Carving 'em up

I normally am not a huge fan of carving pumpkins. It's messy, and time consuming, and I'm not very good at it. However, it's still fun to do for decorating purposes and it's another excuse to have fun with friends.
I thought it would be fun for the girls to paint theirs since carving is a little out of their league right now. It was messy and Brian wasn't a fan of my idea.

 So we washed them off and put the paint away.

Mr. Bennett getting the guts out of his pumpkin

Pumpkin guts!

I took an hour to do the smallest, simplest pumpkin. Hence why I don't normally do one.

My simple pumpkin man

 Brian did a bat (my camera died before I got a picture of it) and Dusty did like 3 pumpkins in the amount of time I did one.
So the next day I decided to do a really good one. I printed a Tinkerbell pattern and went to work. Surprisingly it didn't take me too long at all, and it turned out cute. Score!

 It looks better in person, it's hard to capture a picture of a pumpkin...for me anyway.

The finished product, our pumpkins lining the walk way.

Continuing the crazy Halloween week was Bria's preschool party today. All the kiddos dressed up and some of the moms did fun little games for the kids.

Bria and her friends, Channing, and Meaza

Reese mooching Oreo cookies off the kids

Rug time, I love that Reese went and joined them

Her latest love is trains

Going fishing

It's not a real party without tattoos!

 The kids got nice and sugared up! My plan this year is to let them go crazy with candy and treats until Halloween is over. Usually I'm a bit of a stickler but I'm going to try and let loose this year.

My girls with the Inukai girls

Bria loves little Charleigh

The babies

And this afternoon we have a party at Brian's work, whew! The fun never ends :)

School pictures

We got Bria's school pictures back and they turned out cute:

 But seriously, why does she look 12 in the picture?!

We've been making trips to the library regularly and Randi and the girls have joined us. We usually pick out a ton of books, eat donut holes, then run around the huge pond in the back of the library. Overall it's a ton of fun and great way to run off some energy before lunch and naps.

 I read from a blogger that a great way to get your kids to smile for real is to laugh really hard, like a deep belly laugh. And then your kids will imitate you and you'll get a great picture, better than the "cheese" faces. Well, this is what I got:

 I laugh every time I see it, Reese's pretend laugh is cracking me up. So yeah, I think I'm going to have to figure something else out because that clearly didn't work :)

I sure love this one though!

Aside from school pictures and library trips, we've also been spending time getting into messes. Specifically Reese and Vaseline.

 She was quiet for a few minutes and Brian finally went up to see why. She had gone in our bathroom, stood on the stool and started digging into our tub of Vaseline.

 It looked like a Zombie attacked our Vaseline.

Her Vaseline hairdo

 It took two hair washings before it was kind of out of her hair. We are just lucky it was only on Reese and not our carpet or something.

Our little stinker

We are all getting pretty excited for Halloween, tonight is pumpkin carving/painting night!!

Apple cider donuts

Every year since we moved up here we have gone to Lee Farm's to enjoy their pumpkin patch festivities, adorable farm animals, and of course, their super amazing apple cider donuts. Also, I am in love with their pumpkin donuts. 

Heather is the one that started this tradition and it's something we all look forward to.

Tracy and Reese in line for the ponies!

 Some of the stuff costs money (alright, most of it), and the most expensive one is the pony ride. But I didn't care, because I knew Bria would love it. So both girls got to have a pony ride. And it was so worth it, both girls were in heaven.

My little cowgirl :)

Big sister jump

Little sister jump

 We decided we had enough fun and wanted to torture our kids so Brian took them on the slide...

 ...seriously though, I promise Bria wanted to go on it...until they got up there.

 But fortunately she loved it on the way down. Reese on the other hand, didn't breath the whole ride down. She is not a fan of slides or swings.

We had such a great day, it started out cold then warmed up pretty quickly. The best part was that there was no rain and it wasn't muddy at all. We ended the experience with caramel apple cider, mmmm.

Good weather=bad blogger

I have not had a desire to sit at the computer this last week which is my excuse for my lack of blogging.  Also, I'm having "writer's block" not that I think I'm a writer, but even my little captions and blurbs take some form of mental exercise that I just seem to be out of right now.

At least I can post a bunch of pictures from my phone to keep the grandparents and relatives held over :)

 We have been having AMAZING weather (knock on wood). Come to think of it, maybe that's why I haven't felt like sitting down at the computer.
Anyway, last week we did something outside every single day to take advantage of the vitamin D. One of our excursions was an apple orchard, this was a good choice considering my girls are currently having a love affair with apples.

Yum

Leaves are just the best

My sweet cuddler, she has to be on or near me when watching tv, and you won't hear me complain!

I do love this time of year, Halloween is one of my favorite Holidays (after the obvious Christmas) and Bria asks me daily if it's Halloween yet. This year she is going to be a cowgirl, it was her decision and I loved that she picked what she wanted to be. We found a great costume at Goodwill and she is obsessed. Reese is going to be Minnie Mouse :) Brian and I are dressing up as well but Brian's costume is still to be determined. I'm Where's Waldo because it was at Goodwill and super cheap...and easy. :)
We are going to the Buell's for Halloween and I'm super excited, there is a big group going and I think it will be fun to walk around together.