Halloween Festivities

The Pumpkin Patch

Braden's Preschool had a trip to the Pumpkin Patch and I decided to bring all my kids along for the fun. It had been cancelled because of the heavy rain a few weeks ago (it would have been too muddy, cold and wet for the kids) and the day that it was rescheduled for ended up being super cold and windy (What luck!) We still had fun and enjoyed looking at the animals, going through the straw bail mazes, singing songs in the barn, wagon rides and pumpkin hunting.

Me and the kids waiting for our wagon to take us to the patch.





Braden at the straw bail maze




Sadie on the wagon ride





Mackenzie searching for our pumpkin.



Of course, as soon as the pumpkins were picked the kids were DIEING to carve them!




Sadie got right in scooping out the guts, while Braden was too grossed out. He gagged and gagged and actually even threw up!





But Mackenzie wasn't afraid. I think she is the bravest of the the 3 of them at this age. Nothing seemed to bother her, even the lit Jack-O-Lanterns in the the dark didn't scare her!





Jason helped Braden carve one and I helped Sadie and Mackenzie.





Sadie drew the face on her pumpkin for me to cut it out for her.




She wanted a happy one with bows on the sides, Braden wanted a scary one with a mean face.
They were so proud of their pumpkins!


Parties



Unfortunately I didn't get to take many pictures at the kids school parties since Sadie was sick during Braden's and I had to stay with her instead of help at his school, and then I volunteered to help at Sadie's school party and had a booth that I was running the whole time. Braden and Mackenzie also went to Sadie's Halloween party. Sadie and Braden were gone checking out all the booths the whole time while Mackenzie "helped" me at my booth. I know they had a good time though, they were worn out and had so much fun and that they all fell asleep on the way home!

All 3 down at the same time in the middle of the day??!!



Trick-Or-Treat!

We had a very busy Halloween Day. We had my niece Madison's baptism early in the day, then Sadie and I went to a Sleeping Beauty play by some kids in our community (we knew a couple of them from church), we had friends come over for trick-or-treating around our neighborhood, and then we stopped by a friend's Halloween Party later that night. Good thing for Daylight savings and gaining another hour that night!

The Roberts, McMullen, Hunt and Carter kids pose for a quick picture

Braden, Sarah, Maile, Sadie, Ethan, Miles in the front. Kira, Mason and Caden at the top.
Muscle Man, Witch, Wendy, Flower Fairy, Spiderman, Pirate, Tinkerbell, Peter Pan, and the Hulk!

One more with Mackenzie the Lady Bug in it this time. :)

After examining the loot, they decide it was successful. They couldn't wait to try out all the different candies. Look at spiderman all sprawled out on the stairs, pleased with his sugar stash! :)

Turtle Farewell - a REAL post with pictures (Melanie and Paty!)

Flash Back... WAY back... Uncle Nathan and Aunt Betty gave Sadie 2 aquatic baby turtles on her birthday in May. They were tiny, just born, about 2 inches big. The kids loved the turtles, Mackenzie would point and talk baby talk every time she saw them on the window at the kitchen sink. It was really cute. I felt bad for the turtles though because they didn't really like the attention they got from the kids, they would always hide from them, and they needed lots more space to move around and swim than what I could give them on my kitchen windowsill. They were even sharing some of that space with a little guppy! Oh, and it turns out when those tiny turtles get hungry their little stomach actually can hold a guppy. I never would have thought they would be fast enough or even able to fit a mouth around it since it takes a lot of work for them to eat their tiny pellets we fed them every day. Well, except when we went on vacation. One poor turtle couldn't handle fasting during all our summer outings and passed away during one of them. It was sooooo sad. The turtles sad little eyes were still open looking at me and it broke my heart. I had to have mercy on the other turtle and let it have a chance to live out in the "wild" so Braden and Mackenzie helped me take it to a new home in the Delta. Sadie was at school, she said her goodbyes to the turtle before she left. Here are pictures from the beginning of September...

I let Braden have the honors of "releasing" it into the "wild".

I kinda thought he would put it into the water and then let go so we could watch it swim away, but he chucked it instead and it fell like a rock to the bottom.

I wonder if it was too deep for it there, or if it did ok. We didn't see it come back up at all.

"Goodbye, turtle"

I also learned something new about Mackenzie on this day. She is EXTREMELY afraid of heights. I let her down so she could walk on this little bridge over the water and she would NOT move. She was afraid of the cracks because she could see down to the water 10 feet or so below.

Mackenzie, frozen and terrified of the cracks. Poor thing. :(

P.S. Mackenzie IS wearing shorts with this shirt, although it doesn't look like it in these pictures for some reason...

Speaking of Disney...

We were driving in the city (SF) the other day on our way to the California Academy of Science and I happened to notice a sign about a new museum that opened Oct. 1st. It was called Walt Disney Family Museum. Has anyone been here? Looks like under 6 is free, over 6 is 12.50 and adults are $20. Wondering if it is any good?

It's a sign.

So, the other day Jason lit some candles that were on our fireplace mantle. One of them had decorative twine around it and when the candle melted down to where the twine was around the candle and it started a 3 or 4 inch flame which caused the smoke alarms to go off. It took a while to figure out why they were going off since I was cooking dinner and I always make them go off while I am cooking since I never turn on the fan. Anyway, so I finally realize what is going on so smother the flame with wax from another candle. In the process I got red wax on my nice white mantle. Which I was bummed out about. But as I looked at it again, I think it is actually a sign... I mean how can it be a coincidence it dropped into perfect little....

Mickey Mouse Ears? That's it, we need another Disney trip! :)

Labor Day Getaway!

Location:

Lake Shasta

The Boats:

The Crew:

Celebration:

#28

Jason built me a cake and even made homemade icing (no instructions from the ladies) to decorate it with! He also decorated the houseboat with streamers, balloons, and banners while I was wakeboarding on our boat! :)

Random shots on the lake:

We spotted a bald eagle on the hill one day. I think this might be the first one I'd seen in person!



Flying the mantaray tube! Scary crazy!


Swimming

wakeboarding

Surfing

It was super nice to have a vacation away from the kids (5 whole days!) and my parents were amazing, making an 11 hour drive to stay with my kids, meanwhile leaving their responsibilities on the farm and their other 8 kids at home to give me/us this break. We had an awesome time with some awesome people. Highly recommended, if you are wondering what to do next Labor Day.... :)

So Big!

Braden had his first day of Preschool today! I have never seen anyone more excited about school. He has been talking about going to school for MONTHS and it has been torture for him to watch Sadie to go to school these last couple weeks and then having me tell him he couldn't go to school yet. He is going to the So Big Preschool right by the Charter School that Sadie goes to. I learned about this preschool from Melanie, both Mason and Maile's attended (or in Mason's case, attend) this school. I am really excited about it. It is super cute with everything you could want your child to be exposed to in both play and learning. And the parents are really involved as well.

When I picked Braden up from school and asked him how his day was, the first thing he told me about was that he got to eat a snack at school. He also talked about playing outside and singing songs. When I continued to ask questions he told me "I already told you 2 times". I guess he had enough of talking about it. Funny boy.

Excited for first day!


Showing off Lightning McQueen Backpack (Thanks Betty!)

Cool Guy

The little things

I was going through Jason's I-phone pictures today. Most of them are of the job site and some are of our family and some of our excursions, but I wanted to share a few that I found that capture "the little things" that make his work just a little bit more enjoyable.

Rainbow on the way to work one day

View from his job site in the Oakland hills

View from the job site during sunset

Some car that he was super excited about (can't remember what it was, but I know it is really expensive)

Auction Jason went to to buy his tractor. It was his first auction and he had a little too much fun!

I know some of you are curious about his jobs and I haven't been very faithful at posting new pictures on his work blog. I need to get on it because there are some really great pictures of his recent jobs on his I-phone that I need to get posted. He works so hard and we really love and appreciate him.