Halloween 2009

As I've mentioned in years past, Halloween is one of our favorite holidays. Each year, we decorate our front porch and yard in anticipation of all the trick-or-treaters who will ring our bell on All Hallows Eve. Of course, we love Halloween even more now that Gracie is part of the celebration!

Since Halloween fell on a Saturday this year, we invited my mom, Noelle, and her family to join us for a day of fun. Grandma Jan arrived first, so Gracie got to spend some 1:1 time with her before everyone else came. For a few weeks, Gracie was really into pretending she was a baby. Here she is, all swaddled up:



After everyone else got there, we went to lunch at Chevy's. Here's Gracie feeding Rubie some chips:



Wow. Apparently they wanted to share that one. Silly girls!



To occupy the little ones while our lunches were being prepared, the server brought out some coloring pages, crayons, and tortilla dough for them to play with.



Gracie was quite pleased with her tortilla-dough cookies:



After lunch, the girlies napped while B and I made gourmet caramel apples:







This is such a great pic of my mom and B:



Here are the guys, hard at work carving pumpkins:







I had to include this shot of Brenden comforting a terrified Rubie after she saw him dressed in his scary costume. It's too precious!



As a pre-cursor to trick-or-treating, we visited a local harvest festival. There were all kinds of fun activities for kiddos and their families to enjoy.

















RuRu doing the chicken dance. It was so funny, she literally drew an audience:



This is Queen Gracie perfecting her bumblebee flying technique:



I thought this was a great family photo:



... and a nice one of Grandma and her grandkids:



Seriously? Have you ever seen a sweeter bumblebee?





I would like to take this opportunity to share some of our spooky Halloween decorations.

Marcus the Carcass:



Squash Face:



Vomitron:



... and some other decorations behind Grandmother Willow and Buzzy on their way out the door:



First stop: Our next-door neighbor Jake's house.



Grandma really is a good sport! She wanted to surprise the kids by wearing a costume of her own, and this is what she came up with. She made it herself! We all got a kick out of it.





The rest of us weren't quite as creative:





I don't think I'd want to run into this guy, alone in a dark alley:



What a haul!



Their candy buckets got so heavy, they couldn't even carry them anymore!



Now for the best part: Taking inventory of the loot. Grace's favorite treats this year? M&Ms



There's nothing like a day of fun to wear out a couple of little ghouls:

PS: I was worried about how to get rid of ALL that Halloween candy without Gracie having a major meltdown, but it turns out it wasn't a big deal. She forgot about her candy after a couple weeks (up to that point, we let her choose a piece after dinner a few times). In fact, I think there's still some up in a cupboard somewhere, but thankfully none of us thinks about it anymore. Crisis averted!

Pumpkin Patch 2009

Before Grace joined our family, I had no idea there were so many pumpkin patches and harvest festivals in our area. Each one offers something unique, so it was quite the decision this year to choose the farm we wanted to visit. Ultimately, we (and the Sages) opted for the Fall Festival at Liepold Farms way out in Boring, OR.

In addition to the standard-issue pumpkin patch and corn maze, there was a whole kids' entertainment area. Here's Chad taking Gracie through the children's mini-maze. Grace loved her glow stick necklace:



... and here she is on a John Deere "triketor" (get it? trike + tractor = triketor):



... riding the merry-go-round:



... and peeking through the playhouse window:



Here we are just being silly:





Both kids really enjoyed riding these ponies. It was great because the ponies got to freely walk around in a field rather than around in a circle while tied to a hitch. We learned that all of the ponies were rescued from abusive/neglectful situations, and the cost of each ride went toward future rescue efforts.





Look what GG found!



Chad with Ben sitting on a GIANT pumpkin:



"Come with me!"



Even Baby Maddox got in on the fun this year:



Shortly after we took this picture, Gracie jumped in a huge mud puddle and got drenched. Luckily, we came prepared with an entire change of clothes (including jacket):



These pumpkins were just her size!



Mama and Gracie on the hayride out to the pumpkin field:



Two little pumpkins hitchin' a ride:



Ummm, would you like some help with that?



I love how she picked one of the only non-orange ones:



What a great day we had! Can't wait to go again next fall!