The Halloween Party is BACK!

YES! The Halloween Party is BACK BABY!!! What an awesome weekend we had! I know in a previous post (and if I were really cool, I'd know how to link posts and mark lines through text and all that really cool blogger stuff) I mentioned my family having tons of little kids growing up and putting on big Easter E

gg hunts, totally awesome Halloween parties and great Thanksgiving and Christmas feasts. Why then you ask, do we not do this any more? There are no little kids in our family! No little cousins for Jack and Graham to grow up with, no little cousins or big cousins to fight and get in trouble with. Well...this weekend marked the return of the Halloween Party! Saturday night (which was a perfect fall evening and full moon!) we hosted a super fun party for adults and kids. 45 people showed up! And of those 45 people 13 were under the age of five! Talk about amazing! The kids dressed up in costumes, went on a hay ride (thanks to Angie!) and busted piñatas! We tried to roast s'mores but no one was interested in them once they had a bag of candy in their hands! It was truly a night of friendship, family and fun. All the kids got along fantastically running and chasing one another and enjoying just being a kid. It was all that I remembered from being a kid.

Graham dressed as "Rex" from Toy Story 3

Jack dressed as a train Engineer. Sierra gave him Bash right before the party and one could not separate train and Engineer the entire night.

"The Boys"

Max, Bowen, Jack, Lincoln

The hayride. Angie and Lilly drove

All the kids lined up for their turn at the piñata!

Jack

Bowen

Lincoln, the boy is a natural born athlete...

Clark!

Fall Chores

This coming weekend we are hosting our first kids Halloween party. Tons of family and friends are coming over to partake in some tricks and treats including a hay ride, bonfire and pinata. But from all our summer fun, the house has been a little neglected. I mean who really wants to weed flower beds when you could be going to the zoo or hiking in Brown County or swimming in Wisconsin or watching a canoe race in Michigan?

So on Sunday Jason headed outside to tackle our beast of a yard with his trusty helper...Jack. The boys worked diligently outside all morning...Jason raking leaves and burning them in the fire pit and Jack mowing the lawn with his little mower or pushing his train around his water table. Close to noon I brought Graham outside to see what I could do to help...because I really didn't feel like cleaning (although that's going to have to be done at some point too...BOO!). Jason handed me the leaf sucker and I was in charge of sucking leaves out of the flower beds.

For the rest of the morning and into the early afternoon we worked on de-leafing the yard. But of course...whenever there's a big pile of leaves one must take advantage of the opportunity to jump in them. I mean this time only comes around once a year right?! So Jack burried Jason in the leaves and the two of them jumped in them and scattered them only to rake them back up and jump in them again. So much fun watching Jack and Jason enjoy the simple pleasures in life! I can't wait until next year when Graham will be out there wrestling along with them!

I love this picture!

They look like they're working hard huh?!

Sharing some brother time

Graham...enjoying life as usual

Fabulous Fall

What a terrific weekend we had! On Saturday morning Mandi, JT and Jackson came over and we took the kids to the Children's Museum's Haunted House...Skeletown. This was the first time I had ever been to their haunted house...and probably the first haunted house I'd been to since I was in high school! We went during their special "lights on" hours so it wasn't as frightening. Each room we went through was done up with skeletons visiting some famous Indianapolis place. There was a Colts room, an IMA room and various other rooms highlighting all the fun and family friendly things to do in the city. I carried curious Jack through...not because he was scared but because he wanted to explore every nook and cranny possible and we had to keep the line moving. But he did a great job!

What? We're going to a haunted house? SWEET!

Finishing up at the end of Skeletown

Sitting with Skele

That was fun!

We had packed lunches to eat at the Museum and after we filled our bellies we headed over to Waterman's Farm to pick some pumpkins and partake in their fall festival. We'd never been to this place before, but went on a recommendation from one of Jason's work friends. Actually, it was Gretchen aka "the goil's" mom. Jack played with Karis (the goil) while we were at Jason's work conference in Brown County.

Jack and Jackson seemed to have tons of fun running through the corn maze (or the maize maze as Jason kept calling it),

crawling through the straw tunnel and climbing the straw mountain,

and climbing in giant tires.

We took a hay ride out to the pumpkin patch and after looking at every pumpkin there Jack finally decided on a pumpkin to carry back to the wagon.

There was tons to do there including watching a giant mechanical T-Rex smash pumpkins in it's mouth...but to me it seemed to be lacking that "pumpkin patch" feel. The pumpkins were laid out on hard dirt to make the patch and there was no area where you could take that classic "pumpkin patch picture". You know the one where the kids are surrounded by nothing but pumpkins. Jason liked this place better because there were more activities so we'll see where we end up next year. Maybe we'll try another place! Each year we'll just experience a new pumpkin patch until we find that "perfect" one!