halloween!

Above: Everyone decked out in their Halloween garb. Emily - started out as a Butterfly Princess, but in the end I think she simplified it with Fairy. Rebecca - A rock star... last night she let me put her hair in little ponytails, put glitter in it and tease it up for her. Sam - Diego. Alex - Our fourth Little Pumpkin

Below: Sam's preschool class pose for a picture after their Halloween Parade for the parents.


Below: Emily's stash. Between the trick-or-treating at school last week, last night's trunk-or-treat at church and tonights trick-or-treating, there's a LOT of candy in this house. Grandma and Grandpa came over and had dinner with us (pizza, it's tradition), helped us get everyone in their costumes and then held down the fort and handed out candy (nearly 90 pieces) while we walked the neighborhood. The weather was perfect, and consequently we have, dare I say, too much candy. The amazing thing is, they got a lot of the good stuff this year!


Below: Our little pumpkin.


We hope you had a wonderful Halloween!

And for those of you who still haven't put all your blogs on Bloglines (such a huge time saver!), I finally learned how to change the date and time of my posts, and have a new "old" post about our Saturday pumpkin carving, you might want to see.

A great new tutorial

I stumbled across a blog this spring called MAYFLY. A few months ago - right after we returned from our trip to Michigan - she and her family made a long road trip to the beach and she posted pictures of a car organizer she made for her mini-van. Many of us begged her to sell them, or develop a how to tutorial or even just simple dimensions so we could make our own. Well today, she posted a fantastic tutorial and I wanted all my kid carrying, mini-van/SUV/car driving friends to know about it.


I'm off to sew the last few eyeballs on the art smocks before the get shipped off this afternoon! Yes!

Pumpking Carving with Friends

After years of less than ideal attempts to carve pumpkins with the children we finally had a successful attempt! Bob and Diane graciously opened up their backyard Saturday night for a simple, fall family gathering to carve pumpkins, eat chili and roast marshmallows. Looking at the pictures it almost looks like it came right out of the pages of Midwest Living Magazine ... everything worked out perfectly. There weren't too many people, the weather wasn't too cold or too hot, the kids got along fantastically, no one got hurt, everyone went home with a beautifully carved pumpkin, and they all had a really fun time!


GR spent all of Friday night on the living room floor scraping the guts out of four huge pumpkins so the kids could start designing and carving right away. This I think is key to successfully carving pumpkins with your kids at home ... having them prepped and ready to carve, and having those small kiddie pumpkin carving saws they sell in the kits. Fantastic inventions!

We invited a few families we haven't hung out with in ages ... all friends from collage who have married, had kids and moved around a bit in the last 10 years. But on the rare occasion that we're all together, the years melt away and we all instantly become 20ish again. The three oldest kids of this group spent their first Halloween together 7 years ago, and although they don't all remember each other, as parents it's still fun to see them back together again.

We also invited Emily's soccer coach and family to join us. They are such an awesome family ... turns out they do serious pumpkin carving every year ... when we found this out, we were all a little relieved we had decided against a contest.

As you can see, everyone did an amazing job on their pumpkins and I think the kids really enjoyed being allowed to be as involved in their pumpkins as they wanted. Most of the older ones (5 and up) stuck with it and finished theirs with a little help here and there from Mom or Dad. Even the parents got into it and carved their own pumpkins.

Once everyone got their pumpkins carved, we had some yummy kid friendly chili ... we finished two of the four crock-pots of chili I made, Diane's homemade cornbread and apple cider. And then kids all gathered around the fire pit and roasted marshmallows for s'mores.