Halloween

We took the kids trick-or-treating tonight. We went to a local college that opens up their apartment buildings for kids to come through every year. I love this option for three reasons: 1. It's easier to stay warm 2. It's safer (no fear of kids getting hit by car) 3. It's quick!!! Trick-or-treating started at 6, we were home by 7:10 and all four kids were sleeping by 7:30. Beautiful!!! Sweet Hope was the highlight of my night. She was not timid AT ALL. She made herself known and pushed herself up to the candy bowl at each apartment door we came to. It was as if she had been trick-or-treating all her life. It was so cute!!!! Here are some pictures of my munchkins:

Group Shot


Batman (aka Micah)


Superman (aka Samuel)


Cinderella (aka Mary Kate)


Frog (aka Hope)

Pumpkin Carving

We spent the evening carving pumpkins. Daddy did all of the work, although Micah really wanted to be in on the action. He was allowed to help with clean up. :) We were hoping to watch our Charlie Brown Halloween DVD tonight, but we ran out of time. We will have to do that tomorrow night. Here are some pictures of our finished products:

Fall Fun

Here are a few pictures of the kids helping daddy rake the leaves. The pictures of the kids in their Halloween costumes are from when we took them to Boo at the Zoo.

Apple Orchard

The day after our unfortunate Pumpkin Patch experience, we took the kids to an apple orchard to go apple picking. We had gone last year with one of Mike's brothers and had a wonderful time. It never crossed our minds that the peak harvest of apples might be over. Unfortunately, when we arrived, we were told that there was no more apple picking for the season, but they were allowing the public to go tomato picking. So that's what we did. Who doesn't love a good tomato in the fall?

Pumpkin Patch

A couple of weekends ago, Mike and I decided to take the kids to the pumpkin patch one Friday evening. It was about a 25 minute drive to get there. We arrived at 5:55pm only to notice that we didn't have any shoes for Hope and that the pumpkin patch closed at 6. What a disappointment. However, the owner was really kind and let us take a quick tractor ride out to the patch to pick our pumpkins. Afterwards, we were able to hang around the farm and enjoy the farm animals and play area, even though the farm was technically closed. So, it all worked out OK. Even Hope didn't mind being barefoot too much.