Happy Halloween!!

Okay...I promise that this is my last Halloween post. I know there have been a significant number of them between the pumpkin patch trips and the numerous fall festivals, but what can I say...I love this holiday!! You should all just be glad that I had to work on the day of her school party or that would have been another Halloween post. Today is actually Halloween and we went to Kids Fest in the downtown city park with Hanna, Chris and Anna and Ramsey, Robin and Marley. Unfortunately, it started to rain right when we got there. Lily played in the bounce house some, got her face painted, got a balloon animal, played the fishin' game and danced some and then we left. We all came back to our house to eat pizza and go trick-or-treating. Well, everyone went but Robin and I--we stayed behind to pass out candy, which was a job in itself--I didn't expect quite so many trick-or-treaters...we would have run out of candy if the kids hadn't come back when they did so I could steal some of theirs to hand out. Everyone said the kids had a great time trick-or-treating--all 3 girls would go to the doors and actually say "Trick or treat!" Lily has been looking forward to this for weeks so I'm glad she had a great time! The first thing she said when she got up this morning was that she wanted to go trick-or-treating!

As you saw in my previous post, the costume that I bought for Lily is a super cute witch costume. However, she has a princess dress in her dress-up basket that was $2 at Garden Ridge that she really wanted to wear for Halloween. So of course, we let her and she was very happy to be a "princa" as she pronounces "princess".

At Kids Fest, in the rain.

To stay dry (and because Lily loves to dance) we went under the gazebo for a bit to dance. Lily loved it until a kid in a very scary zombi-ish costume showed up to dance as well. Lily didn't like his costume one bit and wanted nothing to do with him. I can't say I blamed her.

Playing at the Park

We had such fab weather some days this past week, that we got to make a park trip with Hanna and Anna. Lily was very proud of herself for climbing this rock wall!

Bryan's High School Reunion

We were down in McRae this past weekend visiting Bryan's mom and step-dad and also going to his HS reunion parties--we had a lot of fun! Friday night, we went to his high school's football game. Lily was very interested in the marching band and the cheerleaders. At half-time, the homecoming court was presented and she loved that as well--she thought the girls in their pretty dresses were princesses. It was good she enjoyed herself, because the game was an absolute embarrassment for Bryan's HS--we left at half-time when the score was 36 to 0!! On our way out, we went to meet the "princesses" which Lily stared at with complete awe in her face--some of them clearly thought Lily was big weirdo, but most were nice to my child who was in love with them!! As we were trying to leave, we also had to pass by a fight!! Well, I guess you would call it a fight...some guy was starting trouble, and the cops yelled at him to leave and he did!! However, bad guy #2 refused and got into it with the cops and they slammed him to the ground in front of everyone! He continued to wrestle with him and they had to do it again, this time so close to the cop car that they knocked the mirror off of the car with his body! His mom or aunt or somebody was there and yelling and freaking out and people had to tend to her as well. It was quite exciting! I was, of course, freaking out and though Bryan was trying to help another lady get her car out from all of the hullabaloo, I took Lils and waited in our car. I didn't want us anywhere near there if a riot was about to break out!

Saturday morning, Lily colored on a pumpkin with her Grandma and then we went to the reunion cook-out for lunch. Right next to where the reunion was, there was a playground, which we walked to and played and saw turtles! Also near where we were, was a fall festival, so we also walked down there and played for a bit before heading back to Grandma and Grandaddy's house for naptime. That night, Bryan and I got to go out and leave Lily with her Grandma and Grandaddy to go have some fun at the reunion party. Unfortunately, most people there were not people that Bryan was close with, but we had lots of fun hanging with Ramsey and Robin and seeing the people that were there.

Lily's pumpkin.

At the Saturday lunch cook-out.

At the fall festival that we went to as well.

Getting a "ghostie" on her face at the festival.

My dare-devil of a child--she loves to jump off things!! Her Daddy had been waiting there to catch her, but she made him move out of the way.

Lily's Outfit

I just posted this on Facebook as well, so forgive my redundancy, but nothing shows how big my baby has gotten quite like pictures like these.

Lily as a newborn...

Lily now, holding the outfit above.

Can you believe it?!? I can't. I got out all our old preemie/newborn clothes to wash and get ready for Baby and a lot of memories came out along with those clothes.

MOMS Club Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

This was technically a trip with the MOMS Club, but Johanna and I ended up going quite late because of naps and so it really ended up just being Hanna, Anna, Lily and I. It was fine, because we had a great time!!

"Baby Anna" in the picnic area of the pumpkin patch.

Of course, we had to pay another visit to the animals there. Lily and Anna (and probably all kids) both love animals a lot!! This was definitely something they enjoyed about the pumpkin patch.

On the hayride going to the pumpkin patch. Since I never post belly pics, here's some proof that I am indeed gestating! Lily refused to look at the camera for 2 reasons--#1, she just does that sometimes and #2, it was a stranger taking the picture and a man to boot and she didn't want anything to do with him.

Pumpkin Patch!!! Baby Anna was very overjoyed about the pumpkins and kept yelling her word for pumpkin. Very cute!

The crime in progress--Lily pulled Anna off of a pumpkin! I don't think she actually meant it maliciously--Hanna was taking pics of Anna sitting on a pumpkin and Anna wanted to get up, so this was Lily's attempt to keep Anna where Hanna wanted her--of course, Hanna was fine with Anna getting up, but try explaining that to a "helping" 2 year old.

Whenever Anna would fall down in the rough terrain of the pumpkin patch, Lily would help her up and hold her hand to walk along. Again, what a big helper, except that she walked a little too fast for Anna and so it only worked for a little while.

This was the pose Lily picked out!

Lily wanted her picture taken with the scarecrow because we saw it there when we were there before, but couldn't do the picture then. She likes scarecrows ever since they made one on Caillou.

I love this action shot!! Lily loves jumping off of things and having me or Bryan catch her. She has no fear!!

On the hayride back to the picnic area. I love the look she's giving me!

She wanted to take a picture up here, but wanted Anna up there as well--here she is saying "Cheese" to the camera--not a real smile at all....

...and here she is giving the camera the fakest smile ever!

Finally a real smile!

Anna on the tractor!

Carving Pumpkins!

After going to the pumpkin patch, we decided to go ahead and carve our pumpkins. I hope they won't start to rot before Halloween, but hopefully we are close enough that even if (when) the temp goes back up, they can hang in there.

Our 2 pumpkins--the one on the left came from Walmart, the big one on the right came from the pumpkin patch today. I love it's funky stem.
I brought a bowl out so that we could seperate out the pumpkin seeds to roast them. Lily decided the bowl would make a good hat. By the way, you may be thinking that Lily's outfit looks an awful lot like PJs and specifically an awful lot like winter themed PJs with snowmen on them (and that the top has marker all over it). You may be right...on all counts. However, it was the warmest thing I could find that passed for an outfit...better than her zip-up Christmas PJs with the gingerbread-man on them that she's been sleeping in. This super cold weather kind of caught me off guard. Silly me thought we might have a week of fall before it turned to winter!

Getting ready to make the first cut. Growing up, my family got pumpkins and carved them every year. I remember hating to scoop out the seeds! We would all get a marker and draw a face on our pumpkin--I think mine was the same every year--and my dad would bring out a huge kitchen knife and cut the face out for us. Bryan got fancy and bought a little kit with stencils and special tools.

Lily was very interested by what was in the pumpkin.

The all too important job she created of wiping the pumpkin.

Once Lily noticed my job of seperating the seeds from the guts (I don't know what to call the stringy slimey stuff inside a pumpkin, so I'm going with guts), she thought that was far more interesting than the actual carving. She was my helper.

Lily "helped" her Daddy tape the stencil on the pumpkin. And by helped, I mean put random pieces of tape random places on the pumpkin.

Bryan worked really hard on the two pumpkins. We each picked a design--mine was a skull that was ranked as 1 pumpkin on the easy to hard scale of 1 to 4 pumpkins, 1 being the easiest. His is the words "Trick or Treat" which ranked 3 pumpkins. He was cursing himself halfway through.
Bryan's homemade shiv for a pumpkin knife. Yeah, both knives that came in the fancy kit were broken before he'd even finished one pumpkin.

Even while carving pumpkins, Lily likes to accessorize. She changed shoes 4 times during the process as well and one time I looked over and she was trying to take her pants off. Not sure what she was doing...but I stopped her!

The after...I know they don't look so fab right here, but in person they look great. Once we clean them up and put a candle in, I think they'll look perfect. I'll post some pics once we get all of that together.

Family Pumpkin Patch Trip

I titled this post specifically to explain that this was our family trip because in a short 24 hours Lily and I will be back at the pumpkin patch, but this time with the MOMS Club. I wanted us to also go together as a family and this was really the only day we could work it out to go. It was very cold, but fun!! We are lucky to have a pumpkin patch close by. Johanna, Anna, Lily and I went there for blueberry picking in the summer and Bryan and I plan to go cut our own Christmas tree there this winter. Today, we got there very early, so it wasn't too crowded, but the line to come in when we were leaving was way too long! Bryan would have taken one look at it, turned around and driven to Lowe's to buy a pumpkin! Lily had a great time though, so I'm glad we got there early enough to really enjoy it.

On the hayride--happy girl!

Looking at the farm animals--they had chickens, a turkey, pigs, goats and a baby cow. She thought they were quite fascinating!

This was her "project." Explanation: My parents like to help us on our house--whenever they come to visit, they want us to have a list of projects to do while they are there...for instance, last time they came, they replaced our oven hood, replaced light fixtures, fixed the garage door, did some plumbing stuff, etc...stuff that Bryan and I just don't have the expertise to do, but they do in their years of homeowner-ship. Every since their last visit, Lily has been busy doing "projects" or assigning projects to Bryan and I. They usually consist of putting a whole ton of paperclips into my makeup bag or wrapping bath letters in a washcloth, but today, her project was to pile a whole lot of little pumpkins up. She got very involved in it and we sort of had to drag her away with the promise of another go on the hay-ride.

Posing with the big pumpkins while waiting for the hayride to come pick us up. There is the where the lady in line in front of me who was alone with her kids dropped her baby on the ground. The baby was fine, but I felt so bad for the mom. It's bad enough when you do that kind of thing when you are alone, but you feel even worse when there are witnesses to your bad mommy moments!! Luckily, the lady in line behind us was a pediatric nurse!

Riding the tractor! There were lots of photo-ops set up, but this is the only one that Lily would agree to do. Right before this was taken, a mom in line behind us yelled at some random kids who were sitting on the tractor with no parent around. It was quite an eventful trip!!