Sweet Girl!

October - Halloween

 This year, Halloween fell on a Friday. So we took the day off from school and went to the Safari Park. It was perfect! We had been studying bats for the month of October and earlier in the month a baby bat was born in the Safari Park. So we went to the bat exhibit and tried to find her. We didn't see her, but the kids enjoyed watching all the bats and seeing how they interacted with each other. The exhibit was fruit bats so it was nice to discuss the different types of bats and how they are beneficial.

 The night before Halloween, we carved and decorated pumpkins. I love this time of year! The boys were SUPER excited because we allowed them to use the carving "knives" this year. Forbidden fruit. Lucy was jealous and it led to a few tears but they had to wait many years for knife privileges and she will too.

 Henry was completely grossed out by the pumpkin innards. But we told him that was part of being able to use the knife - you had to clean out your own pumpkin too.

 Lucy got to paint her pumpkin, which was a lot of fun!

 Their pumpkins turned out so cute!!

 Then they decorated their baby pumpkins. These turned out pretty cute too!

 Halloween night we got on the costumes, took a billion pictures and headed over to some friends to Trick-or-Treat with a big group of parents/kids. SO MUCH FUN!!  This year, Jonah wanted to be R2D2, so Dan did a fantastic job of making his entire costume. He was the cutest droid ever!

Henry kept asking to be a vampire or a black ghost. Our rule is nothing scary so both of those were out. (Who knows what a black ghost is anyway, but it sounds like something that would scare him at two in the morning.) So he decided to be a "Happy Pumpkin" - his words, not mine. I found this cute little pumpkin on sale and that was super easy!

Lucy didn't really get a say in what she wanted to be. I was between Dorothy and Anna from Frozen. But since I knew there would be about seventeen bazillion Annas, I decided on Dorothy. I'm so glad I did. She was SUPER cute!!! Look at that sweet smile! And bonus, she was so happy to get a "new" stuffed animal (Toto) that I found at a thrift store. Yay!

This is just a fraction of the kids that we went Trick-or-Treating with. It was a huge group and it was so much fun! Can't wait until next year!!

October - Just Cute

Just a few pictures of the kids being cute little kids! Dan went out to mow the lawn and Lucy ran after him insisting she help. Dan is such  a great dad. He didn't hesitate for a second and picked her up so she could "help."

The kids were all excited to make a fort out of the little playhouse and some blankets. So cute!

October - Jonah's First 5k

I'm startin' em early! I joined up with a group of friends from church to "run" a 5k to support the SDPD. Since Jonah was older, I asked if he'd like to do it and he was really excited. The event it called "Light the Night" so the 5k takes place at night in Balboa Park. It's really fun and the crowd that runs it is a good group for Jonah to start with. The event is done really well and they have a lot of fun exhibits and police stuff to look through while you wait for the actual race to begin. The boys and Lucy had fun going through police cars, SWAT vehicles, looking at guns & police gear and getting lots of freebies from other venders.

 They even had a little pumpkin station where kids could paint or decorate a pumpkin with stickers. And the best part was, it was totally free! Then they held the pumpkins until they dried or you came back to pick them up. Win Win!

 My sweet boy did so good! He was really excited to run even though he had no idea how far three miles actually is! So we would run for a while then walk to a specific landmark then run some more. As soon as we saw the finish line, I told Jonah to run as fast as he could and he did! He sprinted to the finish line and left me in his dust!!!

I think he's hooked! And I have a feeling we'll be running more races together, although it won't be long before he's running far ahead of me!

October - SeaWorld

SeaWorld does a really fun little Trick-or-Treating thing every weekend in October. So we met up with a group of friends from church and took the kids around SeaWorld. Sadly, it was blazing hot! It's always weird to do trick-or-treating stuff when it's over a hundred degrees! Anyways, we still had fun and the kids scored a lot of really good candy!!

 The kids all got matching Minion shirts and were excited to wear them to SeaWorld.

 One happy little Minion!

Pumpking Patch

This year we went to a new pumpkin patch. Well, it was new to us anyway. It was pretty cute. Not as big as the one we usually go to, but that also meant it wasn't as crowded. That was nice. Real nice. It's always super hot here in October, so it was fun to have different things to distract the kids from the heat while we were waiting our turn for the hayride and pumpkin picking.

 This tractor was a HIT! All the kids wanted time on this bad boy. Even Lucy. Or maybe especially Lucy! And there may have been some tears when we pulled kids off so other kids could get a turn.

 Love these pictures! They had a fun corn maze that was a REAL corn maze! Like, you could have got lost in this thing! But the threat of danger is what made it more fun, right?!? The kids had fun running ahead of us and nearly getting lost every time we turned a corner. Good memories.

 Lucy enjoyed all the squashed pumpkins. It took a little time to convince her that pumpkins were supposed to be round and their guts should still be inside when you purchase them.

 Happy Days!!

 Loving the hay ride. Except for the scratchy hay we all had to sit on in the 100 degree heat!

 They had a cute little animal display. It wasn't a petting zoo, because we couldn't go into it. But they sold food in the stand and the goats were more then happy to eat it!

My sweet little rascals!!