Halloween - Holiday of Rain!

This year's Halloween was presented by the weather of rain. Lots and lots of rain. So much rain! LOL. I'm very happy Abby's costume fit underneath her rain jacket (just barely, though!) as she would have gotten water logged without it. Note to self for next year: get a costume a size up from what she is - rookie Mom mistake. We actually were able to sit down and have a spaghetti dinner before Bo, Katie, Haylee, and Chase (our Halloween partners in crime) joined us which was very different from my expectation of throwing chicken nuggets at her as she was SO excited to go trick-or-treating this year. But in the rush to get out of the door I didn't get many pictures. In fact, I totally forgot to get a picture of all three kids together! Ugh! Bad scrapbooker, bad. Haylee was a zombie-princess-ghost (I think), Chase went as Chuckie (and he was the most adorable Chuckie you'd ever seen), and Abby was Rainbow Dash.

Okay, I actually found a picture of all three kids. Granted, it's their backs. But you get the idea!

We started out with just a little trickle of rain so I was wondering if I was totally overprotective Mom with making Abby wear her coat, while Chase was just in his thick sweater. But by the fourth house the rain was coming down so hard that Katie ran back for the stroller which had a cover for Chase, Nate ran back for an umbrella and to trade his leather jacket for a rain coat, and I realized I needed to keep my phone under cover if I wanted it to last through the night.

After trick-or-treating about four blocks of our neighborhood Kate, Chase, and I called it quits (we'd been out for about an hour). I was exhausted from walking so much and Katie was worried that Chase was getting too wet and cold as the little stinker refused to stay in his covered stroller and instead wanted to walk with the big girls.

Then roughly 30 minutes later the rest of the crew showed up at the house as Abby had requested to be carried (which Nate decided was the "I'm done" code word) and even Haylee was starting to mention hurting feet. Once home the girls had great fun passing out candy to trick-or-treaters and starting the candy eating process. Even Chase got in on the sugar rush as he grabbed a handful of rolos and stuffed them in his mouth, wrapper and all. :-) It was declared to be a successful night of candy fun by all!

Abby with her candy/toy goodies from the night.

Preschool Halloween Party

This year I did NOT volunteer at Abby's preschool for the Halloween party and I'm really glad I didn't. :-) Kind of a weird thing to say, but it was really fun walking around watching her participate in all the games and then coloring with her when she got bored of getting candy (this child is so Nate's daughter). 

Abby, her classmates, and teacher dressed up for the party.

A little bit of Rainbow Dash attitude. 

And a lot of Rainbow Dash attitude.

Fishing at the Fish Pond - we did this first and it ended up being a good thing because shortly thereafter the fishing pole broke. :-(

Lollipop Tree - at the end of the event no one was interested in playing this game so Abby just stood there and kept taking lollipops out of the hay bale until she got a black tipped one (then she got two lollipops!). 

Sweeping the pumpkin into the crate. She didn't do too bad on this game.

But I was amazed at her accuracy on the throwing games. Not perfect every time, but darn close. Here she makes the pumpkin into the wash bucket. 

Bobbing for pumpkins (the number on the bottom of the pumpkin tells her how many piece of candy she gets to pick).

Getting the chicken in the pail.

And making the bean bag into the M&M box (she threw so fast I couldn't actually catch the bean bag going in).

Jumping to the next number for the cake (or pumpkin decorated mandarin orange cups) walk.

And here's where getting candy got boring and playing games became more fun. We did a couple rounds of Connect 4, matching colors, and making patterns...

...before moving on to the coloring station where we spent the majority of the second half of the hour. Abby has discovered a love of coloring lately and was very happy just sitting and creating her artwork.

It was pretty funny how at the end of the party Ms. Jolene (the school's principal) was walking around with a huge bucket full of candy and non-candy treats just dumping then in various kid's buckets as she tried to get rid of as much of candy/toys as possible. Abby happened to be at the right place at the right time and got four or five handfuls of extras. I think the "thank you!" she gave every time helped her get additional goodies, too.

Middleton Farms Field Trip

Abby's preschool took a field trip to Middleton Farms this year. Having never been to this location I was curious to see how it lived up to the awesomeness of the Country Mercantile. I'm happy to report that this location was almost as awesome as a pumpkin patch location to visit at any time, but better than the Country Mercantile for a field trip. Mostly because there weren't carnival rides sitting quietly in the distance just begging to be ridden on but no children actually being allowed on. So I was very, very happy with Middleton Farms as a location for a field trip!

Our first adventure was the children's corn maze. Here, Abby is running through the maze trying to be the first to find her way out. As I have a very bad sense of direction I was worried about losing sight of her and then getting lost in the maze and not being able to find her and help her out. So I found myself doing some jogging at times to keep up. Not the easiest thing to do right now!

Thankfully there were enough dead ends that sent her back to my location that I didn't have to run the entire maze.

Beware children of the corn! :-) I was honestly surprised when we rounded a corner and found ourselves at the exit of the maze. I would have sworn we were back-tracking and heading back towards the entrance. Again, no sense of direction! But the kids did great!! And it was pretty smart having this group run around as their first activity. :-)

Then we headed to the corn pit. Whoever thought of this was brilliant! Same idea as a sand pit but with dried corn kernels instead. Same great fun, much less of a mess.

I wish I would have taken a picture of what came out of her shoes at the end of the field trip. As we were getting ready to get back in the car she said her feet hurt and could we dump her shoes. I figured she probably had a few kernels in there but I did NOT expect the HANDFULS of kernels that fell out of her shoes. I do not exaggerate when I say that my hand was filled with kernels each time I emptied a shoe. How she ran around on corn kernels almost the entire field trip I don't know. Girl has some crazy tough feet.

Me and my girl on the hay ride. Oh how I love my honey bunny! 

When we moved onto the petting zoo Abby was all about petting as many of the animals as would allow for it.

Until she met the pig. They stared at each other then, at almost the same moment, both turned away from each other. I think it was a mutual decision that no petting would take place. :-)

Getting out more energy as Abby ran through the hay bale maze.

Climbing the hay tower.

But most of the giggles occurred when Abby and some of her classmates decided that the walkway between the hay bales was lava and they'd burn up if they fell into it. So they began running and jumping along the top of the hay bales. They were very good to watch out for the younger kids, and since no teachers were telling them to stop I figured I wouldn't halt the fun.They got some pretty good jumps in there!

Finally, after much, much walking the perfect pumpkin was selected. It's interesting watching Abby's mind work. She knew exactly what type of pumpkin she was looking for (small, round, orange, with a big stem) and persevered until she found one that met her criteria.

I add this picture of Abby on the school's field trip bus because Abby is SO excited to ride on it. I was actually told to not come on the pumpkin field trip because she wanted to ride the bus. :-) Her disappointment was great when I informed her I would be coming on the pumpkin field trip, but she was made happy again when I mentioned that the next field trip she'd most likely be on the bus. Her shouts of "Yay" and "Woo hoo" almost made me feel bad that she doesn't want to hang out with me, but then again, who can compete with the awesomeness that is the school field trip bus. :-)

Neighborhood Pumpkin Carving Party - AKA The Pumpkin that Just Kept Growing

Let me start on a tangent before I dive into the awesome fun that our neighborhood pumpkin carving party (year 2) was. Around the month of March, Nate got a wild hair (or really cemented that wild hair) that he wanted a garden. He'd been talking about it since probably summer of last year, but really got interested after seeing our neighbor's (the Lawrence's) garden and all the wonderful produce it...produces. (Hee - couldn't pass that pun up.) Once I realized that Nate was seriously considering this endeavor I made it abundantly clear I wanted nothing to do with it. This was to be his project from start to finish. I didn't want him to start it, then get super busy with work, business trips, PE committee work, papers, etc and start to rely on me to make the garden happen. I think I became a little, um, enthusiastic in my "not gonna do it" speech as eventually Nate had to take me by the shoulders and inform me that he got it. :-) And so the garden began. After picking an unobtrusive spot in our backyard (along the back fence between two rock beds) Nate built a frame and then got to work on filling it with dirt.

I couldn't pass up the cute tushies! 

Abby LOVES working on projects with Nate. I'm so thankful Nate is the type of Dad that has the patience to request Abby's help when it's appropriate to do so. He's usually the one saying "Abby, want to help me with X" while I'm in the background wondering how he manages to keep his patience, get projects done, and still have her help all the while wondering if she's too little for what she's doing. Since she typically completes her tasks without issue I know it's MY issues that need work. :-)

Dumping dirt out of the truck and into the garden. (I'm also thankful that I'm the type of Mom that doesn't care how dirty she gets, knowing that a bath is always available. She had So. Much. Fun. digging through all the dirt.)

When we put in the new fence after the old wooden one blew down in a wind storm Nate made sure we could easily remove a panel section to allow for getting into the backyard through the side of the fence and not be limited by the width of the gate. It was really helpful to be able to drive the truck through the open section and right up to the garden, but it was a tight fit!

Even tighter on this side!

Not much room to spare, but he did it!

A peek into our yard with the panel removed.

Our garden. sniff. I'm so proud.

Abby getting a quick 30 second ride in the front seat as Nate drives out of the backyard and onto the street. She was a little put out when I made her get in the carseat in the back to drive the truck back to Bo's house (thanks again for letting us borrow the truck!) as she'd decided she was big enough to ride in the front now. 

A few months passed and suddenly it was May. Nate realized he was set to leave for Madrid, Spain for a roughly two week business trip and we still hadn't planted anything in our garden. Whoops! So on the night before he left, with the wind whipping at our hair, Nate and Abby went to the store to pick up some seeds then brought them home and planted them. Planting was kind of a hoot. We generally knew how far apart and how deep we needed to plan the various seeds (thanks Alisha!) but had no row dividers, identification signs, or anything that might help determine where things should go. So Nate would guesstimate on where something should be planted and start creating thumbprint holes. Abby would try to plant only one seed in each hole, but...well, sometimes seeds would scatter here or there, other times a whole bunch would get into the hole, you get the picture. It was controlled garden planting chaos. One of the things that got planted was two pumpkin seeds. Two itty, bitty pumpkin seeds. (We also planted tomatoes, beets, carrots, bib lettuce, watermelon, peppers, cucumbers, and petunias. The watermelon, lettuce and cucumbers never made it. The peppers started to grow fruit then died. The petunias were solely because of my suggestion and were a waste of space.)

As time passed and little sprouts appeared I found myself excitedly looking forward to what our garden was doing. I even found myself, gasp, watering the garden on the super hot days in May when it seemed like our sprinklers weren't enough. So much for my "not gonna do nothin'" stance. :-) As those tiny sprouts starting turning into actual plants it was even more exciting as we'd check out how many tomatoes were producing, contemplate if we went deep enough for the carrots to really grow, and laugh about how we had no idea what some of the plants were as we couldn't remember what was planted where. But one thing we were thankful for, was that our pumpkin seeds appeared to be actually producing vines and flowers. There wasn't much to them at this point in time, but there was enough to be hopeful that we'd get a pumpkin or two come Halloween time.

Here you can see the pumpkin leaves in the front-right corner of the garden. This picture was taken in August so there's been significant growth of the garden and actual vegetables have been produced and consumed! Nate started wrapping the pumpkin vines around and between the green and red bushes beside the garden to give the pumpkin vine room to grow that wasn't in the yard. I have to comment on Alex and Abby's dinner. We had friends over and were in the process of putting the two kids outside with the Dads (Moms and Alex's sister were planning on staying inside where it was cooler) when we looked out and saw that the kids had swiped the Cheetos bag, dumped the entire bag's contents out on the table, and were happily munching away. We all laughed and agreed that summer had special rules. :-) Very happy we're not uptight parents!!! 

The months passed and we noticed that one pumpkin seemed to be surpassing all the others in size. So much so that at one point we had three pumpkins (which I thought was sweet for the three of us family members) and then one day there were two pumpkins and an odd looking shrunken one. A few days after that and only two pumpkins. The big pumpkin was sucking the nutrients from all other potential pumpkins! Then we went out one day and the second pumpkin had turned mushy and was no longer worth keeping on the vine. At this point Nate and I were both expressing hope that our large pumpkin would make it to Halloween as it would be a cool sight indeed.

Fast forward to a few weeks before Halloween and it was officially time to harvest the pumpkin for our Neighborhood Pumpkin Carving Party (you thought I'd never finish my tangent, didn't you?). Nate cut the pumpkin and then worked at getting it into the wheelbarrow as he wasn't able to carry the pumpkin on its own. How big was this pumpkin? You're probably thinking we're over estimating its greatness. Well, coming in at a wheel-barrow girth and a whopping 154 pounds here's our "from a tiny seed, watering from the sprinklers, fertilizer on the random times Nate was home and thought about it, please make it to Halloween pumpkin"!

I'm still amazed this actually grew in our garden. It lived between the green and red prickly bushes, required us to take out the bird feeding pole for fear the pole would split the stem and deprive the pumpkin of its nutrients. Our yard looks so much less overgrown now that a huge chunk of pumpkin vine is no longer growing over everything.

We also grabbed the pumpkin that we thought would have a sad death about a month prior (Nate, not noticing that a pumpkin was growing in the vines that had been inhabiting our grass space for too long, accidentally cut it off the vine. I'd put it on the patio with the intent of throwing it away (as there was a gash in the side of the pumpkin that I thought for sure would rot) and then promptly forgot about it. Amazingly enough it kept getting more orange in color and didn't rot, so that became a small pumpkin for Abby to carve.

Abby carving her "cut early from the vine and forgot to throw away" pumpkin with a vengeance! Nate was super helpful with being her guiding hands. I was chilling in a lawn chair scarfing down McDonald's oatmeal and pancakes (LOVE the breakfast all day option!) as Abby and I had come from a birthday party for one of her classmates but had had to leave right before they served dinner to make this neighborhood party. I was starving!

This year our party included roughly 15 adults and 10 kids. Music was playing, snacks were chilling, adults were chatting, and kids were carving pumpkins or running around playing. I love my neighborhood and my neighbors!

Beginning their masterpieces. 

Getting and giving input on the best designs to carve.

Getting to pumpkin perfection.

Introducing paint to the carving procedure. That's also our pumpkin in the background behind the stroller. 

Finally, the time came when all the kids' pumpkins were carved and the adults (Nate and Damien especially) could focus on Big Bertha. The first knife didn't make a dent in the skin and the second knife wasn't long enough to reach all the way through to the inside of the pumpkin. Knife number three did the trick - sharp and long enough.

Nate sticking his head in the top of the pumpkin just so see if he could fit. Yes, yes, he could.

Damien and Nate working on the pumpkin's face. We decided to do a traditional face and make as few as cuts possible as each cut was exceedingly difficult. 

Our finished result! Gigantic Jack o' Lantern!

We were all so proud of how big the pumpkin was and how nice the carving turned out. Then we got a little silly with it as someone wondered out loud if it was big enough to fit a small child. Well, let's find out!

Awesomely, Abby fit inside the pumpkin! All the neighborhood kids (even the older 11 year-olds!) took a turn either inside, heads upside down inside while remaining outside, or other various funny poses. 

We also got this sweet family photo, too. 

Our giant pumpkin on our porch next to two very normal sized pumpkins.

I know this post has been a lot about "The Pumpkin" but the pumpkin would not have been as much fun as it was without our neighbors celebrating its carving with us. We left a very fun birthday party early to attend this gathering and even more crazy....I gave up a much desired scrapbooking night to be here with friends and family. THAT'S how awesome this party was. Thanks again to my neighbors for a wonderful get-together! Already looking forward to next year's festivities. :-)