A Fall Tradition

I am definitely a SUMMER girl.  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the heat and would rather be by the water playing in the HOT sun than anything else.  HOWEVER, I also love this time of year when the weather isn't hot but isn't quite cold enough for a coat.  I LOVE that each year I can look forward to a day of acting like a kid again, playing and jumping in the leaves with my kids.

My parents have a HUGE maple tree in their yard and each year it drops thousands of leaves.  The pile of leaves usually starts out bigger than the kids and is an endless playground for burrowing, jumping, and disappearing.

This year Britton and Gavin played "Hide-and-Seek" with Addi.  They each took turns being burried in the pile of leaves and then had Addi try to find them by digging through the pile until they were found.

I LOVE that my parents join in the fun.  My mom waits, almost in anticipation, for the kids to come up and play.  She and my dad are great sports and rake the leaves into a pile time after time so we can all play to our hearts content.

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Some of my FAVORITE Pictures

I LOVE these pictures of my parents and my kids.  My heart smiles everytime I look at them.  They truely show how much fun my kids have with their grandma and grandpa and how much they are all loved. My only regret is that Gavin isn't in them.  He had to stay home the day these were taken and came up the next day to have fun in the leaves.

My kids and I truely are lucky to live so close to my parents.

It SNOWED!!!

My kids have been looking forward to the snow for sometime now so when it snowed a couple of weeks ago they couldn't contain themselves.

Addi made one snow angel after another, and rolled and played in the snow until she was too wet and cold to move.  She FINALLY came in "needing" hot chocolate and telling me how "yummy" the snow tasted.

Britton and Gavin immediately hit the slopes with their sleds, sandboard, and snowboards.  It wasn't a GREAT hill unless it had at least one JUMP on it that allowed you to "catch air".

I smiled all day thinking about how much fun they were having.  BUT, I am NOT ready for snow!!!

Halloween Traditions

Cookies at Grandma's

Carving Pumpkins

Halloween Treat

Fun Halloween Dinner

School Halloween Program

Contacts

I realized on the previous picture of Cindy and Greg that you couldn't see Cindy's AMAZING green eyes. Hopefully now you can see them. Very Cool!

Party at the Pump House

Every year my sister-in-Law hosts a Halloween party at the "Pump House". Cindy LOVES Halloween and always goes all out when it comes to decorating and making it fun for the kids. This year was no exception. She had once again spent at least a month decorating the entrance to the pump house, created a haunted maze in the reeds by the lake, and set a pirate ship in the water on the lake near the boat dock. Her decorations are AMAZING!!! - Next year I am going to try to remember to take pictures.

Kim, Jason, and Ryker came as "Pigs in a Blanket". Gina, Cory, Mason and McQuade were a Princess/Queen, Knight, Dragon and Court Jester. Lindsay and B.J. - Olive Oyle and Popeye, and Cindy and Greg were Wizards/Sorcerers. Take a look at Cindy's AMAZING green "cat-eye" contacts. CREEPY!

Jason and I were supposed to be the Prom King and Prom Queen. After spending so much time on Gavin's costume, ours got left until the last minute.

Gavin, Jayden, Britton and Tegan are cousins and best friends. They ran all night long back and forth from one room to the next and found new freedom this year at the Halloween party. They were "FINALLY", as they put it, old enough to run outside to the maze and the pirate ship WITHOUT a dad tagging along.

Addi and Mayci are always our little princesses. Addi was Cinderella and Mayci was Belle. We couldn't get pictures of them together at the party so we settled for Halloween night.

Addi was so cute getting ready for Cindy's party. She kept telling me she wasn't going to get scared this time at Cindy's party. As soon as we got to Cindy's, Addi saw Jason's cousin Jake who always dresses really creepy. This year he was a very scary clown and as soon as Addi saw him she grabbed me and said "I don't like him". Then, as we were walking through the pump house she started covering her eyes and trying to get out. When I said "I thought you weren't going to get scared this time" she said "I'M NOT, I AM JUST FREAKING OUT".

The party was once again a success, complete with several creative, amazing costumes.

Trick-Or-Treat!

Halloween 2009

Halloween couldn't have been over soon enough for me this year. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Halloween, but once again I was FRANTICALLY trying to MAKE another costume. I thought I was going to have it easy this year.

CINDERELLA

Addi decided to be Cinderella and she NEVER changed her mind. She was so excited when the cute neighbor girls brought over "her dress". She came running into my room all excited telling me "mom, my dress came!" After that, everyone that came to our house got to see her Cinderella dress. We even made her a cute necklace out of ribbon to match Cinderella's. The only thing she wanted that she didn't get was blue Cinderella hair. She has a Cinderella Barbie with a streak of blue hair and she decided the night before that I should spray her hair blue like Cinderella.

GRIM REAPER

After Britton's werewolf costume last year I was ECSTATIC when he said he wanted to be the grim reaper this year. I already had the make-up and the robe, I just had to make the robe a little shorter. The only thing I had to find for him was his scythe which only required a quick trip to Party Land.

LEPRECHAUN

Gavin, on the other hand, made Halloween very challenging this year. In March we walked into Target and he saw the stuff out for St. Patrick's Day. He got all excited and said he was going to be a Leprechaun for Halloween. So, I bought a hat and a bow tie thinking this will be great! What an easy costume right? WRONG!!! Have you ever tried to find stuff for a Leprechaun in October!?!?!

I made a trip to DI and got lucky. I found a very small pair of boys dress pants that were a dark, sage green. I found a green crochet vest in the women's department and another small cream colored vest in the boys department. I thought I could dye the small vest green. - DIDN'T WORK - the dark green R.I.T dye turned it khaki brown. SO, I got to sew once again and make his vest smaller, remover the buttons and sew on new gold ones, cut off the pants and sew elastic in the bottom of them, sew elastic to his hat to make it smaller, and try to make a beard. After looking at fabric stores I ended up at the Dollar Store and found an orange fuzzy purse that I cut off and sewed elastic to. To finish it all of he wore white tights - because I could NOT find any green and white ones, and we sprayed his hair orange with orange hair spray. He was a little upset in this picture because we ran out of hair spray Halloween night. He had already been in his costume 3 other times for a school program, a school parade/party, and his aunt Cindy's Halloween party.

Needless to say, I made several trips to several stores and was completely ready for Halloween to be over.

Britton , Gavin, and Addi were lucky this year. They got to trick-or-treat with two sets of cousins. First Kim showed up with Ryker and Haylee and the five of them took off around the neighborhood and then around 6:30 Jayden, Tegan and Mayci came over to trick-or-treat the rest of the night. Once the kids were done trick-or-treating, we headed over to Kim's to hang out and enjoy the rest of Halloween.