Witches Tea and other Spooktaculars.

 Zoey had a tea party with her Kindergarten Friends. They made witch hats, played some Halloween games and had lots of witchin' fun...

 That night, we had a mommy-daughter date. We dressed up as witches and joined the party at Gardner Village's annual witches night out festival. My favorite part, other than being with Zoey was the cackle contest! She wanted to cackle in the microphone so I took her up to the stage and, of course, they made the mom go first...so I cackled and turned the mic over to Zoey and she said "cackle, cackle, cackle!" Hey! she cackled in the mic! We all died laughing! We enjoyed dinner together and a caramel apple, dancing, face painting and a little spoiling.

We did a ghouls and witches craft with the cousins.....

  We made leaf place mats from leaves we collected, pressed, and dried....

and we celebrated our annual Halloween party at Grandma/pa Grays! A good family gathering, food, fun, games, and dress-up!

Days 4, 5, and 6

 #4 The kids enjoyed a local carnival with face painting, free hot dogs and doughnuts and games... best part- all we had to do was show up!

#5 I already wrote about this one, but we're counting it as an event! Isaac is 10 months! Plus I took his photos with ghosts in the background, so that's spooky, right?

 #6 Brian was out of town, so we did a stay-at-home family movie night with popcorn: Monsters vs Aliens! spooky....but not too spooky :-)

#3 Fall Backyard Carnival

The kids love "Human Stories" A.K.A stories from mom and dad's past. Recently my parents gave me boxes of old memorabilia from my younger years and I found a good stash of old journals. I've been reading some entries to the kids and one of those entries talked about a Halloween party my mom through for us with friends. My kids begged for me to do something similar...so I did. Another chance to realize how much work my mom did when we were younger and never noticed! If not too late, thanks mom!

Each kid got to invite 3 friends. Those numbers quickly add up! Some parents asked if they could bring younger siblings too, so we had 15 other kids that day! We had stations of face painting and bean bag toss, cake walk and boo bowling, painting chords like ghosts and haunted house building, snack and story time and leaf creations, and hide-n-seek bone hunt (the finder of the golden bone got to pick a pumpkin to take home)

# 2 Spider Web Park

One of our kids' favorite parks. I seriously want one of these in my back yard! Endless fun...

Fun Fall Day

We traditionally celebrate 13 days of Halloween each year, but it started to get a little too much for me to actually do all 13 days before Halloween. It had turned into 2 weeks of non-stop craziness. So I adapted the tradition to just celebrate 13 fun fall activities throughout the month. The next few posts will highlight what we have done :-)

#1 Playing in the leaves:

Climbing trees and finding bugs...

Peek-a-boo and watching leaves fall....

10 months!

I woke up this morning to the realization that it was Sunday and needed to get the kids ready for church. And then the thought excitedly came to mind that it was October 12th, which makes Isaac 10 months old today...only 8 month from sending him off to Nursery! Our last child in nursery...what a thought. No other baby waiting in line to take the spot on my lap at church. This will be a new experience for us...something we haven't enjoyed since we began our family 7 1/2 years ago :-)

Isaac is crawling along furniture and holding our thumbs to tryout his walking skills. He FINALLY got his bottom two teeth and picked up biting right away. He had his first busted lip, and a near choking this month (swallowed a block at parent teacher conferences). He is mastering the stairs and exploring new terrains (like the toilet) and other areas that have been off-limits and out of reach until now. My work load has just doubled trying to keep up with this busy body!

 I love the first picture because it's just a simple sweet picture of Isaac. The second one reminds me of the pirate saying "ARGH MATEY!" The kids have been playing a lot of pirates lately. I love the last picture because the expression on his face is full of wonder. He is learning things new each day and it's fun to see that wonder in his eyes.