Halloween 2013

Two days before Halloween Sara, Duncan, and Charlie came to stay at our house.

The next day two packages arrived from Grandpa Dean and Grandma Ellen. Sara and I had fun watching the kids open it up themselves without any help. It was pretty entertaining.

Halloween day was lots of fun. We took some pictures of the kids in their costumes, then had a festive dinner, and went trick-or-treating in perfect weather.

Duncan liked walking with me to the bus stop to pick up the kids most of the days they were visiting. I love the fall colors on our street right now.

Charlie was the cutest little raccoon!

Happy Halloween from a lion, darth vader, ninja turtle, iron man, and a raccoon!

Love that tail!

We ate banana ghosts, mummy dogs, and skeleton teeth for dinner. Spooky!

Don't worry! We got plenty of candy. And when we came inside it started raining...perfect timing!

I'm sure glad Halloween was a lot of fun, because the weekend brought fevers, coughs, runny noses, and very little sleep. The Rich boys ended up getting Croup. Despite the craziness, we're grateful for the time we got to spend with them and hope that the next time we get to be together everyone will stay healthy. Let's hear it for someday living in the same time zone (or at least the same side of the country)

Trunk or Treat

We had a fun time at our Trunk or Treat this year. 

Everything was great except that we missed Steve very much!

Cody and Kylee's costumes aren't as cool since they couldn't wear their masks. Oh well. Good thing we got some pictures earlier.

After I put the kids to bed my cousin, Rick, and his wife, Marnae, stayed over and went to church with us on their way home from a road trip. It was fun to have some company even though I don't feel like I'm any fun without Steve. :)

Family Ice Cream Party

A few weeks ago we created a challenge for the kids. Every time they did something nice for someone else in our family or prayed specifically for someone in our family they could put a glass stone in a jar. Once all the stones were in the jar they could each choose a topping for an ice cream party.

Luckily, they completed the challenge right before Steve left for a long business trip...

Livy chose whip cream

Kylee chose Oreos

And Cody chose Rolos.

We decided to have our party the night before Steve left which also happened to be our pizza night. For our movie we watched Holes because we had just finished reading the book as a family. So it was a night jam-packed with fun.

I can see many more family ice cream parties in the future...

Getting Out of the House

A few Saturdays ago we decided to pack up the camera and enjoy being outside before it gets colder. We even thought of attempting to get a decent family picture out of it or maybe just some pictures of the kids, but we didn't want to get our hopes up that high (especially since we didn't have anyone to help us with poses and camera work). Formal family pictures are so stressful! You start with a lovely vision in your head and end up with three grumpy kids and two exasperated parents.

So that's why we called it an "outing" instead of a photo shoot.

Both involve the camera and lots of prodding but one has zero pressure and stress.

We played until it was time to go to a friend, Frankie's, birthday party. He had a biking birthday party at a park: The Tour de Frank. The kids had fun biking around the pond and decorating cookies (each child got two cookies for the wheels of their bike and then they had bowls of frosting and different candies to create the rest of the bike). Their family always seems to have creative and fun birthday parties. Last year they did a nature walk and taught the kids about hiking safety and nature as they walked along the path.