The best Part of Fall

My favoritest part of Fall is the leaves.  I remember playing in lots of leaves growing up.  We had a Ginko tree in our front yard that produced a lot of leaves.  Over these last two weeks, we have been collecting lots of leaves in our front yard. Lots and lots of leaves.  It was finally a nice Autumn day right after Halloween.  I wanted to take the kids outside to pass on the tradition of leaf jumping.

Whitney LOVED, LOVED raking.  She spent a lot of time raking.  I hope she will still love raking so much in the future when we want to give her that chore.  Now, Whitney has been asking us everyday if she can do more raking.

Rachel wanted to get into the action also.  She could not rake very well because the rake kept getting caught in the grass.  But oh well.  She thought it was fun and we ended up having to take turns with the rake.

After we got a big pile, it was time to jump in.  Whitney was the first one brave enough to step into the leaves.

I put Megan in the middle of the pile and she not impressed.  She started crying right away.

Rachel also got into the action of jumping in the leaves.

Whitney 'swims' in the pile.

Megan would get right on the outskirts of the pile and watch everyone else playing.  She still didn't like the leaves.

And getting buried under the leaves by daddy.  

Whitney and I had a leaf fight.  

Whitney got even more leaves on her during our leaf fight.  There was a lot of laughing, so it was fun.

I hope we have some more enjoyable Autumn weather.

A "Shiver Me Timbers" Halloween

I wanted to do a family themed Halloween this year, like being the Incredibles last year.  So we were going to be a s'more.  But that just didn't work out.  So we decided to just dress the kids.  But they sure were cute.

We had an old pirate outfit that Whitney wore two years ago but still fits the kids.  I found another pirate outfit at WalMart.

I wanted Megan to be a pirate also, but they didn't have any in her size.  So I decided to make her a shark (that, at least, chases pirates).

Shark attacks the couch.  Watch Out!

This is at the beginning of our trick-or-treating.  We went to a special trick-or-treating in the afternoon down Main street Hermiston.  You can tell this is at the beginning because Megan still kept her shark hood on.

Lots of the people giving out candy were dressed up, but I didn't get to take lots of pictures since I was too nervous about children getting lost.  There were thousands of kids.  It was pretty fun and the girls got lots of candy.

We went down to Pasco and the kids had another go at trick-or-treating.  They were already tuckered out from the afternoon, so we didn't stay out too long.

THere were lots of really cool decorated houses.  Whitney and Rachel were both a bit scared by some of the decorations, especially the ones that made noises.  They made me ring those doorbells.  All in all, a very successful Halloween.  Next year I will plan a family costume a little earlier.

Pre-Halloween

I have not been a good blogger lately.  I know that I should have posted this like a week ago.  But here are some of our pre-Halloween but getting ready for Halloween pictures.  We didn't do a lot this year, but the kids didn't seem to notice.

We went to the pumpkin patch that we went to last year and this year they were charging for everything.  That was depressing.  But going to just the pumpkin patch part was still free.  The boy in the middle is my brother Conner; he came along with us on our excursion.

Megan liked touching all the pumpkins.  This was a good one.

The real winner was the big corn box.  There were all kinds of toys for digging and dumping.  Megan liked playing in the corn also.  I don't think she ate too many.

We put up our Halloween crafts outside, instead of regular decorations that you have to buy.  The kids were really proud of their artwork.  Unfortunately, there were a couple of rain/wind storms in the week before Halloween.  So some of our artwork disappeared. 

Will took the girls to the primary program practice and then the Halloween carnival they have afterwards.  I wish that I could have gone, but I had Stake Auxiliary Training.  Oh well.  There is Rachel picking out a prize after playing a game.

I didn't get to actually see the mustaches, but the girls sure were excited to tell me about them.

Rachel decorates her candy bag.

We spent an afternoon doing pumpkins.  Whitney and Rachel both really liked pulling out the seeds and goop.

Whitney watches Will carve her pumpkin.

She ended up getting a ghost pumpkin.  I carved a face for Rachel's one.  Anyway, those are the pre-Halloween pictures.  Stay tuned for costume pictures in a couple of days.

Some Halloween Crafts

I looked on Pinterest to find some easy Halloween crafts for the kids to do.  I didn't want to buy anything, so I just found crafts that I already had the materials for.  I promise these are really simple crafts.

Painting a paper plate orange to make jack-o-lanterns.

We decided to start on the other crafts while we waited for the paint to dry.  I wasn't sure if Megan would let me trace her hands, but she did a pretty good job.

Making the two handprints into spiders.

Then we made ghosts - Whitney was impressed with my cutting out the ghost figure.

The ghosts turned out pretty cute.  The kids didn't put on very many white cottonballs.  You are suppose to cover the whole thing.  Oh well.

Then the paint was dry and I cut out a bunch of random shaped black paper so the kids could make their faces however they want.

Here are all the finished products.  Megan had a a lot of help with her face and she didn't want to do the ghost, but her little spider with little hands was so cute.  I think the spiders were my favorite, but I think the girls liked doing the pumpkins the best.

The Many Sides of Whitney

Lately, Whitney has asked (demanded) that we take lots of pictures of her.  She will be doing something funny or silly or whatever and just be sure that she needs her picture taken.  I have mostly indulged her (Thanks to the wonders of a digital camera where I don't have to print everything) and have gotten some silly pictures.

Loving mom's make up and posing for the camera.  I am not sure why she likes to stretch her arms out like that.  But she does.  Should I tell her that she missed a spot and her nose is still clean?

Rag on head is so funny.

This towel with the hood has gone up in the 'cool' factor lately.  Now it is a great toy to play with, like a cape or something.

Bowl on head, legs and arms outstretched.  Whitney thought this picture was quite funny.

The baby attacks the Whitney burrito.  What should we do?

I don't know how much Megan enjoyed that hug, might have been too much squeezing.

And drinking from the 'tea' set.  There wasn't any real liquid inside, but Whitney wanted to pretend to drink from it after Megan did it first.

And having our tea party.  Will is gone for a few days for work.  So we decided to have a pajama tea party.  I got to pretend to be Cinderella, which is something because Whitney usually claims that role for herself.

Anyway, I don't know if Whitney is secretly a model in disguise as a little girl or if she just needs more attention, but she sure loves her pictures of herself.