As usual, we grew our own pumpkins this year. We've been trying different varieties the last few years, and they haven't put out the bumper crop of over 20 pumpkins that we've gotten in years past. We've been getting just enough for our family and maybe a few more. This year they were all good jack-o-lantern sizes. We picked an afternoon and let the kids select their pumpkins
Big brother
Little brother
Big sister
little sister
Mom and dad picked out pumpkins, too. Daddy decided we needed to weigh them. Little brother's weighed in at 23 lb, big brother's at 20.6, Little sister and big sister's pumpkins weighed exactly the same, 14.6, Mommy's was 21 lb and Daddy's was 17. Good pumpkin growing this year!
Over fall break we decided to head down to Coral Pink Sand Dunes. We went with wife's sister and her family, and wife's dad. It was fantastic. We brought lots of extra blankets and hand warmers to keep warm, in addition to our tent warmer and lots of hot chocolate. We managed to stay pretty warm. The kids had an absolute blast! They weren't too interested in four-wheeler rides because the campground was imagination heaven! They played and played and played in that sand all day. The guys enjoyed some beautiful scenery on their four-wheelers. We even got a visit from our niece Tiffany and her new husband. Yummy food, fun, and family. It was the perfect fall break!
Little sister concocting some sort of "brew"
Aunt Scooby brought her gel pens, the boys were in heaven!!!
Uncle Jon got dirty...
Climbing trees
Tractors in the dirt
Ready for their ride!
Little sister love going for rides with Grandpa
More imagination - big sister was so kind to play with the littles.
Big sister insisted on taking a picture of her parents.
Teamwork - taking down the tent.
It really was the perfect little getaway for our family. We all thoroughly enjoyed being there and the kids are asking when we can go back!
We made our annual trip to Gardner Village - I can't seem to find the photos we took while we were there, darn it. We had to go on a Saturday since the kids aren't on year-round anymore. Our usual middle of the week morning visit was not in the cards. We had to pay for parking, and we tried to get there early. It was more crowded for sure, but we still had fun finding all the witches. We had to stop at the candy shop and everyone got a candy stick, and mom got her caramel apple (which was fantastic.) When we got home, we had to take a picture by the bushes on the side of our yard before all the pretty colors fell off.
Husband's grandmother is living in an assisted living facility. The facility hosted a trick or treat night. Husband had to work, so wife took the kiddos. We didn't know where we were going, so we ended up on the memory care side which was not the right side. The kids enjoyed the magic show that was going on, though! We finally got pointed in the right direction and managed to run right into the rest of Husband's siblings and his parents, so it all worked out. The kids got a jump start on their Halloween candy (not that they needed it) and they really enjoyed seeing their grandma-great. Grandma seemed to really enjoy the company, as well.
The day before Halloween was our designated pumpkin carving day. The kids were not even remotely interested in scooping the guts out (surprise surprise). This is as close as any of them got:
Here's big brother's pumpkin
Here is little sister's
Little brother's
mom's
dad's
and big sister's is the one with the knife sticking out of it - apparently we never got a picture of her with hers!
All set for Halloween!
The night before Halloween we discussed the parade stuff. big brother and little sister were supposed to walk up to big sister's school and parade around - helps with parental crowding and then the kids get to walk through the Jr. High, which is decorated amazingly to look like the world of Harry Potter. Seriously, it's awesome! I talked little sister into it since she is Hermione. She was a bit nervous, crowds and noise are NOT her thing! But she went and enjoyed it. Big sister I was really unsure about. When he finally understood what we were asking, he was emphatic with his N-O. He was not interested in the parade or the party or wearing his costume to school or any of it. Which, quite frankly, is just as well. We've been working out some kinks at school with his teacher, and had just discovered he had been slipping through some big cracks, so I was worried about him getting lost on the walk to the Jr. High. We've had lost ones in these situations before, so unless he was dying to go I wasn't dying to let him. As I figured, he was freaked out by the whole thing. So on Halloween we sent everyone off to school and their Halloween parades/parties and big brother and I went on a date to IHOP. Breakfast with Captain America, it doesn't get any better than that!
My cute little cap!
We went trick-or-treating with cousins again, and the kids were really good about eating their chicken soup and rolls before we left. We had to get pictures of everyone:
Big Brother - he has the mask, but he would not wear it. His Mario beanie seemed to work just fine, though.
Little brother. He is still the cutest darned Iron Man ever.
Big sister wanted to be a black witch, right down to the black lipstick.
Little sister as Hermione.
Everyone with Daddy
Everyone with Mommy
The kids got lots of candy, which they really haven't eaten very much of. Funny kids, they never really are much for the candy. They love to get it, not so much eat it. If it's fruity and chewy, they'll chow down. Chocolate and candy bars just don't seem to hold their interest. Good thing Mom and Dad can help them out with that. Haha!
Big sister had an orthodontist appointment. It's been fairly routine for a couple years. She did phase one of braces to make room so that her teeth could erupt in a more naturally straight position, and we've been doing x-rays every month to check on the progress of her teeth. It's been REALLY slow progress. So we went in expecting just another "Come back in 6 months and we'll see where we're at!" The orthodontist said her teeth were still not moving much, and he didn't think that would change any time soon. He was concerned about the way a couple of her teeth were starting to turn. We've discussed pulling teeth in the past, but she's been opposed to the idea. The orthodontist said we really did need to move forward, and the best option would be to put braces on, and then get the teeth pulled. He said when the braces are already on it eliminates the possibility for a dentist to make a mistake and pull the wrong tooth. So that was Tuesday. They had an opening for Wednesday to put braces on. I called the dentist and they had an opening Thursday morning to pull the 4 teeth she needed pulled. I didn't want to do it all at once like that, but if we'd waited they didn't have any openings for a while. So Big sister had quite the ordeal with her teeth that week! They prescribed her valium to help her be calm. She said before we left for the dentist that she didn't think it was working. I told her that if it wasn't working, she'd probably be hysterical. They also gave her the gas through her nose. It took longer to numb her mouth than it did to pull the teeth. 3 were easy, the last one had all 4 roots still pretty good in there. Those teeth wouldn't have come out on their own any time soon, that's for sure. Once it was all over, she was happy to sit on the couch and watch netflix and drink jamba juice. We kept her on ibuprofen, but after a day or so she was back to her normal self. She's managing the braces like a champ.
The old tile around the fireplace did not go down without a fight. They used construction adhesive to put the tile down and the drywall came with it. So we had a bigger hole than anticipated for a while.
The old railing all in a pile
Grandpa spent lots of hours at our house this day, he wanted to make sure we had a safe railing all put together before he left. It ended up being 9:00pm before he left, and he had to come back in the morning because there were a couple missing parts. This railing didn't want to go in easy, but we finally got it put together.
Grandpa and Husband putting in the new shoe plate.
We managed to finish everything before Thanksgiving, which is good since we were hosting wife's family. I only got a few pictures of Thanksgiving. We had LOTS of pie. Scooby outdid herself with a beautiful AND tasty lemon meringue, pumpkin, chocolate, banana and coconut cream. I meant to make an apple, but ran out of time so husband bought one. Grandma brought a dazzleberry. We had lots of pie. haha!
The kids were excited to dig in, it was a delicious feast!
Some before and afters
Railing before - this was right after I'd painted it black
Our new railing and handrail
The old fireplace and our red accent wall
The new fireplace - Grandpa will finish the mantel sometime this month.
The fireplace and our no-longer-red wall.
The front room. I loved our mural that my friend painted for us! I wish we could've kept it somehow, but there was no way to paint every wall except this one and make it look good. :(
I will say I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I looked everywhere for a big mirror, but they were all horribly expensive. I finally found this one at WalMart for half the price of the cheapest one I'd found anywhere else. Awesome!
I am glad we split up the remodel into two parts. I am so done with painting - if we were still dealing with the kitchen stuff I'd not be a very happy camper!
The day after Thanksgiving we got our Christmas stuff put up. We didn't get around to decorating the tree, so we did that today. We haven't gotten out the breakable/sentimental ornaments in a long time, basically since little sister turned 2 and we nicknamed her "the undecorator." We finally got them out this year, and it was fun to put those up!
Little brother
big brother
Daddy helping out
Mommy hanging her favorite ornament - we found a "pharmacist" ornament at a Christmas store in Gardner Village years ago, mommy always gets to hang that one on the tree.
Big sister and little sister
The kiddos were pretty proud of their decorating skills. We never undo what they do, we love looking at my tree and knowing that my kids carefully put things exactly where they thought it should go. We are so excited for this beautiful and magical time of year!
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