Halloween

We sure love Halloween around here.  We had our annual Halloween party for neighborhood kids again but this year it was the best ever because Genny and her girls decided to drive down from Canada to visit us for it! SO fun!

I like to put the party's dinner menu on the invitation to spark the littles' imaginations in anticipation of the party.  This year we served spider legs (grape kabobs), bones 'n blood (breadsticks and marinara dip), worms (quartered hot dogs), severed fingers (cheese strings with almond finger nails), monster eyeballs (rice krispies balls), and dirt 'n worms (pudding and gummy worms).

 Each of the kids got to invite a couple of friends along with our cousins.  What a spooky bunch.

We played "monster stew," where the kids had to suck up bits of paper with straws into their buckets.

 Then we made mummies.

 And played a few other spooky games that I didn't take pictures of and can't even remember right now, haha.  We used the time at the end to draw haunted neighborhoods on long strips of paper. The kids loved that most I think.  

 I invested a couple of bucks in a cauldron and got some dry ice for it.  Definitely a spooky centerpiece, although it didn't smoke as much as I hoped it would.

As Halloween neared we finally got our pumpkins carved.  Alden made his own design this year instead of printing one off.

 These posers.  Eli is the ringleader of picture posing.  I don't teach them or ask them to do this stuff.  Haha. 

 Seriously.  When Eli's future wife asks us for pictures for their wedding reception slideshow, I'm going to need someone with some serious photoshopping skills to make some normal pictures of him. :)

 My super cute bunch.  Haha on Gracen's face.  She's learning well from Eli.

 And Reed just learned to say "cheese" for the camera.  Complete with an actual piece of cheese in his mouth for this one! :D  Eli was a robber and Reed was his bag of money.

Work it, Eli!

 Alden was a Transformer. I wonder how long my home made costumes will be cool in their eyes. :)

 We didn't trick or treat for very long this year.  Gracen and Reed only lasted a couple of blocks.  Reed absolutely loved trick or treating.  He was the cutest.  At each house, he didn't care one bit about the candy - he thought he was being invited in when people opened their doors and he actually made it into a few homes.  Then he would wave his sweet little chubby hand at the person as he left.  Total and absolute cuteness!

 The boys and I trick or treated extra on the way home but were still disappointed they had to be done.  I figured they had plenty of candy, though.  At this point, I feel like they got too much.  Shouldn't it be gone by now?!

 Gracen also won a coloring contest at our local Albertson's!  She got to go in and choose any bag of candy she wanted.  She chose a bag of Hershey's kisses and she has loved sharing them with her family members.

Happy Birthday, Gracen!

Gracen is five.  For awhile before her birthday, we teased her that we would put only four candles on her cake so 'cause we really like her being little.  After awhile she got really upset about it and said she really wanted to get older.  Sweet girl.  

We celebrated her birthday with friends and a "Frozen" themed party.

 We played some fun, easy classic party games like "What time is it, Queen Elsa?"

 And instead of musical chairs we played musical snowflakes (one had a "hot spot" and they had to melt like Olaf) - thanks to Pinterest for that idea.

Gracen opened her presents.  Her friends were so generous!  And Gracen loved everything...except the Schleich cow that sweet little Elyse's mom said she insisted on buying for her.  Gracen opened that one and said, "Um, I don't like cows!"  :D

 We made candy Olafs.

 The kids were really into this activity.

 We had a "Frozen" dinner of snowflake sandwiches, frozen grapes, Olaf cheese strings, and "every kid likes them" goldfish crackers. My sweet friend, Meli, insisted on helping me for the party, even though she's almost as pregnant as I am. I could get used to having a second set of adult hands around for parties (Jaron does NOT like birthday parties so we plan them for when he isn't around. :D).  In all honesty, she pretty much did all the work for the party, enabling me to take plenty of pictures.

We sang happy birthday and ate cupcakes.

 Why is it that no kids like Anna?  She's the main character!  I saw about a hundred Elsa's for Halloween this year but only one Anna.

On her actual birthday we celebrated as a family with cake and presents from family.

I don't know why but this picture makes me laugh.  Gracen is blowing out her candles while loving on her favorite gift (Mermaid Barbie) and Eli and Reed look just. so. excited.  Haha. 

At five, Gracen is a ray of sunshine.  If I could custom-order a daughter, I honestly can't think of what I'd change.  She's a super happy girl and has a great attitude about most everything.  She's a social person and loves to have her friends Sienna and Elyse over to play.  She also still misses her Boise friend, Chloe, terribly.  Gracen spends most of her play time with dolls, Barbies, and dress-ups.  She is one tough chick, usually bouncing up from an injury with a quick, "I'm okay!"  Gracen loves her preschool class but asks constantly how many more months until she gets to go to kindergarten.  She has learned to read through the Hooked on Phonics books but is loving the Dick and Jane anthology she got for her birthday. She is just starting to show an interest in what she's wearing and will sometimes ask if her outfit matches.  At haircut time last week, instead of the usual "keep it as long as you can, Mom" trim, she insisted on a shorter, shoulder-length hair cut like her friend Elyse's.  Gracen is a great helper and is eagerly anticipating the arrival of a baby girl in our family.  She is quite insistent that the baby sleep with her at night and I just might take her up on that offer. ;)

We sure love you, Gracie-Lou!

Randoms

Here's a little bit of the randomness that I caught on my phone camera going on at our house lately.

Reed is totally good with pants...until about 4PM.  Then they're off.  And it becomes a serious challenge to keep them on.  Haha.  Funny kid.

 We took a quick day trip to our niece's baptism a couple of Saturdays ago.  It was a 2.5 hour trip each way but in my big ole' pregnant insomniac state it seemed like too much work to make a weekend of it.  The kids never sleep great when they're not in their beds and, quite frankly, neither do I.

The trip was going well until the drive home.  Reed screamed for 90 minutes, 70 of them straight.  I thought my blood pressure would burst.

Fortunately, I was driving into the most amazing sunset ever.  Unfortunately my phone camera cannot capture a fraction of the beauty of it!

 Reed thinks he's big.  I'm pretty sure he thinks he can do pretty much whatever the big kids can do.  Saturdays are our video game days, after chores and rooms are done.  Reed grabs the extra remote and thinks he's playing too.  

 I love catching my kids doing something all together.  They're looking at a library book in this picture.  Makes my heart happy. :)  

Sorry Eli's without a shirt - none of my kids seem to like wearing shirts to bed.

Straw Maze

We hit up a fun little pumpkin patch that is only a couple of miles from our house. 

They had a petting zoo of goats, pigs, cows, and a pony.  Reed LOVED the animals.

 They also had a couple of straw mazes.  This little one was perfect for Reed.  For some reason he liked walking through it.  I could just barely see his little blonde head bobbing around inside it. :)

 The straw slides were the favorite of the three oldest.  Eli got brave and started going down on his feet on this smaller one.  The bigger slide may not look that big in the pictures but it was pretty high!  

 The bigger straw maze was a little not fun.  We tried to keep the kids together but they were lost to us almost immediately.  Us moms spent the time worrying about our littles, imagining them lost and scared and crying.  When we did finally catch up with them, it turned out the kids actually spent the time having a blast winding their way through the maze.  Haha.

 We went with our friends the Hiatts, whom we love to bits.  Meli's husband is the other resident in Jaron's program here and moved here from Boise when we did.  Without her I think I and my children would have been depressed this summer.  Moves are waaayy easier when you have friends that move with you!