Trick or Treat!

We went over to a family in our ward's neighborhood to trick or treat. They had some older boys for D to blast door to door with, and then a wagon to put the little ones in, complete with oldest teenager to pull them around through half of the neighborhood. The kids had a blast, and it was one of the best Halloweens we've had in a while. The kids only made it a little over an hour before they were done, and then we headed in, let them eat candy 'til they'd had enough, and hubby and I got to play some ping-pong in their family room. I haven't really done that since *I* was a kid! Quite enjoyable.
Most of our costumes were re-used and re-vamped from past years, or modified from existing clothing.

D used the camo he already had, and we bought him a small 'army' kit and hat from the local everything-$1 store. He was in heaven with all the little pretend 'gadgets' that came with it - walkie-talkies, compass, watch, head-com set, knife, etc.

A used the leotard from dance class, skirt from her birthday a last year, wings from halloween 3 years ago, and we added in a dollar store wand, and 'hair' piece, and faked some makeup together from a kit i'd bought for pack meeting (to get teal face paint ;-)

E just LOVED being a pirate. We let him wear Sunday clothes, a bandanna i had laying around, added in the batman cape we've used almost every year since i made it for D, added the pirate kit and hat from the dollar place (gee,... i'm not cheap am I?) and then he was good to go.

C always enjoys being a princess, but this is the first time i'd let her wear the wings to be a 'fairy princess.' I made that dress for A the Halloween that she was 3; the older kids really enjoy remembering when THEY wore those costumes.

We had a great night; Happy Halloween to ALL!

2 night pajamas...

The School district we live in changed their policy this year; so an actual 'halloween' party is not allowed in any of the classrooms. However, being creative teachers, and knowing their students are not going to be worth much on halloween day, they've found ways around this dictate. D's teacher is going to be celebrating all of the 'summer' birthdays (D's being one...), and A's teacher has decided to have a pajama party.
So, this created a dilema this year for me,... I'd been wanting to make myself a gypsy skirt out of my mom's old mumu - so that *I* could have a costume for halloween. BUT,... A didn't have a pair of winter pajamas - and has been wearing a pair of D's since he had 3 hand-me-down sets. A, being the girly-girl that she is, just did NOT want to wear D's pjs to her school party. Now,... being the procrastinator that i am, i of course waited 'til the last week on making the gypsy costume, and it wasn't until then that i found OUT about the pajama party. Sigh. I decided my daughter was more important than myself, and since we're trying to be tight on the budget (especially with Christmas coming up,) i decided i'd make her pajamas.
I already had plenty of material that i'd grabbed for $1 / yard back before walmart got rid of their materials, so everything went well, and between last night (staying up 'til midnight after the pack mtg) and tonight (staying up 'til 11:00pm after the library halloween party) i managed to finish her pajamas before she has to wear them tomorrow. Pat myself on the back; i did a GOOD job!

('course if i'd been intelligent rather than stubborn,... i would've just gone out and BOUGHT a pair of pjs for her! :-)

pic frustration... i just can't win.

As much as my loving youngest daughter is a sweet-heart, she can also be a terror. I've been trying for the last couple of days to get some decent pictures of her to hang with the rest (who were cake-walk to get done.) She just won't stay still long enough!! She's not really her smiling self unless she's MOVING! But then i can never get a true focus in on her. If i have her sit down, occasionally i can get a decent smile, but then she's never looking at ME!

The weather has been getting colder lately, so today when we went on our 'hike,' i didn't get any good pics within the first 5 minutes, and everything after that has her little red nose glaring out at me. There is no such thing as a perfect picture; I guess i should just be satisfied that the pictures truly show so much of her cute little personality.

Vogue

So,... Hmachine inspired me with her awesome pics of her family - i decided that maybe wee need to update our stairway photos. the last time we had formal pics taken was 2 years ago; perhaps it is time. However, money being what it is right now, I figured i'd be cheap and try to do my own. I managed to take some of D and A this evening out on the trail behind our house, in what little sunlight we had left. A was easy - a little stilted/stiff on occasion, but D just cracked me UP!! When he wasn't goofing off and hanging from trees, he tried doing all these vogue looks; what a character! I didn't want to tell him to 'stop' or he'd get all inhibited on me, so we just went with it - these pics are NOT the one's we'll use for the stairwell, but they're worth sharing just for the humor factor.



When i came back from taking pics with A,.... I found that D had very nicely gotten supper for the little kids (he's a really wonderful helper!) C decided she'd eat her yogurt 'doggie' style.

Jack-o-Lanterns

We got a chance to decorate and carve our pumpkins last week. M helped the older munchkins gut their pumpkins, and I helped to carve them out according to the kid's specs.



A, of course did a nice friendly-looking pumpkin.




D, as per his standard, wanted a 'vampire' pumpkin.







For the little kids, i had gotten some little plastic stick-ins. C liked the pig decorations, and E wanted the 'dog' look (although i think it's actually for a bear :-) D and A got to use the leftovers for a second pumpkin for themselves; but they definately stayed true to form!

Pumpkin Run, Wedding, & the Farm

D, A, and I headed up to the memorial battlefield park for the 5K pumpkin run. My loving hubby got me an mp3 player for my birthday to run with as D and I have been training up for our various 5ks. I let A use the mp3 player for the first 5 minutes or so, then just as she was slowing down, i let D wear it. He just totally took OFF and left us in the dust! To give him his due, he's been training with me pretty hard, and A hadn't trained for this at all - just begged to be in on it. Anyway, it took A and I a LONG while, but we finally made it. By the time we made it to the finish line, they weren't even calling out times anymore, but i think it was about 40 min. or so. D was waiting there for us, enjoying his exclusive time with the mp3 player before i snagged it back. He didn't pay attention to his time as he crossed, so i don't know how he did, but it was more than 30 minutes; as that's what the 3rd place elementary boy placed. We had a good time, and it was a lovely morning for a run.

In the afternoon, we got all gussied up and headed up to Winchester for a wedding of some extended, related by marriage, 2nd removed something-or-other cousin of my loving hubby. We dropped off the two little ones at Sister Orchard's: a lady in our ward who owns a little farm land. The older ones, we took with us, and they did allright, and were quite excited when they saw the church had a playground with it! I took them out to play after the ceremony when we were waiting around for the reception.

We let the kids all play out at the farm when we went to pick up the little ones. D had a WONDERFUL time with the little foal Sis. Orchard has. Apparently she's a little skittish, and normally doesn't come up to people voluntarily unless there is a food offering involved. Well, D went up to the fence, coo-ed a bit to the colt, and she stood there at the fence letting him pet her for a half hour or so. Anytime anyone else came up to the fence, she would skitter off, but if it was just D, she'd nuzzle and play with him. It was interesting,... and to tell you the truth, it was the most calm i'd seen D all day! (he's typically just FULL of energy - busting out at the seams.) We might have to go see her more often; it was a great visit.

Daddy all day and the Pumpkin Farm!!

So, My loving husband and I have been trying to figure out where we would fit in a visit to a pumpkin farm this year; it seems like every weekend was already accounted for. Well,... Lo and behold, hubby had to work a midnight shift for work today, so he went in at midnight, and got back at 6am or so. He did have to sleep away most of the morning to catch up on his shut-eye, but E and C got to spend some awesome quality time with him before the older ones got home. AND,... we got a lot of basic cleaning and laundry done in the house. (it's amazing what you can get done with the proper motivation!)

Anyway, we got enough done that we could justify heading off to the pumpkin farm up in Richmond right after D and A got home. We had the older two do their homework and reading in the van on the way up; they do so well keeping on task when they are forced to be stationary. And it makes the trip seem MUCH faster to them!


E and C fell asleep on the way up, so we let them sleep a little while the older kids and hubby and I checked out the entrance area with cute country items for sale - local honey, homemade preserves, salsa, apples, etc. We picked up some of their local raw honey, as we're fanatics for the more natural sweeteners.

Then we located their largest wagon, and tossed the little kids into it to help facilitate their waking up process. They LOVED the ride, and the older kids really enjoyed pulling them around, so it worked well for everyone! All of the kids loved the hay bale maze: D was the best at getting out of it illegally, A was the fastest getting through it without leaping any walls, and the two little ones just loved running through and scaring themselves silly when they ran into someone else.

When it came to choosing pumpkins, E and C wanted EVERY pumpkin they picked up! D & A were so choosy that we almost had to put them on a time-limit. C really liked the haybale ladybug; they had a sign saying 'no climbing',... and i was hard pressed to enforce that with her - she a quick little bugger when she wants to be!

There was no holding back, however, with the huge hay worm! The kids were all OVER it! It was a nice kid-friendly area where anything goes.

By the time our trip was over, the kids were red-faced, exhausted, and wiped-out. They'll sleep WELL tonight!