11.05.2014

october

October was a good month.  We managed to get through it with zero sick days and lots of family time.  I got a new calling at church, teaching the 13 year old Sunday School class.  I'm pretty sure they are still trying to decide if I'm cool or not.  Ha!  Nana & Grandpa Vern squeezed in a visit to see the kiddos and the new-to-us house.  Granpda went to town on our overgrown trees, and pruned them to his heart's delight.  It was cool to watch a 94 year old be in his element.  I hope I am that passionate about things at that age.

We ventured out to a pumpkin farm for our Family Home Evening activity to pick out pumpkins for carving and decided to splurge and do our first-ever corn maze.  We paired up and went in different directions.  And somehow, we all made it back to the end at just about the same time.  We went at dusk it was all lit up with Christmas lights.  We've talked about putting up lights in the backyard for months now and this pretty much sold us on the idea.  We picked out 3 medium-size, squatty pumpkins after the sun had set and headed for home.  We set them out on the front porch and left them there, uncarved until November 1st.  With all the business of other things, we just didn't get around to carving them and I am secretly grateful we skipped the wet, seedy mess this year.  I painted them instead (which I'll share soon!).




Halloween totally crept up on me.  Because we had only just moved into our house two months before, my mind was on other things - like what furniture we need in the dining room so we can actually start eating in there.  I have a solution for that, but no money.  It seems that is always the case......  Anyhow, the Mr. & I managed to slip away on  a hot date to Target and browsed the Halloween section for simple costume ideas.  Somehow, I had convinced everyone in our family that we were going to be lumberjacks about a week before.  Tatum, our super girly girl, was totally opposed. The boys were on board and Hailey seemed pretty indifferent.   When we found lumberjack beards velcroed  to plaid hats in the costume aisle and I knew it was meant to be.  I whipped up some axes with cardboard and duck tape.  Once Tatum had it in her hands, she was hooked.  No more princess costume for her.  No sir.



The boys were super funny with their beards, moving their mouths underneath to make them wiggle.  Carter is normally pretty quiet, but if you pay attention, he's pretty funny too.  It was pretty obvious from the start that the beards were a good idea.



I took all these pictures in 10 minutes flat because we had to rush to the church building for some trunk-or-treating.  The Mr. & I passed out candy while the kids walked around with friends and filled their bags with treats.  Then we went trick-or-treating with new friends around a block in our neighborhood. Carter scored a full size Snickers bar and made me promise I wouldn't eat it.  Because I did last year.  It's not my fault he left it on top of the fridge for two weeks.  He should have known better.  Chocolate does not last in our home.

On the way home, I told the kids I thought this year was our best Halloween ever.  It was the first year we all dressed up.  It was the first year no one cried about wanting or not wanting to dress up as a certain super hero or animal or whatever.  It was the first year everyone wore their entire costume the entire night.  It was the first year the kids were totally happy.  Which totally made my heart happy.

We finished the night off with our traditional watching of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.  We kind of love that movie and watch it a handful of times during the year.

Oh October, I kinda liked you.   Too bad you couldn't stick around a little while longer.




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