Happy Halloween!

Today we will celebrate Halloween with the Little Man. Hopefully, he will wear his lion costume and have fun with his cousins trick-or-treating. Time will tell. This past weekend, we started the celebration, however, by picking out a pumpkin to decorate, decorating said pumpkin, and attending Halloween at the Zoo. Here are some photos to tell the tale:

First, Saturday morning, S and LM set out to find some pumpkins while I was taking some photos for a friend. We remembered a church up the way had a pumpkin patch, so they headed there to see if they had any left. In fact, they DID. S shot a few photos of the occasion with the small camera. 

At the Pumpkin Patch

The chosen three.

Ready to go to the Zoo!

Our little cowpoke.

Once at the Zoo, after napping on the way there.

Cool costumed characters were throughout the premises, as well as candy stations and activities.

Checking out the children's zoo

Waiting in line for candy


Waiting in line to ride the camel


Riding the camel!


The activity area - bounce houses and more.


The MONSTER Band.


The next morning - decorating the pumpkin.

I found some foam Halloween stickers at Jo-Ann's on clearance. I had been trying to think of a way to "decorate" a pumpkin with the boy that would be age appropriate. I decided decorating the pumpkin with stickers would be something he could do, so I bought them and finally yesterday we got around to decorating! At first, the boy wasn't so sure. But then he TOTALLY got into it. It was fun!

Voila! A decorated pumpkin!

We hope you have a great holiday!

See you soon.

Cousins at the Arboretum

LM and a pumpkin.

Last weekend we took some time to try to get some cousin photos at the Arboretum. Let me remind you what last year's photo looked like:

When that's your starting point, this year's photos look AMAZING! No, seriously, there are some cute ones:

This one Michael took...totally cute.

The girls. Dresses by Kim!

The boys.

More triplets - but I was having trouble with the sun.

Still cute, though, huh?

All five!

All of these photos with the bench were the first stop - when they were fresh - and were also the best of the bunch. Later tries - as you will see - of all five just didn't cut it. 

Still cute!

So sweet of the A's. 

There was still a lot of pumpkin moving to do, as you can see. I should tell you I didn't do so well with his outfit - that shirt, bought for this photo, was really too big, but I didn't bother to try it on until that morning. And, the brown pants to go with it (to match the girls' dresses) fell off his little body, so we had to go with tan. Oh well...this outfit was shot by the end of our time, covered in mud. Because, well there were a lot of pumpkins that needed - ahem - attention.

There was this little haystack maze, too.

All the children seemed to "get" the maze...except our Little Man. He, unfortunately, didn't "get" it - instead, he just climbed over the walls to get to his destination. Yes, he is our son. Oy.

Don't take the easy route, baby.


Another try for a group photo - this time in the pumpkins.
This time, no dice.


Big A was smiling though, even with mayhem surrounding her.


Pumpkins make good seats.


Artsy pumpkin shots...because I can't help myself...


...I just...


...can't...


...help it. Thank you for indulging me.


Try three...I'm sensing a pattern here.


And...one of my absolute favorites...


...they just wanted to play.
Love this one, actually.

But, after that, the kids went over to sit by Nonna and check out the koi fish. This was an excellent little photo op of its own. The funny part - which I wish we could have gotten on video - was the adults running from one side of the pond to the other to capture the moment. Now THAT was worth watching again. But, alas, it's only a memory. 

The boy, he was just about done.

The cousins headed off on their merry way. But, I stripped LM out of those muddy clothes and into his back-up outfit to try to get a couple more photos. It didn't really work...mostly bad, whiney, "done" boy photos ensued.

See...tired.

I thought this one was sweet, though.

And that pretty much wraps up the cousin day at the Arboretum. Until spring, when I'm sure we'll have amnesia and try it again. 

We have a busy weekend planned - Halloween activities and visiting a friend's soccer game. And, S's brothers families and our family will have lunch with my in-laws to celebrate their anniversary.

It'll be fun!

See you soon.