Almost forgot Grandparents Day...

Liv's school did their annual Grandparent's Day a few weeks ago. And while I am no one's grandparent, I am the room mom, so I organized the whole shindig. We had coffee, juice, donuts and I even made pumpkin pie bites. The kids sang and read poetry to their grandparents and made cards to send to our troops. Liv's teacher passed out awards and Liv's Grandma won for being the Early Bird. And afterwards, the school conveniently had the Book Fair scheduled so that unsuspecting grandparents could be suckered into book buying. It was a fun morning, and my kid has 8 more books than she started the day with...

Fire Truck House

I've been telling Josie forever that I would take her to her Uncle Rick's fire truck house. It's been hard to work out a time to go--it's way north of town, and I've got to work around Liv and Josie's school schedules and Rick's work schedule. Anyway, the stars aligned last week and the time was upon us. I picked Jordan up on the way, and away we went. Josie loved the trucks and would have stayed all day. Rick showed the girls everything...all the lights, hoses, cool firemen tools, and even the ambulance. Liv was a little bit disappointed that there wasn't a pole to slide down, but all in all the visit was a success. We ate lunch afterward at Oil City's finest...Gotta Pizza. Then we Gotta Outta there....

This week we did Thanksgiving and got the house ready for Christmas. You should all be on the edges of your seat waiting for that...

Funny Stuff

As it turns out, the picture of Robyn with her llama counterpart and Kingsley feeding the giraffe were too funny not too share...

The Fair...very belated

So, Robyn and I took the kids to the Fair, like a month ago and I was psyched to blog about it until I let a month go by...now I mostly want to have you fine folks look at the pictures and glean from them all the fun we had. The kids rode rides, we had snacks, and my personal favorite was feeding the giraffes. Sure, I have funny anecdotes about Josie's first unsupervised by a parent ride and how funny Kingsley and Josie thought feeding the giraffes were and finding the llama that looked just like Robyn, but the moment has passed...I'll just leave it as fun was had by all...

And, I'm gonna get back on track with the blogging. I was doing so good with the Halloween posts, then I just kinda fell apart...

Tomorrow I am taking the girls to Uncle Rick's fire station...fun, fun!

Because I'm artsy

Check out what my little point and shoot camera captured last week...sure my outdoor conditions were perfect, but still impressive I think. I especially love my background bokeh...

Happy Fall

Josie and I accompanied Liv's class on a field trip to the Pioneer Heritage Center last week. Because Josie couldn't pipe down (which is fine because she is just 2 and hasn't yet developed an interest in history), we spend the whole field trip outside while Liv listened to the guide explain things as they went from building to building...on the downside I didn't get to really do anything with Liv besides be at the same place she was, but on the upside I got some really cute pics of Josie in the leaves. This one is my fave...

Parachute

At Josie's MDO church's fall block party they had a parachute set up, sorta. They were gonna do rides but something with that plan didn't work out so instead they blew up the balloon enough for it to be full of air but not lift off the ground. We got to walk into the balloon--it's really big in there. Like bigger than the Denler Estate for sure, so we're looking into selling the house and moving into a parachute. In the meantime, here are some pics I got whilst trying to channel my inner photographer. Also, this is what we look like when we stand in a parachute-minus Olivia, who said standing in a balloon wasn't fun or cool as she ran back to the bouncy slides. As a sidenote, half an hour later Liv asked if I would go with her into the balloon....it was cool after all.

Trick or Treat

So, this is it--the last Halloween related post I have for you...finally! This year we (and especially Josie) trick or treated to death. Four times actually. Our first time was after Pumpkin Shine when we joined the Stewart family at their church for the annual trunk or treating thing they do. This is our third year there and Josie's warm up to perfecting her request for candy from strangers. We also went to Josie's MDO church for their trunk or treat, Josie also trick or treated during MDO....all of this before Halloween actually got here. By Saturday night, Josie was ready to go and had started to think that Halloween was a permanent state and trick or treating was something she was gonna get to do every day for the rest of her life. Saturday night we went with my niece and nephew, and thank goodness because Jordan spent a lot of time carrying Josie for us. Liv was with us for 2 of the trick or treating nights and I missed her in every picture....I'll do better next year. Josie was a big hit with everyone she met--and she especially liked the 'coyote' (actually a homeowner who answered the door as a wolverine, Josie howled at him and wanted to pet the coyote) and clown that gave her candy. Kevin especially liked the house that was passing out frito pie. Everyone wins. By the time we made it to the McKee house, we were all tired. We came in and rested and visited with Kris, John and Baby Lillian while Kevin retrieved the car. Halloween was a week ago and Josie still talks about going back to Halloween land....

Pumpkin Shine

I think, behind the revel, Pumpkin Shine is my favorite local community thing to do. It happens at Betty Virginia Park and there are about 1,000 lit and carved and painted pumpkins. Lots of the pumpkins are done by the kids at Southfield School--this year we saw lots of where the wild things are displays, and bumblebees are always popular. I liked the cloudy with a chance of meatballs setup, the monsters under the bed display and the pirate ship. We put the girls in their costumes because after the Shine we go with the Stewarts to their church's trunk or treat. This is your first look at my little bumblebee and candy corn witch. The pumpkins are set up around the path of the park so you just walk through but it is fun every year. This year was fun because I got to have a mini reunion with most of my lady friends (sorry we missed you Candance). My family, and Teddy, Alan, and Logan, and Kristen and baby Lillian, and Dani, and my mom all walked the park together.

I'm gonna try to wrap up my Halloween posts tomorrow with trick or treating...then we move on to the Fair!

Pumpkin Math

Liv's class at school did Pumpkin Math this year...and I really didn't know what I was getting into when we started. We had a total of five moms that each brought a different pumpkin--min was tall and skinny. We each had around five kids at our table--I had Liv, Whit, Mason, Ragan, and Antonia. This project was for both a math and science grade so before we carved it we had to predict it's weight, circumference, how many lines were on it, and how many seeds would be inside. After the pumpkin was weighed and measured and counted it was time to open it up. I brought a cheapy little set of tools with me and they were no match for my pumpkin. He was super thick and by the end I had scooped out several pounds of innards and 560 seeds. Seriously, 560 seeds--the kids at my table predicted around 50. After that mess was gone we had a pretty heated debate over the design of our pumpkin. In the end, all time allowed for were some traditional triangle eyes, nose and mouth. The kids were proud and I think we all got an A.

Family Carving Night

We waited until about a week before Halloween to carve up this year's selections. Josie chose Elmo and Liv chose a creepy fire face thing. I really wanted to do a monster alien thing, but I was overruled...maybe next year. Kevin is always in charge of cutting open the pumpkins and scooping and cleaning out the insides. He did get some help from Liv this year. After that was done, we were ready. Liv and I taped on the templates and got busy outlining. I love the little toolkits we get, with those the pumpkins always come out looking great and take just long enough to not lose Liv's concentration. Josie wanted to help too so she just poked random holes into the Elmo pumpkin while we told her how great she was doing. We got the pumpkins carved and lit by dark. In the end, we had to throw the pumpkins away the day before Halloween because they were rotting and attracting millions of bugs. Up next, Liv does Pumpkin Math at school and Pumpkin Shine...

Pumpkin Patch

Here we go with the deluge of Halloween posts....we'll start today with the pumpkin patch. I don't know why I get so excited about doing this every year, but I do. We do this, and family carving night as a yearly tradition. So, a few weeks before Halloween the girls picked out themed shirts and off we went. We spend a ton of time looking at the pumpkins, get faces painted, playing tag, taking

pictures, making our official pumpkin selections. This year we went with the Stewarts. Kevin is really the official pumpkin shopper, as he is known for his discriminating taste. Just look at his wife. We try to get a fat round one and a tall skinny pumpkin every year. This year the girl's also picked out baby pumpkins just to have as decorations. Next up...carving!