Halloween Fun

These days it seems that Halloween lasts for 3 weeks!  Around the middle of the month was our school Fall Festival.  Always lots of fun. We took a few pictures before we headed out the door.  Isn't Lydia the cutest little ladybug you ever did see?  The boys kept calling her a "Lydie-bug".  It was adorable.

My boys are such cheesers in front of the camera.  It was hard to pick just one of their silly poses.  So sorry for the picture overload.

I didn't get any pictures at the festival except for one of Lydia and Rich.

The Monday before Halloween Alex gave us a nice lesson about letting our light shine (using the idea of carving pumpkins) and then we carved our pumpkins.  This year was awesome because, for the most part, the boys gutted their own pumpkins.  William and James even carved all by themselves!

The finished jack-o-lanterns.

We put glowsticks in the jack-o-lanterns instead of candles and the colors made them look extra cool!

Wednesday we had a tri-ward trunk-or-treat which was fun (no pictures).  On Saturday (Halloween) our neighbor brought over the cutest ever Halloween cookies for us!

That evening, after eating our traditional jack-o-lantern pizza, we went trick-or-treating.  We took Lydia to just a few houses nearby.  She was pretty tired so I brought her back to the house to pass out candy while Rich took the boys around the neighborhood.

The trick-or-treaters thought Lydia was the cutest.  When there was a lull I took her to bed and had a laundry folding party by myself while I waited for kids to come by.  The boys got way too much candy.  They each sold a little bit back to me so that I could pass it back to the kids still stopping by the house (James sold all but 5 pieces back!  Yea!)

Phew! Another Halloween in the books... onto my favorite holidays!

Pumpkin Patch

The week before Halloween we took the whole family over to the Gilcrease Orchard.  We love going to their pumpkin patch every year.  The first order of business was a wagon ride around the property.

James thought he was super funny making bad faces in every picture.

Next we stopped at the hay maze.  Lydia had fun playing in the hay while the boys ran around.

Lydia loves to point.  It's her "thing".

While picking our pumpkins we made sure to stop for a "tractor" picture.

After getting everyone's "perfect" pumpkin we let Lydia ride in the wagon on the way to pay.  She thought it was great fun.

She loved it so much she kept kissing the pumpkins.

While we were in line we spotted this cute little white pumpkin that we bought for her.

When we got home she was so sweet and scooted it all around the house with her.

It was the perfect day at the pumpkin patch.  I love these little adventures with my family!

Lydia's First Birthday

On Lydia's birthday we had a little birthday celebration at home.  Lydia opened her gifts (or more like sat and watched Rich open them for her!)

Alex made her a sweet note.

Our wonderful neighbor, Joy, has been telling us for months that she wanted to make Lydia's first birthday cake.  I didn't have anything specific in mind but what she came up with was beautiful!

Lydia couldn't wait to get her hands on her cupcake and Rich was teasing her by moving it around while we sang "Happy birthday".  Once she got her hands on it she liked the taste but wasn't so fond of the frosting stuck to her hands.

She didn't last long with the cake... and she really enjoyed her bath when it was all over.

We love this sweet, pretty, gentle girl!

Field Trip!

I am doing a preschool co-op with a few other ladies in the area for Henry this year.  Since I was teaching the unit on pumpkins a few weeks before Halloween I decided it was the perfect time to take them on their first field trip--to the Gilcrease Orchard pumpkin patch.  They were all so excited to go on a field trip!  They were so good to hold their friends' hands so that we could stick together.  It was adorable.

  

We had fun wandering through the hay maze.

And we remembered what we had learned about how a pumpkin grows.

Aren't these kiddos so cute?!

 
They all had a fantastic  time on the wagon ride.  They all got so excited about everything we saw.  What a fun age!

At the end they each picked a little pumpkin to buy and bring home.  I wish I had thought to take a picture with them.  They were so proud of what they had picked out.  Each of them thought they had picked out the "perfect" pumpkin.

It was a great field trip!

Daily Sunshine

William loves to grab Lydia when she's sad and give her a ride on his shoulders.  She really likes it (most of the time!)

William takes such great care of his baby sister.  He watches her in the morning while I get ready and she's fussy, he puts up with her crying at night, and always tries to make sure she's happy and taken care of.  Lydia sure is lucky to have William as her big brother!