Grammie brought a bunch of wooden bric-a-brac with her, and then kids picked some out to paint.
We loved having them come out and spend time with us.
We had a few days off from school, and used the opportunity to take a family trip. Right now, leaving and spending the night somewhere else is the best way I've found to get some concentrated, focused time n with Todd. Balancing work and home when you work at home is hard!
Anyway, we rented a cabin in Sonora, California. We spent a day at Calveras Big Trees State Park, hiking among the redwoods. Gemma loved the giant pinecones!
We danced on top of this beast.
We saw some deer ahead on the trail. The kids snuck up on them, but they didn't ever run away. It was so cool to stand so close to them and just watch them for a while, without them running away!
Another day on our trip was spent at Columbia - Gold Country! Todd was so excited for the kids to experience gold panning. It was pretty fake where we were at, though. Good results! Not so authentic. He wants to give it another go at a river or something, but I haven't got that kind of time!
Halloween seemed to last forever this year! We had our ward party two weeks before the big day, and I think that was a big part of it. So the costumes and candy just dragged on for weeks!
I couldn't believe Gemma held still long enough for us to wrap her up as a toilet paper mummy!
We went to a local pumpkin patch for FHE and had the place pretty much to ourselves because - as we found out - they were about to close! We stuck around after the announcement until an employee came and shooed us out. The kids loved the haystack maze, and we all really enjoyed playing in the corn box!
Hazel's been reading, reading, all the time, everywhere you look. Almost every night after we put the kids to bed, we hear her turning pages. She brings books to school to read after she finishes her work. Sometimes she's so riveted to the page that she brings a book out with her to read while she eats breakfast. She is blowing through our Junie B. Jones collection. She's started a series called The Critter Club. I'd love more suggestions for simple chapter books!
Gemma and I went with Jack's preschool class on a field trip to a pumpkin patch and my heart was breaking all morning. He just seems so old suddenly. I don't want to send him to kindergarten next year!
My little wild thing is getting huge, too. Not fair!
I went with my friends Maggie and Karrie to a corn maze. It was fun! I hadn't been to one in years.
Jack loved hammering pegs into a pumpkin at his preschool Halloween party. He may not be a rough and tumble, fight and destroy, kind of boy, but he definitely loves tools in any shape or form.
We saved carving jack-o'-lanterns until Halloween day a) so they wouldn't mold on the porch, and b) because we didn't have a good time for the whole family to be together to work on it until that day. Turns out, we still didn't have the whole family together for it - we did them during Gemma's nap! Oh well.
The kids loved trick-or-treating. We stated in our own neighborhood this year, and just went around to the homes within walking distance of our house. Literally, only about one out of every 8 houses were even giving out candy, but every single one who was told the kids to take several pieces, if not a handful or two. We probably hit 15, maybe 20 houses, and their pumpkin baskets were filled to the brim. Gemma was running all over tarnation, she loved being out in costume, in the dark, so much!
Guys, that is just way too much candy! How can you stand to let your kids eat it all? We let them each pick out six pieces, then packed the rest up. Hazel and Gemma traded theirs in for a toy, and Jack turned his in for a movie theater ticket. Am I a Halloween scrooge, or a genius?
