Happy Halloween!

They made out like bandits. We will have candy for many, many days to come. Let the sugar rush begin!

Pumpkin Carving

It was a pumpkin carving extravaganza at our house! Zane and Lucy both got pumpkins on their field trip for school which was great fun. Zane picked out a super cool white pumpkin to use this year. It was so much fun to carve and clean. Much easier than the orange ones.

The boys had very specific ideas about what their pumpkins faces should look like. Zane wanted scary and Andrew wanted a pirate with an eye patch. The girls and the little boys did not have a whole lot of specifics in mind. Just the normal triangle eyes and noses. Ollie was a sleepy baby and snoozed through the whole event. It made it much easier all around. So excited to light them up tomorrow night!

Great Wolf Lodge: Part 2

 The slides at Great Wolf Lodge held our families interest pretty much the entire time. The kids are absolute fish and they can and will spend hours in the water if given the opportunity.

 Ollie was not terribly fond of the water. He didn't like the spraying or the splashing or even sitting in the water on my lap. So he quickly got changed back into clothing and took a nap. The rest of the crew had a marvelous time though.

 Andrew and Zane were big enough to go on all the water slides and by themselves. It was wonderful to just tell them to stick together and have fun. They spent most of their time either in the wave pool or on the big kid slides. Eric rode with them a lot and I even tried every single slide in the park. This was a huge deal for me. I really am not a huge fan of slides but I had a great time on the majority of them.

 The girls were big enough to go on all but the biggest slide, as long as they were with an adult. Gwen was just barely big enough but I was so glad that she ended up getting to try them. She had a lot of fun and went down several times with me and Eric. Lucy loved the big slides and is so funny while riding them. She giggles this nervous giggle and squeaks. It cracked me up. But she was grinning ear to ear when she got done.

Reid had a wonderful time in the kiddie pool. He spent almost the entire day  going down the tiny slides and playing in the baby area. It was completely fine with me. The girls stayed with him almost the whole time as well and since they were not in deep water at all I felt really good about them not wearing life jackets. So they were thrilled and I felt comfortable with watching them from the side most of the time and letting the lifeguards do their job. Reid did clear the kiddie pool with a poopy diaper on the second day. The sad thing is that we didn't even notice that it was him. I took Ollie into the bathroom to change his diaper and decided to check Reid while I was there. Sure enough Reid was the culprit. Oops. It was a great time and we had a lot of fun. The kids are already asking when we can go back. I guess that trip was a winner!

Great Wolf Lodge: Part 1

 Eric had the week off of work and we headed to Great Wolf Lodge for a night of fun! The lodge has Halloween trick or treating in the building during October so we dutifully brought costumes for the kiddos to wear and participate.

Everyone had a great time and got some nice candy and a cookie at the end. By evening Ollie was completely done with everything and was quite cranky. So he ditched his costume and got some mommy and daddy time while the kids did the costume parade and story time. Everyone was pretty happy with that arrangement.

Lady Dracula

Lucy had her Harvest party today and these fabulous teeth were part of her treat bag. She has worn them off and on all day. Goofy girl!

Priorities

I had bills to pay. I did. I usually let the kids watch a movie in the afternoon and use the time to get something accomplished that needs to be done with minimal interruption. But today, while the kids watched Strawberry Shortcake, this little Reid boy came over and begged to be held. He was so sleepy and he is only going to want my lap for a short time longer. So I let him climb up with his blanket and we had a snuggle. These are the moments that matter.

Growing Up So Fast!

Ollie is only 5 and a half months old and it feels like I just left the hospital with him. He is now sitting with minimal support and playing with a toy for 5-10 minutes at a time. And today I even caught him pushing back up to his knees. I am not ready for this with him! He also has been babbling 'ma-ma-ma' a lot lately. And he loves to have conversations with people when they hold him. I won't be surprised if he is a early talker. He also is ready for me to add a second solid meal to his day. I am not so sure that I am ready for it though!

Pumpkin Picking

I might as well burst into song about traditions in my family because each and every October I do a post about pumpkin picking. It is true that we head to a pumpkin farm to hunt for the perfect carving gourd when the weather turns crisp. This year has been especially busy with all the soccer games but with beautiful weather today we took advantage of it and swung by Carleton Farms right after Lucy's game.

 Since Lucy went to the pumpkin patch already this week and got a pumpkin and Zane is set to go on Tuesday with his class at school, only Andrew, Gwen, Reid and Oliver needed pumpkins.

I stopped getting a pumpkin years ago. Too many to carve and gut without me having one of my own to worry about. But I do enjoy the whole process and the kids are very picky about which pumpkin they want.

 We even ran into a family friend who took a family photo of us. I love it when that happens. We are not the easiest group to document these days.

Then we took our pumpkins back to pay for them and wash them up. The boys were very excited to ride in the wagon.

Ollie seemed to think pumpkin hunting was fun. He was happy as can be in the carrier with me. He even seemed to like the wagon ride.

All scrubbed up and ready to carve. We even managed to avoid anyone getting super wet in the water trough.