We’ve been enjoying a lovely fall.  I wanted to share some fall fotos that capture the beauty and the fun we’ve been up to:

The post is linked up to the You Capture carnival at I Should Be Folding Laundry.

What a boring title! I tried to be creative, but nothing came to me.  Anywho, this is my recap of our weekend of fun.  Be forewarned, this post is picture-laden.

The fun started on Thursday.  It was “Dress-up Day” at Mainly Music and so cute to see all the little kids dressed up in their costumes.   Of course my little monkey refused to wear the top half of his costume, so I had to settle for a Stunt Monkey.

Friday was party-rific.  It started with the “Let’s Pretend Parade” at preschool.  Sam was excited to wear his bear costume.   Adam wore the bear head piece, briefly.

Again, all the little kids were adorable in their get-ups.   These are Sam’ buddies from his class.

Power Ranger Matthew, Bear Boy Si, Bat Graham, & Spider Nathan

The kids sang two songs in English, then two in Spanish.   I was so impressed with how well Sam sang and did the motions for the first time, I quickly set my camera to video to catch the second song.  Apparently, he wasn’t feeling this song.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Then the kids paraded around the room.  They were adorably cute.  Here’s some of my favorites:

Next up was Wendy’s class party.  I volunteered to man the cookie decorating table.  As I asked the kids about their costumes, I saw the wisdom of the moms who had their kids wear an alternative costume to school than what they were going to wear Halloween night.   Icing got everywhere.  Here is Wendy aka Laura Ingalls (Wilder).

Decorating cookies with Princess Amelia (?)

Wendy’s class is called the “Sea Turtles” (each Kindy class has a theme).  Her teacher donned a vintage Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle costume from *her* elementary days and pronounced herself a sea turtle.  Isn’t that great?

More cookie decorating and sampling:

The kids also got to hear a story (I didn’t catch what it was):

Look at that yummy spread!

This kid wore his mask backwards – it cracked me up.

Group shot:

Laura Ingalls and the Sea Turtle Teacher

After the class party, Wendy & I high-tailed home to pick up Adam, and then dashed off to pick up Sam from his playdate.  Then we decided to crash a Trick-or-Treat tradition at my old place of business.  I casually inquired if they were still doing their thing and promptly invited myself over.  It’s fun to see all my old co-workers and their kids.   I was the first person at the company to get pregnant, 6 years ago.  Now there is a gaggle of half-pints running around.

This is what the kids looked like four years ago:

My two are on the left – Sam was four months and Wendy was almost two.

Fast forward to 2009:

Fun stuff.

Saturday evening – we went to a neighbors house for our annual pre-ToTing party.    All the kids were dressed up, along with quite a few adults.

After some pizza and revelry, we headed out to hit the houses.

After the kids noshed on candy for a bit, I told them I heard that some children believed there is a Candy Fairy and if you let her, she would take your candy and leave a present.   I also told them that the Candy Fairy would let them keep 10 pieces.    Sam had no problem giving up the goods – he was excited and wondered what present he would get.   At first, Wendy said “no way!” but as she saw Sam getting excited about it, she quietly started counting out her ten pieces and gave up the rest.

The hung their candy bags on the door knob so the Candy Fairy would know it was okay to take them.  The next morning, the candy was gone but Sam got a cool  power drill toy and Wendy got a Skipper Barbie doll!  Both were thrilled with what they got and I was thrilled to have reduced the amount of sugar in the house (plus the bickering and bartering over getting candy for dessert).

As you can see, we had a great Halloween celebration and everyone was pooped enough to actually sleep in for the “fall back”.

How was your Halloween?

Last week, we carved our pumpkins.   I tried to figure out a way to make it more interactive for the kids, since they can’t really do the cutting at this point.  I decided to download a bunch of pumpkin templates and let them make their own jack-o-lantern face by picking the eyes, nose and mouth they wanted to use.

This is what Wendy designed:

And here is Sam’ creation:

Before we carved our pumpkins, we decided to do a little math & science lesson with them.

First we guessed who had a bigger waist, a kid or a pumpkin.  Then we measured and recorded our observations.

We learned that Wendy had the smallest waist and pumpkin #1 was the largest diameter:

Pumpkin #1      41"
Pumpkin #2      38.5"
Pumpkin #3      38.5"
Sam           21.75"
Wendy          21.5"

Then we guessed which pumpkin weighed the most.

These were our findings:

Pumpkin #1     19lbs
Pumpkin #2     22lbs
Pumpkin #3     18lbs

We noted that even though Pumpkin #1 had the largest diameter, it was not the heaviest.

Then we got to scooping.   Wendy was not at all thrilled by the pumpkin guts and wanted nothing to do with them.

Sam was an eager participant in every part of our experiment and wanted to scoop and scrape.

Then we taped on our templates and got ready to poke the gourds.

Mommy & Daddy poked the pattern through, with assistance from Wendy & Sam.

Then we cut and finally, voila!  Our pumpkin creations!

We also weighed our pumpkins after carving and learned that even though the two we carved (P1 and P2) weighed a pound different initially, the both weighed the same amount after removing the guts and carving.  Here’s a summary of our findings:

       Waist      Weight    Post-Carving Weight
P1     41"        19lbs     14lbs  (Sam guessed 10lbs)
P2     38.5"      22lbs
P3     38.5"      18lbs     14lbs (Wendy guessed 15lbs)
Wendy    21.5"      ?43?
Sam     21.75"     ?41?

We had a lot of fun combining a little science with fun and we were all proud of our creations.

The last pumpkin wasn’t carved at the same time.  I carved it about an hour before party time Halloween afternoon as an homage to dear ole dawg Logan (he’s still with us, just neglected)

We live close to our neighborhood high school.  Close enough to hear the marching band practice and close enough to for our street fill-up with parking during football season.  One of the fun things that comes along with living close to the high school is that we get to see the Homecoming Parade.   Back when I was in high school (~ a million years ago), the floats were driven around the track during halftime at the football game.   Our school does it during the day around the neighborhood.  I don’t know why for sure, but I’m guessing the newly renovated multi-million dollar football and track might have something to do with it.

My kids were thrilled to watch the parade — although some of the content might have been a little more PG than I care for, it didn’t seem to register with my kids.  They were just thrilled to be getting candy thrown at them.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Last Thursday was a parent teacher conference day and we lucked out with an early conference time.   Mike took the day off, so after hearing how brilliant our kindergartner is, we took of for a fun day at Cox Farms.

We’ve been going for several years and always have a blast.  It’s typically cooler and windier there than at home, so I made all the kids bundle up.  They were not thrilled at that decision when it turned out to be sunny, warm and beautiful.

The first stop is always the hay bale maze at the beginning.  2 of 3 kids were willing to pose for me.

Wendy helped fetch Adam how of the hay bale maze so we could move on to other fun stuff.

Ma & Pa Cox

Climbing up the … climbing structure so we can get to the …

Rope swings!

Lots of fun slides.  Sam shot down this one like a torpedo.

Daddy & Adam had turn too.

Checking out the cows.

Beware of Nanny.

Checking out the other billy goats.

The Corn Maize was a new feature (at least I don’t remember it from years past).

Froggy fun.

There are always lots of baby pigs at the farm.  Makes me glad I’m not a sow.

On the hay ride – we ran into an old friend from my ultimate frisbee days.

Hey, look at that!

Watch out for the aliens!

This one seems friendly…

Off the hayride and onto the play trains.

Another lil slide.

And another rope swing.

Whee!

Checking out the view from an International Harvester.

Group shot.

The “Dino Slide” was the biggest hit.  We all had a blast riding it.

This little clip shows how long a slide it is:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The other dino slide.

They had a special area just for little kids.  Adam found the corn bin and was in heaven.

He liked the slide too.

It was another fall tradition we were happy to repeat.  A great day of fun memories made.

This week, I did my homework, and spent Sunday afternoon take pictures of things that are RED.

Although this is a crappy picture, I have to mention my beloved Redskins.   Despite three quarters of pitiful play, they actually managed to beat the Bucs.  Since the quality of their play thus far has been abysmal, it seemed note-worthy to capture this incredible feat.

Speaking of feet, I decided to take a pic of these little shoes.  I bought them at a yard sale years ago, and all three kids have worn them.  They are pretty  worn out, but they make me smile when I think of the little feet that run a muck in them, scuffing them up.

Speaking of worn out, this Lightning McQueen car used to have a lot more red.  He came from a Happy Meal several years ago.  And while Lightning’s paint job has seen better days, he still likes to race across the floor if you scoot him back and wind him up.

Speaking of toys, this is a nerf toy son #2 received for his birthday last year.  I hid it away at the time, and it only recently came out into circulation.   I threw it into the backyard to create the illusion that it had been recently played with.  It hadn’t.  But 15 minutes after this shot, big sister came along and  stripped off the fins to use it as a mixer for her mixing bowl.

Speaking of the backyard,  our grass looks so good, because it was recently mowed.

Actually, Daddy did the mowing.   But it was cute to see Adam run get the toy mower and mimic his Daddy.   Speaking of Daddy, he grew this tomato in the garden he planted in our backyard.

Speaking of fruit (yes, tomatoes are fruit), tis the season for apples.  We did not plant or pick this one, but I took it out of the kitchen and put it on the woodstack to provide a more interesting backdrop.

Speaking of flowering flora, I decided to head around to the front yard to see what red I could find.  I have a planter full of flowers that some friends made for me when my mom died.   Despite my inattentive watering, it still looks lovely.  It has  little red flowers in the arrangement.

It also has this unusual looking plant with red leaves.

That’s about it for the red in our front yard.  (I’m dropping the “Speaking of” bit – I carried as far as I could).  But I noticed our neighbors had red flowers in their front bed so I went over to investigate.   The bed was lined with red and yellow flowers that were very sweet.  I liked them because the red and yellow combo reminded me of my burgundy and gold (don’t forget, it was football Sunday).  Apparently this little bee liked them too.

You may notice that I haven’t posted a single autumn leaf picture as part of my red collection.   The truth is, as of Sunday, very few trees in my neighborhood have started to turn.   I went searching for a tree with fall colors so I could take pictures and finally found one tree at my daughter’s school.  I don’t know why it decided it was ready to change when none of the other trees are ready to give up their green, but I’m glad it did, because the colors were spectacular.  I’ll finish with a few shots of it.

That’s it – hope you enjoyed my little collection.  Now, head on over to I Should Be Folding Laundry, to see other visions of red from Beth’s You Capture series.

Although I’m a day late (and a dollar short), I decided to participate in the “You Capture” challenge at I Should Be Folding Laundry.  This week the challenge is to capture the feeling of fall.   Looking through my photos, I don’t have as many “fallish” photos as I’d like, but these particular ones say fall to me:

My front door wreath.  I am psyched I got it on my door before October – a new record for me for sure.

Trying on/modeling Halloween costumes

Pot Roast – a fall favorite, for sure

Staticky fun at the playground

Visit I Should Be Folding Laundry to see more posts capturing the feeling of fall.

Disclaimer: while I didn’t take these picture specifically to fulfill the You Capture project, they are new to you and I promise to take some revolving around next week’s theme.