Boo!

It was another fun Halloween around here! The kids came home from school and started prepping for the night ahead. They loved their costumes this year.

Cooper was Dracula and Zoe was Miss America.

 Zoe found this great dress at a local thrift shop and decided to make a costume out of it. :)

Cooper loves having cool face paint done, and he really liked spraying his hair black!

We were excited that Sonya, Camillo, and Morgan came down to join us for a while.

The kids loved chasing after Morgan in his little Hulk suit.

They even allowed a few more pics outside.

We had our neighbors over for chili, cornbread and hotdogs.

Zoe was planning on meeting up with a bunch of her friends from dance for trick-or-treating, but at the last minute she decided she wanted to stay with the neighbors and walk around with us. I guess I should be happy I got her home for one more year!

 We hit the neighborhood for tons of candy. The houses were great, and there were even a few haunted houses and some houses handing out full size candy bars!

 We spent some time with the neighbors partying at Todd's house after trick-or-treating then came home to count up all the candy. A great time was had by all!

A good day...

Zoe had a great day at school! She was awarded the Bulldog Pride Award from her science teacher for her hard work and dedication.

 She also got this adorable caramel apple from the teacher that she is a T.A. for. She felt very spoiled and appreciated!

Wish every day at middle school could be this good!

Website Surprise!

Zoe's friend from dance sent her a photo by text last night asking if it was her in the picture. It turns out she had been looking on the American Ballet Theatre website and came across Zoe on their summer intensive application information page!
We immediately got online and saw it for ourselves...

What a fun surprise!!

Fall Fun!

It was time for some fall fun today! We were all ready for a little bit of stress-free family time so we headed to Big Horse this morning for some fall activities.

We took a quick family photo and headed to the maze entrance. This corn maze is more than 11 acres! It's so much fun!

 There were 10 stations and we found every one of them. We ended up passing station 8 about 5 times though, that was definitely our toughest. We each had turns leading, and we used our shoe prints to help track where we'd been.

 We completed the maze in about 45 minutes, and had a ton of fun. 

We had some tickets for a few "fun activities" so  the kids chose the trampoline bungee to start. Zoe got hooked up first.

 Cooper did great, even with a sprained finger...

  Then it was off to the corn shooter. They shot corn cobs out of air pressured guns to try to hit the targets in the field.

 We ended with one last photo.

 The afternoon was spent working on Halloween costumes, and making some yummy homemade funnel cakes!

We finished the night by carving our pumpkins.

 Zoe and Cooper did all of their own carving this year!

 The finished products...

We've all been so busy lately that it was nice to have a fun family day!

Red Ribbon days

The schools were celebrating Red Ribbon Week with "dress-up" days or themes. I only managed to get a few pictures though...

 Crazy socks...

sunglasses...

 and wear red (I think they took this one pretty seriously!)

Somehow I missed crazy color day, and twin day, but I'm so glad they were both into it. It's fun to break up the school weeks with something fun once in a while!

Pumpkin Patch fun!

The month of October has totally gotten away from us! I wasn't quite sure when we would actually make it to the pumpkin patch and I was really hoping to avoid any of the weekend crowds. We ended up having an unexpected night free this week so we took advantage of it. Miss Nicolle had called and said she wanted Zoe to take a night off of dance to give her body a rest since she has been putting in so many extra hours. Although Zoe never likes to miss classes, she was happy for a reprieve and after dinner we headed to Peltzer Farms.

 My camera had a mind of it's own tonight! Some weird lighting, some blurs, some ghost like shadows...strange, but at least I got a few.

  It is a must to see how tall they've gotten! Zoe is happy to finally be getting bit taller.

 

And of course, they need to be photographed in the "graves." 

 and a few other silly pics along the way...

 running around the hay bales is also a must...

 as is jumping over the hay bales...

 

 picking up heavy pumpkins...

 

  and watching the pig races.

 with the great pumpkin watching over us...

 Our favorite part of the night was going through the corn maze. Usually this one is quick and easy, taking us all of about 5 minutes. However, going through it in the dark was WAY more fun!! It was a bit scary, quite a bit harder, and there was a lot more laughter.

 I'm so thankful that we got to do this tonight, and even more thankful that my kids still allow me to take this many photos (even if their expressions get pretty silly!)

Only one more week until Halloween!

Lanscaping project complete!

We've been working on a section of our backyard for almost 10 months now! We decided it was time to get rid of the kids' play structures and expand the grass and Joe's garden. It made me sad to see the play sets go, but it was time.
Before:

During (this phase lasted WAY TOO LONG!):

 After (Finally!):

It's so nice to have the backyard back!