Carving Pumpkins!

A couple nights before Halloween we rounded up the kids and jumped right into carving our pumpkins!  We chose 2 pumpkins just to be easier on all of us :)

My favorite picture!!!! They all look happy and they are all looking at the camera!  Woo hoo :)

Halloween Party

Halloween in Minnesota was a really good time.  Our new neighborhood does a fantastic job of pulling together and making fun events for the kids...well, the parents too!  The Saturday before Halloween we had a neighborhood party.  All the kids & parents dressed up for a fun night of activities.

Families coupled up and sponsored a game in their garages.  We covered one side of the neighborhood for an hour then moved onto the other side.

Along with the game they usually handed out some sort of prize.

The most fun thing about this weekend was that Aunt Michelle & Kylee were in town for a visit.  It was Kylee's 13th birthday and she and Michelle spent a day at the Mall of America and then a day visiting us.

Elese had an adorable costume that we made at home.  She was "Gluten Free Girl!"  Kylee dressed as Sun Drop Girl, Emery as a Shake It Up character and Eliot as a pirate. 

We made our rounds to the houses and had a great time.  Eli well, that's another story...he wasn't into dressing up for the party!  Sigh...this is his typical Halloween attitude & I have no idea why!  Seriously, he does this every year.  Scott & I just ignore it and move on.

I love how all the neighbors really put the fun into for the kids.  There are sooo many kids here and they are truly making memories together.

Eliot was pretty amazed at the games.  He would participate but took it all in first.

Once he had the ring pop he was golden!

Love it!

Sweet Makenna was dressed as the main character from Brave.  Emery & Makenna have become friends and she lives just two houses down!

We finally made it down to our garage!  We had ring toss around 2 liters and the Bozo Grand Prize Game...which was a total bust!  We had the cans too small and too far apart so we just ended up going with the 2 liters.  I'm telling you, if you ever need a game that the kids LOVE, do a ring toss around 2 liters.  I swear you won't go wrong with that game!

Ok, ok, so Tracy didn't bring all Coke products down but hey it's ok!

At this point Eliot was FROZEN and was happy to sit in the stroller and suck his thumb :)

So here's my costume for the night..."Super Mom!"

Keith & Scott were all dressed up too!  Scott was Coach Tressel as a throw back to our Columbus days.  He carried around Tressel's book and passed out tattoos to everyone.  Fun times!

After all the games we had a costume parade then that night there was an adult party.  Looking forward to another great Halloween next year :)

Fall Break

Since school doesn't start until after Labor Day, our kids don't have much of a fall break.  We did get 2 days off and Scott took a day off to spend some time as a family.  We decided bowling would be a good option for a day of fun!

This is Eliot's first time to bowl.  He loved it and enjoyed all the kids helping him.

Elese had a good time too!

Scott was all about showing us his bowling skills.  A couple of years back a co worker to him to his parents bowling alley and they outfitted Scott with spiffy white bowling shoes and a shiny ball.

I think he's still got it!

Check out the face...he was determined to carry his own ball!

Big sister help...love the face!

They didn't have shoes small enough for Eliot & Elese so they just wore their socks.  About half way through both little ones lost interest but had a great time.

Eli turned out to be the best bowler aside from his Daddy.

I got some cuddling time when Brother Bear got tired. :)

I have to laugh at this one.  This is a typical photo of the 6 Pack...at least one person isn't cooperating!  Oh well, at least we were all there :0  We finished off the afternoon with lunch at Red Robin and a nice nap.

Fire Station Open House

Right outside of our neighborhood is the most beautiful fire station that I have ever seen.  It's so close that we can walk there rather quickly.  In November or maybe it was October, they had an open house.  It was a rainy day so we ended up driving over but it was still a great time!

They had a cute fishing for prize station for the kids 5 & under.

Eliot was very curious about the fishing!

Elese was actually pretty knowledgeable about fire safety because the firefighters had just visited her school.  Also, this is the 1st time she climbed up into the truck.

Eliot was a little scared of the truck but went along as along as big brother and sister were with him!

Out of all 4 kids Elese & Eliot were the only ones that would wear the fire hats.  Made me a little sad that Em & Eli were getting too big for that :(

Our neighbor down the street Bob is a firefighter!  We got to see his uniform and check out his locker. 

This is Jeanne our next door neighbor.  She & Elese are great friends.  Jeanne was spending the weekend with her Dad and we just happened to run into them at the open house.  Sorry about the pictures...my camera was not cooperating inside the fire station!

Elese & Eliot spent a good amount of time in the bouce house.  This was Eliot's first time to actually go inside & jump!  He always says yes but never goes inside.  We practically had to pull them out to leave :)

The slide on the side was another favorite!

As soon as Em & Eli saw the snack station they were headed right there.  Thankfully they were serving Coke!

Check out Eliot's eyes...he was super afraid of a character that was coming around.  He's at the age where those things scare the day lights out of him!

Our next stop was to check out the CPR room. 

I swear Em looks just like me here.  She was acting so silly about performing CPR...we all had a good laugh just watching her.

Eliot sat there but wouldn't touch the dummy.  He was a little weary.

One of the demonstrations was to put out a grill fire.  I was glad to learn about this because this could so happen at any time!

This was some serious business...Eliot was all.over.it!

The most fun part of the day was operating the actual hose.  All of our kids would have stayed here the entire time.

Such concentration from Eli...tongue even hanging out!

Go Emery!

I'm Back!

Well some of you have probably noticed that I haven't been blogging in awhile.  My computer has been broken for way.too.long!  Thanks to my Mom and some little computer elves, I am now back up and running!  Thank you so much Mom :)  More updates to come...