Pumpkin Carving

We carved our pumpkins on Halloween night.  I did just a classic jack-o-lantern.  Auntie K had apparently never carved a pumpkin before, so this was a first for her.  I think she enjoyed it.  She loves pumpkin seeds, so she was willing to do the work to get them! 

This is seriously one of my favorite pictures.  Bucko took the picture, and it would make more sense if you could see what she is doing. Hilarious, nonetheless.  She is, of course, scooping out the pumpkin's guts.  Slimey, hence the face. :)

We tried some new seasonings this year, rather than sticking with just salt (though we did a batch like that as well).  My favorites were Season All and garlic salt.  Also learned that cinnamon alone does not work too well.  Cinnamon sugar probably would have been better.

Halloween

We did Trunk-or-Treat at the church with a chili dinner beforehand. It was fun.  Auntie K and I dressed up as twins. :)  Tink was Sleeping Beauty, Bucko was a Captain in the Air Force, Minnie was Belle, and Goofy was Superman.  We stopped in Weeting at the church for some spooky pictures in the graveyard.  Then the kids went trick-or-treating to our neighbors.  SO much candy!

Fall Colors

The leaves have been changing and we had to get some pictures before they were all gone. So we stopped at a place called Two Mile Bottom on our way home from church today.  We had so much fun posing for the camera.  Here are a few to enjoy!

Pumpkin, Pumpkin Big and Round

The kiddos with Auntie K at the Pumpkin Patch.

We had some time in between soccer events to head over to the pumpkin patch for some pumpkins. It was a gorgeous day! The sun was so bright, and we had a lot of fun picking out pumpkins.

Here we are today before we carved them.  Goofy had to hold his basketball as his pumpkin. Hey, at least it was orange, right?

Aren't the flowers pretty? I was so happy to see that we have a patch of daisies!  And they are blooming now! How fun!

Soccer

Tink and Bucko started indoor soccer this week. They have never played before, so obviously aren't going to be the stars of their teams. However, they are getting some great exercise, making new friends, and having a blast!  They had their opening ceremony and first games yesterday. None of my pictures turned out great, but here they are.


Tink with her team during the Opening Ceremony.



Bucko and his team warming up.

Bucko was a pretty good goalie! He blocked several balls. Here he is waiting for the signal to throw the ball back in to play. 

Tink in the back, waiting for a chance to do something!  The "herd" was crazy!

Little Miss/Mister Muffet

I have felt like I have slacked off on the educational experiences that I have been giving my two youngest lately. So this week, I resolved to start "Mommy school" with them again. What a great week to start too, because we can do so many fun Halloween things!! So I went to the Dresses 'n Messes blog that my friend does to get ideas. Seriously, anytime I want to get ideas to do with my kids, I go here.  She inspires me so much to be a better mom, and has the best ideas! They are so fun! So today we made the spider headbands and acted out Little Miss Muffet.  The page is right here if you'd like to see the original idea at it's best.  But my kids were so cute that I had to videotape and share. 

So after Minnie was Little Miss Muffet and Goofy was the spider, he also wanted a chance to be Little "Mister" Muffet, so we switched and did it again.

The spider headbands were fun to make too.  I was impressed with how well Minnie was able to fold accordian style.  Goofy lost interest and would start rolling his up, so I just had him glue everything for me.  They liked the googly eyes too. 
We didn't stop there on our educational journey today. That was just the beginning. We cut out Halloween shapes and wrote the four letters we are working on this week (A, H, M, and T) on the back and played the Boo game that I also found on Dresses 'n Messes.  (Told you I get all my ideas from there!)  We also practiced writing them and played with a foam alphabet puzzle, but only used those four letters. We talked about the sounds they make and what words start with those letters, etc.  It was fun!  Minnie is getting better at sounding out words. I am glad, because I was worried she had forgotten everything she has learned so far since it has been so long since we've done anything like this.  All in all, it was very fun and I felt like I accomplished my goal for today.  Now, for the next day!

Tink's 9th Birthday

Tink wanted a blue cake, and I did it in a heart shape.  I guess I threw away all my birthday candles when we moved. I couldn't find them, anyway, so we used these tea lights.  They turned out well, I thought.

She wanted another Groovy Girls doll.

And another Webkinz.  She was happy.

What a great kid. We feel so blessed to have her in our lives.  She is a great big sister.  I can't believe she is nine years old!  She was a good sport and let us celebrate her birthday early, because I was flying to NC to see my PC.  I don't think she minded opening presents early, but it was hard on the day of her birthday.  I felt bad since I knew she was already missing Daddy so much.  They all made it through though, and have been so loving since I've been back!