Halloween, Pumpkin Patch 2012

We had yet another fun-filled Halloween this year!  First, we went to the Sunset Valley Elementary Fall Festival at Eli's school. Thanks to more parent involvement and a bigger, better PTA, the fest was 100 times better than last year. It was outside with bouncy houses, live music, food, several booths, cake walk, haunted houses, and more! As the room parent, I recruited John to volunteer for the 1st grade fishing booth, which was a success! 

We also went to Jed's school fall carnival, which was fun as well...perfect for 2-5 year olds.  My favorite part is when the kids sing their Halloween songs.



For about 4 years now, we have gone to the pumpkin patch at the Elgin tree farm with the Klentzmans.  Jen and I were trying to figure out how and when we were going to go out there this year, which was going to be tricky since Eli and Mia are in school and we had to work around the babies' nap times. Luckily, the first grade classes at SVE planned a field trip out to the Elgin pumpkin patch, so Jen and I ended up taking the little kids there and met Eli and Mia and their classes on their field trip.  It worked out perfect! We got to do the duck races, the corn maze (although it was more like a tall weed maze due to the lack of corn from the drought), decorated pumpkins, the hayride, train ride, picnic lunch, and the pumpkin pictures! We snagged Eli and Mia before they got on the bus home for some quick pics, and they almost got left behind! It was really difficult to get 6 kids to look at the camera at the same time. The series of pictures I took of the kids is funny.

And finally, we went trick-or-treating this year in our neighborhood with our friends who live down the street and have three boys, all a year older than each of our boys. They are good friends to have around! They came to our house for some taco soup and then trick-or-treating. Fun times!

As you may notice, Jed had some costume changes. We have plenty of costumes, so it was hard for him to decide which one to wear. He ended up as Storm Shadow (white ninja from GI Joe for the SVE fall fest and for trick-or-treating, Spiderman for his school carnival, and Iron Man when they wore their costumes to a party at our church). Eli was Snake Eyes from GI Joe, and Max was a frog ( the same frog costume that Eli and Jed wore when they were babies). The boys insisted that John and I dress up as well, so we went with our go-to costumes: John was a cowboy for the SVE fall fest and a Baylor basketball player for trick-or-treating (he also wore his uniform to work on Halloween...no one else dressed up, which he knew), and I was a farmer and a cowgirl.  Next year, we'll have to put some more thought into our costumes.  Jed already told me that I should be the either the pink Power Ranger girl or Scarlett from GI Joe. We'll see...

Max is walking!

He had been standing alone for awhile, but not taking steps. Then he practiced going from sitting to standing by himself, without holding on to anything. After he got that down, he would stand up and take one or two steps and then fall. He did that for a couple weeks. Finally, three days after Max's 1st birthday, he started walking across the living room. It seemed like it was out of the blue when he first did it because I looked up and he was walking across the room! It was like he just decided he was ready one afternoon, so he started taking several steps and falling and doing that over and over. Now, about two weeks later, Max is walking about 85% of the time. When I see Max walking, it still takes me awhile for it to sink in. It just doesn't seem right!  Now we're in the phase of having to keep an eye on him at all times!  He's all over the place!