Happy Halloween!!!

Our Halloween turned out to be pretty calm and uneventful, which thrilled me, because I was afraid that after the kids long day, they would end up tired and fussy. We opted out of going trick-or-treating and just going to our church's harvest festival in hopes to keep the night short & simple so that we could be home in time for our bedtime routine. It worked! We only stayed at church for an hour and that gave the kids plenty of time to eat, play & get candy.


Of course, before we left we had to pose for a few pictures. As you can tell, our theme this year was Peter Pan. Kya went as Wendy, Elsie as Tinkerbell and Seth as Peter Pan. I must admit that they all looked super, duper cute.
Since I can't sew, my mom made the Wendy & Peter Pan costumes. She did a really good job on them. I only wish they could wear them again. Because they were handmade with love, I will have to keep them in a keepsake box. Thanks Mom!!!
We tried for a family picture. This is the best we were able to get.

Since it was already 6:00 and an hour past dinner time, we decided to get some food first. They were serving hot dogs with chili & cheese, nachos and drinks. The kids and I had hot dogs minus the chili, while Elsie just had chili minus the hot dog. Wayne ordered his with everything on it! It wasn't a great meal, but it served it's purpose and kept me from having to cook, feed the family and rush out the door.

One of the young girls in our church gave birth to this baby only 3 weeks ago. Check out all that hair! Seth is currently fascinated with every baby he sees these days. He is so good with them, gently patting or rubbing their hand and feet.

Here is our Senior Pastor, Dale. I believe Kya was telling him a story.

After dinner, we headed back inside to play some games. For every game you play, they would give the kids 2-3 candy tickets. I am sure for the older kids, they received tickets for winning, but the young kids would get them just for trying.


They were given 3 balls and I think the object was to make a tic-tac-toe type win. Our kids didn't get the ball in, but they sure did try.

Kya looks like she had great form here. Maybe she will play basketball one day.

Elsie was even able to play this little game. There was a magnet attached to the end of a string on this "fishing stick" and the goal was to "catch a fish". She thought it was pretty cool.

Seth played too and he did end up catching one fish. Of course, it was "catch and release".

Then we went and cashed in our tickets for candy and headed on home. Now I need to start thinking about next years costumes!

Making pumpkin shaped cookies

Grandma came out today to see Kya in her preschool performance (see a few posts below) and all the kids in their halloween costumes. She also brought with her pre-made pumpkin shaped cookie dough to make with Kya and Seth.

First we lay the cookie shapes out on the cookie sheet

Then we cover them in sprinkles!!!

Pumpkin Carving

Today after school, we carved our pumpkin and gave him a "happy face" as Kya would say. Daddy handled the long sharp knife while the kids looked on.
Then they each used a large spoon to get all the seeds and stuff out. We tried to get them to use their hands, but they thought that was pretty gross.

Elsie wanted to be a part of it too....

and even thought she might want to taste it

Mommy eventually had to get in and scrape out the last of the slimy insides.

The final product! Cute in a scary kind of way.

Going off track for a month

Kya attends a year-round school and so they will be off track until December. To celebrate the end of this semester I guess you could call it, the am/pm classes joined together to perform for us parents in their classroom. When they let the families in, all the kids were sitting on their assigned rug. I was very impressed at how all the children remained sitting and didn't get up to be with the families. They performed 5 songs and 2 nursery rhymes with hand motions.

1. The Wheels on the Bus
2. Itsy Bitsy Spider
3. My Oak Tree
4. Little Miss Muffet
5. Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater
6. Spider on the Floor
7. Scarecrow, Scarecrow


Here the kids are sitting on their rugs when we first walked in and found our seats. As you can see, Kya was very excited that we had come to see her performance.

Here they are doing the hand motion for "the babies on the bus go waah, waah, waah"

Itsy Bitsy Spider is crawling up the water spout...

When they did the two nursery rhymes, they had some of the kids acting out parts of them, while the rest of the class recited the words. Kya was chosen to be one of the "stars" and played Miss Muffet in Little Miss Muffet. I think I may have a future actress on my hands!

Little Miss Muffet, sat on a tuffet, eating her curds and whey
When along came a spider and sat down beside her
and scared Little Miss Muffet away! A special THANK YOU to Mrs. M for being such a wonderful and loving teacher. We can't wait to see you again in December.

NICU Reunion

Our hospital's NICU has a reunion every October for all the babies that had to be in there. Since two of our kids were preemie's and had to spend the first few weeks of their lives in the NICU, we get invited to the reunion. It is always a lot of fun for all parties involved (parents, kids & medical staff). We get to once again thank the doctors & nurses who took such great care of our babies, the kids have fun dressing up in their costumes, and the medical staff get to see what has come of these sick little babies. Also, we reunite with a few other parents/kids who were in our Parenting Preemies class and get to see how their kids are growing.


Dutifully posing for a picture before leaving the house.
Elsie graduated from her infant car seat to the toddler car seat. She also is facing forward for the first time and is LOVING it. She squealed with delight for the entire 20 minute drive.
Our little Tinkerbell

Peter Pan is looking very handsome (sorry for the lopsided picture)

Wendy is enjoying talking to this clown's frog.

The hospital provide snacks for the kids. We got crackers, apples, cookies & apple juice.

Trying for another group picture. It is so difficult to get a good picture of all three kids at the same time. Oh well, they still look cute!

Fun Halloween Food

Fall/Halloween is my favorite time of year and that includes making fun food too. Kya's preschool has been learning all about Fall, Spiders, Bats, Scarecrows, Apples, Pumpkins, Thanksgiving, etc. Since they had just learned about spiders (did you know that spiders eat their own webs?), I decided to make a spider snack. It was a huge hit with students & teachers alike!

For these cute spiders you just take ritz crackers, spread with peanut butter insert pretzel sticks for legs and paste raisins down with peanut butter for eyes.


Then for lunch today, I made these pumpkin shaped hot pockets filled with ham, monterey & swiss cheese and green onions. They tasted really good and were super easy to make, plus the kids thought they were fun.