Eerie Extras from October!

The month started out with a pretty fun afternoon on October 2nd.  We started by hitting the library.  Mads found a book on Presidents and she LOVED asking everyone which year they were born so she could let them know who was president that year!

 That same day we decided to make the best of a rainy, gloomy day by making some of Daddy's favorite cookies.  We kept baking dozens and dozens and distributed them to our neighbors!

 Sunday, October 5th, was the annual pancake breakfast to support the Monroe Volunteer Fire Fighters.  After filling our bellies with yummy pancakes and sausage we took a ride in a fire truck! 

 Michael and Aunt Kimmy rode in the front!

 Ready to shine a light on the situation!

 That same night Andrew and I were able to enjoy a date night!

 We enjoyed some sushi and hibachi in Rockford:

and then went to a Matthew West concert!  Matthew West is my favorite!

We were invited to meet up with our friends from Oshkosh, Jen, Isaac & Isisah in Baraboo on Sunday the 12th.  We went to Jen's parent's farm where we spent time hiking, playing, and taking a hay ride!

It was so nice to watch the kids playing together again like no time had passed!

 Then we took a wild and bumpy hay ride!  It was a blast!  Andrew, Nate & Mads all ready to go!

 Group shot with Isaac!  :)

Mads asked us if she could join the YMCA Gators swim team.  Her very first practice was on October 13th.  

Here she's ready to get into the water for the first time as a Gator!

 Working on her technique!

 October is Fire Prevention Month.  Nate got to meet a "real life firefighter" at school, but it wasn't Uncle Jakey!  Check out Nate's cool helmet!

 There were some pretty nice afternoons in October.  The dogs took advantage of the sunshine by resting a bit on the deck:

 and the kids played some baseball together!

 Nate loves to save the day!  Here he is as a Ninja Turtle super hero with an Avengers head wrap?  :)

 The weekend of the 24-25th we helped Grandma GG with a garage sale.  The weather was gorgeous all weekend and the sale did pretty well too!  On Saturday morning Michael joined us for a little bit.  The kids were entertained with pushing Michael around in a box!  :)

 Nate made the best of a day off school by playing hopscotch on the kitchen tiles!

 Dash is pretty cute when he stands up tall to look out the window!

 Mads loves to read and I will never tire of seeing a sight like this!

Happy October - on to November already!

A SUPER SCARY Halloween!

I had an absolute blast with the kids on Thursday, October 30th.  I spent the whole day as a domino (Sorry, no picture) helping out both kiddo's classrooms!

First I went to Nathan's class for the morning.  We had a parade and walked through the upper grade's classrooms.  It was fun to see all the other costumes!  There as a John Deere tractor, many Elsas, a police officer, Batman, and the cool Ghostbuster you can see walking behind Nate in this picture.

Nathan was Clark Kent!

 After helping to load up the 4K-ers with tons of sugar I headed over to Mads' first grade classroom for some fun crafts and games with them!  

We made paper plate ghosts, monster munch snack mix, and wrapped each other up as mummies!!  The kids got their costumes on and we headed to the gym for a fun parade of costumes there!  Many creative costumes on parade there, too:  butterflies, ladybugs, a huntress, Lego Harry Potter, regular Harry Potter, a shark attack, and a lumberjack!

Here is Mads' class all dressed up!

Halloween was the day for all of the trick or treating fun around town.  The kids dressed up and we took a couple pictures.

Clark Kent and the cutest little scarecrow this side of Kansas!  :)

Nate perfected his Clark Kent moves:

Mads showed us her scarecrow pose.  I so wish I had a crow to put on her arm!

Our evening started out on the square where we watched another parade of costumes.  Then we trunk-or-treated the three cars that were participating (a bummer on turnout) and then walked around the square and trick or treated some of the businesses.

We left the square and made our stops around town.  We hit up family, friends, neighbors, and our "secret stop" which was Mads' teacher!

 Cuzzie Michael was a super cute lion!!

 Ringing the doorbell at Grandma Jackie's house!

 A stop at Grandpa Jeff & Grandma Marie's and we were able to get a group shot!  Yes, Andrew and I dressed up as well.  You can't see much of Andrew's costume but he is Bruce Banner and I am Wonder Woman!

Our last stops were around our cul-de-sac at the neighbors houses, then we headed out to our friends' house for a Halloween Party.  The kids had fun playing pin the tail on the black cat as well as feeling some brains (cold spaghetti) and eyeballs in goo (grapes in pudding) while blindfolded!

The next day we took a look at the loot!

 AH!  What are we going to do with all of this candy?

We will be sending candy to the troops through Operation Gratitude!  You can send in your candy through November 15th too!

We Rake, We Jump, We Carve!

We took advantage of the gorgeous weather last Saturday the 25th to spend the afternoon outside.  I raked the leaves while the kiddos played on the swingset in the backyard.  Once I piled the leaves up I called the kids over for our annual leaf pile jump!  I didn't think we'd have enough leaves from our tree this year.  Boy, did I underestimate!  :)

Here are the kids with a big thumbs up, ready to go!

 Ready, set, GO!!!

 Smiles in the pile!

 Thumbs up from Nate and a big wink from Mads!

 My cute little leaves!

 Where's Tater?

 Find the Pickle!

 Action shots!

 It's raining leaves!

 The kids continued to play in the leaf pile while I raked up the side yard.  They had fun for over an hour!  

Sundsay, October 26th was a crazy busy day by the time we got home it was pumpkin carving time!  

Mads helped with the initial removal of the goo - but I don't think she took out more than two handfuls before she said it was too icky!

 Nate wasn't going to help with goo removal, it didn't matter how much we tried to talk him into it!

 Thinking about it...

 EW!  One finger in is all he would do!

 So Daddy finished cleaning the goo, I placed the patterns, and Daddy carved.  

Our finished products!  Mads chose an owl, Nate chose the Superman logo and we have a small rose for Amelia! 

 Ready to light them up!

 Three great looking pumpkins! 

Happy Fall!  It's almost time for HALLOWEEN!