Saturday night we went to a local nature reserve to see 800 jack o’lanterns.

I don’t like carving pumpkins, but I do love seeing how creative some of them can get.

This was one of my favorites.

I think the kids liked the ones that were were carved to say “candy” best, because they marked the trick-or-treat stops.

There were so many amazing ones.

Afterwards we went out for ice cream. Luke and Maggie stuck with the theme for the night and got monster faces on theirs.

This morning we went to a Halloween event at the Air Force Museum.

Maggie thought she looked “just like the lady on the airplane.”

There were a bunch of fun science experiments set up for the kids to take part in. Dave and I really liked this one. Did you know that an orange floats? But, if you peel it, the peel will float and the orange will sink? We didn’t. There are air pockets between the orange and the peel which allow it to float.

Another fun fact, Diet Coke floats, but Coke sinks. That’s because of the sugar content – there’s 39 grams of sugar in a can of Coke and only half a gram in a can of Diet Coke.

Luke really liked talking to this gentleman about electrical circuits and how they work.

It was a great way to spend our morning.

By Adam

Wednesday night we took the kids to a Pumpkin Party. They had a bunch of fun activities and an outdoor showing of one of our favorite movies.

Unfortunately, it was being played too late for us to stay and watch it.

We did have fun walking around and looking at all of the amazing jack o’lanterns.

The chalk drawings were incredible too.

Maggie wanted her picture taken with everything.

It was a really fun night.

Maggie picked out fabric for me to make Halloween shirts for her, Annie, and my niece, Lydia.

I love this bow back pattern and Maggie does too.

After I sent Lydia her shirt (it’s orange with black cats on it), my nephew, Denny, asked for a Halloween shirt too. So I made him a gray one with black bats.

After Adam saw Denny’s shirt, he wanted a matching one. Luke wanted a Halloween shirt too and picked out orange fabric with ghosts for his shirt.

So that’s the story of how I made six Halloween shirts this month.

I’m so happy with how they all turned out.

Next up, another Halloween costume for Maggie (her acrobat one isn’t really good for school).

Last week we went to kindergarten literacy night at the school.

Maggie had fun with all of the activities and loved seeing her teacher.

It was so nice to see each of the kids listed on the “Gotcha” bulletin board. It means they were caught by a teacher being good.

We stopped at the book fair and they each got two new books.

Monday was the monthly awards assembly at the school. Both boys were recognized for their hard work in math. Adam completed the twelfth and final level of the school’s math program.

We’re so proud of all of them!

We got the kids’ school pictures back last week.

I think they turned out pretty good!

I made Maggie’s jumper.

I was trying to recreate the outfit I wore in my kindergarten school photo.

I decided not to recreate the haircut though.

We went out exploring today with the goal of finding a fun pumpkin patch/hay ride/farm place and unfortunately struck out.

Maggie really just wanted to go to a playground and so we stopped at two that we passed on our way home.

It ended up being a really fun day, even if it didn’t go as planned.

Another set of matching dresses for the girls.

With pockets for Maggie, of course.

These are some of my favorite dresses yet.

Annie had her 15 month check up last month. She’s finally on the growth chart for weight – hello 4th percentile!

Everything went well, she’s a happy, healthy little girl. We did have to wait for a really long time though and she was not at all impressed.

She was even less impressed when we went back a couple of days later for vaccines and a blood draw.