Carving Pumpkins

We carved pumpkins on Sunday night (Halloween was on Wednesday) so that we would have ample time to spend on the activity and not feel rushed.  Most weeknights are a flurry of comings and goings these days in between dinner, dance classes, my teaching, homework, showers and bedtime routines. 

Steve carried all of the pumpkins inside earlier in the day so that they could warm up and be easier to carve.  And then, with minimal arguing, each one of the kids settled into their spot at the table and set to work scooping out the gooey insides.  They needed a little bit of supervision, but for the most part, they each did their own thing ... even Jimmy acted like he had been doing this for years.

Sleeves pulled up and ready to handle the goo.

Some of the "strings" were in their pretty tight, and he worked feverishly to get them out.

We did not end up saving any of the seeds and baking them because we have found that most of the kids are not fans of them (now, anyways).

Sophia opted for the cleaner approach of using a spoon to scoop out her pumpkin guts.

Jack loved every second of this dirty task.

Sam chose one of the biggest pumpkins in the patch, but didn't realize that that would mean that she would have the never-ending job of scooping out more squishy innards than anyone.  Yup, the biggest pumpkin means more time spent cleaning it out ...

Everyone was focused on those pumpkins and having a great time!

Still going at it.

Some last minute clean-up.

The final masterpieces, lined up in order and ready to be moved outside for a night of trick-or-treating.

Fall Pictures

For a while now, I have been sending out Christmas cards with a picture of the kids on the front.  They seem to change so much over the course of a year and I love being able to look back at them and compare.  In the past, I seem to wait until around Thanksgiving time (or even the first week of December) to take the picture and that has been challenging -- especially if I want to capture a photo outside.  It also means rushing to get the cards designed, printed, addressed and mailed before the approaching holiday.

This year, I made a mental note to take the pictures earlier than normal.  Fall is such a pretty time of year (my favorite season of all!) and I wanted to incorporate the changing leaves in the background.  Our schedule has been packed lately, but we snagged a late afternoon to get the kids dressed after school and dance and headed down to the beach/park at the end of our subdivision.

It was a tad windy and the sun was just starting to set, but we made the best of it.  It's never easy to get four kids to cooperate and simultaneously look at the camera, especially when they are hungry and ready for dinner (soup was simmering on the stove top at home!).  But, I'm pleased with the pictures that we got.  I edited them the next morning and am proud to say that our Christmas cards are already printed -- before Halloween!

Some of our pictures:

Sophia never takes a bad picture.  Ever.

Sam is a bit more reserved with her smile than her sister, but I love how beautiful her dress was with the autumn leaves that day.

James never stops moving, so I was lucky to capture a few shots of him standing still.

He thought that the leaves were like flowers, so he tried to smell them.

It wasn't long before he reached over and picked a leaf off the tree.

Gorgeous.  Just gorgeous.

And when did Jack turn, like 12?

A fun photo:

A few photos by the lake:

Standing on their favorite rock, one that is in the middle of the sandy beach and has been used for MANY sandcastle creations over the years.

Standing tall:

We moved down by the rock and I captured this.  These two can fight like cats and dogs sometimes, but they love each other fiercely.  (I adore this photo so much that I am contemplating wallpapering one of the walls in my house with it, ha!).

My girl is turning 10 next month and I am having a hard time wrapping my head around that.  The last ten years seem to have gone by in the blink of an eye and I can't wait to see what the next decade holds for her.

As different as night and day, but still such good friends.

A last minute photo before loading up and heading home:

And this photo here.  I have so many emotions over this one.

You see, later that night, after I had taken the photos and the kids were in bed, Steve grabbed my camera and was flipping though the pictures on it.  He stopped and said, "there's a picture of my mom on here ..."

I questioned what he was saying because I knew that the pictures on the camera were recent and there would't be any of Barb on there.  I came over and he showed me this picture.  Sophia looks so much like Barb ... SO MUCH.

I have always thought that Sophia resembles her -- her hair color, her blue eyes, the shape of her face and her smile.  But now, it's unmistakable. 

It's been five years since we lost Barb and Sophia doesn't have very many memories of her.  While that sometimes makes me sad, it warms my heart to know that she has THIS -- her genes.  And she knows it now.

Early Trick-or-Treating

This last Saturday, we made plans to go to Sleepy Hollow (the state campground) for some early trick-or-treating.  It's a pretty big event for the campers -- a lot of them decorate their campsite (and some of them even dress up!) and then sit outside to pass out candy for an hour.  It's only about 15 minutes from our house and the weather was darn close to perfect, so we gathered the kids and their costumes and headed out. 

We got there about an hour early so that we could meet up with one of Steve's co-workers at their site.  I had a quick dinner packed for the kids, so they ate that at a picnic table before donning their outfits.  It was a nice trial-run so that I could then determine what we need to make their costumes better for Halloween (Sam needs a white shirt that fits her better, Jack needs long underwear to wear underneath his form-fitting costume, Sophia needs a higher collar on her shirt for an itchy place that bugged her and Jimmy -- well, he was all set).

We did not cover the whole park; we really only traveled over half of it.  And I was fine with this.  The kids filled their bags with enough candy to last a while and they had a blast doing it.

A quick photo at one of the campsites before we started:

Samantha was a ghost, Sophia was Maleficent, Jack was Flash and Jimmy was a lion.

As you can see, the weather was perfect -- almost 60 degrees and not a drop of rain in sight (unlike last year when it POURED buckets of rain and we opted to just stay home).

My little lion:

For the most part, the kids stayed together and visited the sites in unison.  I was grateful for this, as I know the time is coming when they will want to quickly run off and grab as much candy as they can, as fast as they can.

Jimmy was a bit leery of clowns and the scary decorations, but then warmed up to them and realized that that they are all just for show.

Mr. Independent was a favorite among everyone there.  His little voice that said, "trick or treat" and followed that with "thanks" as he walked away was certainly something to see.  He has a lot of personality inside his little body!

The Orchard

I go to the orchard every Sunday for a weekly meeting and sometimes I take the kids with me and sometimes I go alone.  They really enjoy going, but depending on our weekend activities, it doesn't always work out. 

A couple of weeks ago, we made plans to head out there on a Saturday and spend most of the day there.  We invited one of Sophia's friends to come with us, and it's safe to say that everyone had a blast.  Jimmy was so tired by the time that we left that he fell asleep in his car seat before we had even made it a 1/2 mile down the road.


Picking Galas out in the orchard:

Sophia picked more than one and savored them on the wagon ride back up front.

I can't get over how beautiful and clear the sky was that day.  It was the perfect temperature outside and we couldn't have chosen a better day to go.

Apples for everyone!

Jack bit into his apple as soon as he picked it off the tree.  Yup, my kids are raised on apples, applesauce and cider, just as I was growing up.

We spent a great deal of time in the store (stocking shelves and bagging apples) and zipped out back to feed the pigs our leftover apple cores.  I was too busy to take pictures at the time, but made sure to grab some out in the pumpkin patch.

We let everyone pick out their own pumpkin -- those will be the ones that they carve the week of Halloween -- and it interesting to see how each of them had their own idea of what constituted "the perfect pumpkin."

Searching for the best one that she could find:

Jimmy was starting to get a little tired at this point and I turned around to find him resting on a pile of pumpkins. 

Samantha's was the biggest one and I had Steve haul it back to the van for us.  It was certainly heavier than it looks.  (Little does she know that the bigger the pumpkin, the more cleaning out she will have to do inside when she is carving it!  Ha!).

Along the outer perimeter of the pumpkin patch, there were some gorgeous Red Delicious apples.  They are huge this year and the deepest red that I can recall them ever being.  Jack couldn't resist picking one, and I don't blame him. 

The whole crew: