Happy Halloween!

This Halloween was simply a BLAST! Abby was totally in to trick-or-treating the neighborhood, she had a fantastic Halloween carnival at school, and I actually completed most of the ideas I had to make the holiday special. Woo hoo!

The holiday started a few days ago with Abby and I decorating our door for a Facebook group's door decorating contest.

Our "friendly" door monster and various pumpkins from our holiday get-togethers. Unfortunately, our carved pumpkin succumbed to the dryer vent right behind the bench and fell apart in a yucky, gooey mess about a week ago.

We also created cut-out sugar cookies. I'll totally admit that I purchased these cookies because 1) I was feeling guilty over a poor Mom moment I'd had and was buying my way back into goodness and 2) I had zero desire to actually eat these cookies so I knew they were safe to bring into the house (now, come Christmas time when I make Nancy Walker's cut-out sugar cookies I totally plan to - and will - eat multiple cut-out cookies a day...heck, in a sitting.....those things are the bomb!).

Cutting out cookies.

Decorating cookies.

Ensuring that Mommy mops the kitchen floor after we're done with cookies.

Eating the yummy cookie!

The actual morning of Halloween began with a festive start. Pumpkin shaped french toast!

Sadly the pumpkin-shaped-bread didn't get the memo to actually stay pumpkin-shaped. 

Then we were off to preschool for a little bit of learning and a LOT of Halloween party fun.

My beautiful unicorn.

I figured I'd throw this picture in so you could see some of the awesomeness of her classroom. 

While Abby was in the learning period of the day, I ran home to put up the Halloween decorations. 

And make her a Halloween lunch. The chicken is dressed up as dinosaurs. :-)

Then I raced back to her preschool as I signed up to be a helper for the Halloween festival. In hindsight, I'm glad I signed up this year because there were just enough workers to man all the booths but I think I'll consider my dues paid and go as a participant next year. Abby had a blast running from game to game and she came over to my booth multiple times to show me the neat candy and prizes she's received, but I missed joining in on that excitement with her. I did have another Mom cover my booth for about 15 minutes so I could walk around with Abby and do a few games with her, which I completely appreciated the Mom for, so I did get to some some of the enjoyment Abby was having.

Participating in a cake walk.

Visiting my booth, the Duck Pond.

Trying to sweep a ball into the basket.

The Lollipop Haybale.

The beanbag toss. Her first three throws hit the board and bounced back but her forth throw was nothing but net!

One of three non-prize-getting games. There was another Connect 4 like game and then a coloring page station.

Go Fish!

At the end of the festival Abby was tired of trick-or-treating so she decided to help out the ladies at the booth next to me. She happily gathered the rings and handed them back to the next person in line for the Ring Toss. I thought it was sweet that she wanted to help out.

After preschool we met Nate for lunch at his office then went back home for quiet time which turned into a full-blown nap for Abby. In talking with Nate it turns out that she was up from 12:30am - 2am last night due to coughing. I'm not surprised my tired little one needed to sleep.

As soon as Abby got up from her nap it was a whirlwind of dinner (the remainder of her lunch that she didn't finish - hence no neat dinner pictures), breathing treatment, packing up warm clothes for trick-or-treating, and hauling her and all our stuff to the car. Then we went to the store to pick up some medicine for her before arriving at my sister's house where trick-or-treating was starting from.

I was really excited for Abby this year as she was finally old enough to trick-or-treat with the big girls (Haylee and Karcyn). Which meant that I got to trick-or-treat with my family and extended family instead of walking the streets with just Abby and I (Nate preferring to stay home and pass out candy). But with the entire family going together Nate got to join in on the fun, too. :-)

Her first trick-or-treat house! This year she ran with the bigger girls (and they were so loving in making sure to wait until Abby was right with them to ring the doorbell and helped her up and down steps as they thought she needed help), had a blast walking up and ringing doorbells, and was so sweet to say "trick or treat" and "thank you".

Scoring some candy!

Her first scary house. It was here that she decided she wanted to hang out a bit more with Mom and Dad as there were spooky sounds and monsters. I ended up carrying her while keeping up with the girls and then putting her down in the driveway of houses as soon as she'd assessed that they were the un-scary kind.

Nate ended up carrying her once her little legs started to get tired. At this point she'd been trick-or-treating (or running around outside with Haylee) for almost an hour. Add in her cough starting to act up, a slightly runny nose, and being thirsty and we decided it was time to start heading back to Bo and Katie's house.

A most-of-the-group shot. There was Nate, Abby, and myself. My Mom and Dad. My sister Katie and her man, Bo. Their two kids, Haylee and Chase. Bo's parents, Mark and Cathy. And Bo's sister Brooke and her daughter Karcyn. A great group to hang out with!

This was the last house that we trick-or-treated at and it was great for the spooky crowd! Lots of headstones and cauldrons and lights and scary music. A man standing scarily still in the doorway. And then a witch laying on the ground in front of the porch and a vampire hiding in the coffin waiting to sit up and yell "Boo". They were very nice to our girls and slowly sat up and talked and waved to let the girls know they were there and not to cause any scares. However, as we walked away and were down the street a bit we heard two teenagers scream bloody murder so we know they at least got some people! I also just noticed what the headstone says and got a chuckle out of it. "Here lies an Atheist. All dressed up and nowhere to go." :-)

Her pumpkin is almost full!

Showing off her trick-or-treating haul.

A slightly better view of the decorated dining room (darn that sunshine during the day!).

When we got home we discovered that our candy bin that we'd left outside was empty! At first I thought that we might have had a visitor or two who decided to take more than their fair share, but after being home and answering the door to trick-or-treaters we discovered that we probably did legitimately go through all the candy (the Halloween bowl had been filled with dum-dum suckers). In the 45 minutes we were home for trick-or-treaters we went through a bag of M&Ms, a bag of Kit-Kat bars, and a bag of dum-dum suckers. And this was towards the end of the night!

Abby was just as excited handing out candy as she was receiving it. The doorbell would ring and she would race from whatever she was doing to grab the candy bowl. Then she'd run to open the door.

She'd say "Trick-or-treat" and then grab a candy and drop it into an available bag. When everyone was filled she'd say "Thank you. Happy Halloween!". Oh, too precious! And towards the end of the evening she psychically picked up on my desire to get rid of all our extra candy as she moved from handing out one piece of candy to two pieces and eventually handfuls. :-)

I think the best moment of the evening is hard to choose. The highlights were watching her run around at her preschool carnival, hearing her "WOW! This is so cool! You did this for me?!" upon walking home to the decorated dining room, seeing her run with Haylee and Karcyn to the next trick-or-treating house knowing she'd be getting candy, her famous response of the night (Nate put her down from his shoulders and told her to "Go get 'em, tiger" to which Abby responded "I'm not a tiger, Dad, I'm a unicorn!".), and the joy she got from giving candy to others. A wonderful Halloween celebration day!

Field Trip to the Country Mercantile

Abby's second field trip for preschool (seriously, loving the field trips!) was to the Country Mercantile. This is the same place the Akers' girls (and Chase!) go every year so I was curious to see what Abby would think having just been to the same pumpkin patch a week earlier. She was a little bummed that she couldn't go on the rides but the cookie and juice made up for it. :-)

I just cannot get enough of this girl! 

Riding the tractor out to the pumpkin patch. We didn't get to do this the previous week, so Abby was really excited for the ride.

I didn't understand where the tractor was taking us at first because they were going the opposite way from the pumpkin patch I was familiar with. Then we pulled up to this patch and I realized their geniousness. We were in a pumpkin patch with smaller, almost exactly the same size pumpkins. Makes sense that they wouldn't want us hauling home gigantic pumpkins with our small entrance fee. :-)

Once again it took us a while to find the "perfect" pumpkin. This time it was because many of the pumpkins were yucky (i.e., they had dirt on them) so I sneakily wiped one off and presented it to Miss Abby for her inspection. It was perfect! :-)

Climbing the hay tower.

It's a little hard to see here but Abby, instead of using the small step to get from one bale to the next, decided to simply jump down. Almost continued rolling down the next bale but caught herself in time. At this point I decided to stick a little closer to my jumping, jelly bean.

The animals were in a much friendlier mood and allowed for lots of petting. 

Abby gleefully running through the maze. I ran through it with her and, for the first time ever, she actually went all the way through and found the exit. Yay!

Look at those curls! I think she should be in a Pantene commercial with how adorably bouncy and beautiful they are. 

Grumpy face due to the lack of carnival rides and a tummy going "beep beep". (I bet your tummy goes "roar" when it's hungry...not hers!)

Finishing up our field trip on the tractor outside the main entrance.

Abby's Last Swim Lesson

Abby had her last swim lesson for the foreseeable future and I'm both sad and excited. I'm sad because she loves to swim, loves the water, and has been making great progress with her swim strokes. I mean my not-yet-4 year old was beginning to learn the dolphin kick. As an adult I can barely do that! Yet, at the same time I'm excited because it means we have our afternoons back to ourselves and the rush, rush, rush of getting to and from and after swim lessons is gone. When we first put Abby in swim lessons she was 2.5 (we sneaked her in early - their minimum age was 3 - because of her joy and fearlessness of being in the water) and her lessons were twice a week at 9:00am. This 9:00am time lasted all throughout the school year and even into summer. She started out as a Jellyfish learning to blow bubbles, bob, zoom, and other intro to water basics. By the end of the school year she'd graduated to the Star Fish class so summer saw her learning her front stroke, floating unassisted, and the monkey-tree-banana stroke of which I have no idea what it's really called.

Then this second year of swim lessons during the school year began and right away we ran into a stumbling block. With pre-school three mornings a week and Bible study one morning a week the morning swim lesson times were not a good match for us. This bumped us into the evening swim lesson times. We started the session with a 5:30pm time but quickly realized that this was a crazy time for us to try to get her to lessons by. Abby and I were eating dinner at 4:30pm and Nate wasn't eating dinner until closer to 7:00pm. Then there'd be a second dinner around 8pm because Abby was hungry again. So we switched to a 4:00pm swim lesson. This had its own hardships as I found myself having to wake Abby up from her naps early (which is always a joy) and it was a struggle and a fight to get her ready and out the door on time, all while her neighborhood friends were coming up and asking if she could come outside and play. So by the time the session came to to the last swim lesson I was more than ready to have an easier schedule and drop the lessons. Yet, on the last day I couldn't help but be a little sorry with our decision because of all the laughing I heard and the fun I saw. sigh. I know there are no wrong decisions here and that, for our family, quitting lessons at this time in our life is a good thing but I still wish we'd been able to work out times, finances, life in general to make it happen.

Since it was her last swim lesson I got lots of pictures and videos to show off how great she's been doing. Hopefully when we do summer swim lessons in a few months she won't have back-tracked to far in her swimming abilities!

Diving for Rings

Front Crawl and Side Stroke

Monkey-Tree-Banana (She's been saying "Monkey, Tree, Banana" as she swims each of the movements for a while now and it just cracks me up. My little ham!)

Neighborhood Pumpkin Carving Party

Tonight our neighborhood threw a pumpkin carving party. It was low-key, thrown together mostly last minute, but fantabulously fun. I don't think I can adequately say how much I love the neighbors we live next to.

Carving our first pumpkin of the year.

This year we lucked out on picking out a pumpkin that is actually carvable. Last year's pumpkin required a butcher knife and Nate's strength to saw through. This year Abby's arm and a cheap pumpkin knife did the trick.

4 tables, 13 adults, and 15 kids

 

Averie rocking the painted face.

Kati didn't think I'd get the picture but I've got mad skills.

The guys carving up the big pumpkins

Table of sugar high goodness. Hot cocoa, hot apple cider, popcorn, cookies, and candy. 

Abby with her finished pumpkin.

Chris brought out the dremel and made a serious pumpkin mess, but carved some very nice designs.

Nate teaching Abby how to twirl her glowstick.

Abby decided she wanted to draw on her pumpkin patch pumpkin and invited her favorite friends to join her.

The night ended with the kids running around in the street and the adults having stilt competitions. 

The evening was nice and relaxed with kids running back and forth between yards, adults carving pumpkins and drinking wine or beer, classic rock playing on the radio, and lots of laughter and chatting. We can't wait for the next neighborhood party!