To Grandmother's house we go...

It had been a couple of months since we saw Grandma and needed to get our Grandma fix in before she went back to Arizona for the winter. We had a really nice visit and it was so great to see her and spend time together, as always! Sammie even got to play with her cousin Jude who is just 1 month older than her :) And of course we had to get a card game in before we had to leave. We let Katie and Drew play and they ended up being Winner and Runner-Up, and out of the 6 of us I was dead-last, but I will blame my kids for distracting me :) I think that sounds like a good excuse :)

(Don't mind my daughter with her finger up her nose :( )

First Halloween - Trunk or Treat

It must have been months ago that I randomly asked the kids in the car what they wanted to be for Halloween and right away Bradley shouted out "A T-Rex Dinosaur!" and without any hesitation Gracie immediately followed with "A Piggie!" Then Bradley asked her if she wanted to be a Daddy Piggie or a Baby Piggie and the answer was a Baby Piggie. It's like they had been thinking about it forever and they were totally ready for my question and it really surprised me. I thought there would be some discussion, but no - their minds were made up and there was no talking them out of it. I kind of even thought they would change their minds or forget since it was months away, but they were dead-set on their decisions. Which was fine with me, I actually really liked the choices, I think they suit them well, but it made it a little more difficult on me when shopping. It's not like we could just go look around and I could pick what was cute (and cheap) like in years past. They knew what they wanted and I had to find them. We did go out to the Halloween stores and I couldn't find either one so I had to order them online, which I actually liked A LOT better! It was SO exciting waiting for them to come in the mail and miraculously (because I had ordered from 2 different websites on 2 different days) they came on the same day at the same time!!! So that was VERY exciting, and luckily they fit perfectly! I am SO in love with Gracie's piggie and I'm hoping to keep it in tact (not like the rest of her clothes that she seems to ruin :) ) so that Sammie can wear it in a couple years.
Sammie's costume was much easier seeing that she couldn't care less :) I had bought a penguin costume from a consignment store when Bradley was a baby but then found something else I liked better and never used it. It fit Sammie perfectly and she didn't even seem to mind the hood (which surprises me because she will not wear hats!).
This was my first Trunk or Treat experience at Bradley's preschool. It was ok, not my favorite trick or treating, but it was nice. The kids got a little trick or treating in and I got to take pictures of them :)

SCARY Dinosaur!!!

Having to mimic everything Bradley does - SCARY Baby Piggie!! :)

Suckers are always the favorite!

Sammie's 9 months!

She is growing too fast!!! I feel like she's bigger than both Bradley and Gracie were at this age, but she's still little on the charts (which I don't pay too much attention to because personally I think it's skewed since so many kids and babies are huge and overweight now - just my opinion) :) She got her first tooth at 8 1/2 months, then a week later started crawling. She was so funny because the first day she'd cry the whole time she would crawl, like she was frustrated that it wasn't going like imagined, or confused about what was happening - I don't know :)
For some reason all the sudden she is a VERY picky eater. She reminds me of the door knocker on the movie Labyrinth - anyone know what I'm talking about? When she takes the ring out of his mouth so he can tell her which door to choose, then he won't let her put it back in and is SO tight-lipped she can't get it in. That's exactly how I feel when I'm trying to feed Sammie sometimes! On the movie she solved the problem by plugging his nose so he'd have to open his mouth to breathe and then stuck it in, maybe I'll try that next time - JUST KIDDING! :)
She started pulling herself up to kneeling against stuff pretty much the same day she started crawling, which has resulted in many bumped heads as she tries to get balance.
She has this adorable face where she sucks in her bottom lip, my doctor says that she has perfected the 'old man smile' :) She seems to be always grinning and people comment on how happy she is wherever we go.

 

Pumpkin Carving

Getting ready - looks like a scene from Dexter to me :)

Gracie once again decided to scoop out the seeds ONE AT A TIME. So it took quite a while but she was determined and was so proud of herself every time she would get ONE :)

Bradley's an old pro now :)

 

Sammie was just crawling around our feet so we decided to give her her pumpkin and she just wanted to eat it :)

Bradley was SO good and drew his face on his pumpkin all by himself. It ended up having layer after layer of teeth and was quite a chore to carve.

I opted for the purple - almost unnoticeable - highlighter for Gracie's "face". She had fun coloring. Later she just told Kevin what shapes she wanted for the eyes, nose, and mouth.

We were talking about how big Kevin's pumpkin was and how Sammie could fit in it, so we thought we'd give it a try. She was somewhat unsure for about 2 seconds, then had a blast hitting it with her hands and didn't want to get out.

 

 

Fall Fun!!!

Oh how I LOVE fall! It's funny because I get SO happy when the weather cools off and the leaves start to change and fall, and Kevin gets SO sad at the same time. If it was up to him it would be summer all year long, then snow on Christmas Day and that's it :) This fall has been great. I remember SO many years it seems to snow as soon as the leaves hit the ground and we seem to skip fall all together. This year we had plenty of time to play in the leaves without them being wet and soggy. Sammie wasn't sure what to think when the leaves started flying, but she did enjoy crunching them up in her tiny little hands :)

 

 

 

 

Pumpkin Patch

We went back to the same pumpkin patch this year - Anderson's Patchwork Pumpkins. Tammy and Craig met us and we picked up Poppy on the way. I love it there. Once again we didn't take the tractor ride to the field because we spent so much time picking out ones set out on the hay bails. Bradley was a little sad about that and I'm thinking next year we'll have to allow enough time to go to the field, not necessarily to get a pumpkin because I definitely like the selection they already have out every time I've been there, but mainly just for the ride :) I love how many different shapes, colors, and sizes they have! They also had a maze set up this year made out of hay bails which was really cool! I tried to go in with the kids in the very beginning but decided to go pick out pumpkins first. Then when we were busy with the pumpkins Kevin took Bradley in and they both thought it was really cool. There were even parts that were pitch black, then you go up and out. I tried to take Gracie later but she was NOT wanting to go into the dark tunnels, so we gave up and turned around :) We got a nice pile again like last year for a GREAT price!!! We got a total of 15 pumpkins and gourds for $25 :)

Our collection of pumpkins :)

Trying to take a family picture... I like how Bradley looks like he's completely ignoring us looking the other way :)

Sammie happy in Poppy's arms :)

Showing off the BABY BUMP! :)