Halloween . . .delayed

So this blog has been woefully neglected. I have been just crazy busy at home and work and have set aside my journaling needs for other pressing matters. Hoping to catch up here some. I won't pretend to remember what we have done week to week, just know we were busy as usual and visited most of our pass places.
Here's our Claire baby's 12 month pics No I refuse to take any more lying down pics with the bunny.
Sis with her bear and bunny--I plan to measure her year to year against the bear and wanted the bunny as a reference mark.
That's more like her, giggling as she chases me trying to get the camera.
And she loves the phone!

We lived up Halloween pretty heartily this year, here the kiddos are at Barnyard Boo (Thanksgiving Point--free for members, bonus!). This was one of the first days too so the kids got totally loaded with prizes and candy. A later trip wasn't as fruitful, but still fun.
We took Daddy over to see the new Christ statues too, I love it.

The boys had fun with Crazy hair day, care of Red Ribbon Week. They also had a commit to be drug free sign up list and the one with the most entires in each class won. Thanks to Daddy and some of the Jr High teachers who passed it around the classes, the boys both won little prizes. They were so excited.

The weather stayed fairly mild throughout October so we took a chance to catch a few hikes we had missed in the summer during the UEA break. Here we are seeing Donut Falls, really a lovely little hike (and isn't Lowell super Dad!).

Then we made it to our first summit (finally, 3rd time we tried to get there due to road issues), Buffalo Peak

What a gorgeous view! Not a bad hike either, a little steep at the end but we all made it.

Veni Vedi Vici

Lots of Cornbelly visits, including one with our buddy/cousin C


That visit even including trick or treating--they scored!
And we had a bridal shower for Hillary at Sweet Tomatoes--I think it went pretty well. I am not the best planner (/brides maid) but we all had fun and ate well.
We carved pumpkins of course. No one wanted to help Daddy with the guts except for the dogs. :)











Another gardens visit, that time with my mom, here's Carter "introducing" Claire to Jesus.
We had a lovely zoo visit one night, it was a little chilly but also almost vacant and the animals were so active and interactive. Claire was so into it.





More Cornbelly's, we went each Friday morning and my mom was kind enough to come along. This was called the spelunking cave, way too claustrophobic to go in myself but the kids enjoyed working their way through 5 levels.


I had the great idea of going to the Stringtown Halloween train. It's a free train a neighborhood puts on and we have been before and they enjoyed it.This time we weren't able to get there before dark--after dark is more scary and the kids didn't really love it. We may let them grow up a little before we go again.


Gem mining at Cornbelly's--I think we went 6-7 times in the month with our pass.






Inside the inflatable "beast"
Closing day at the gardens (sob)



Good night, until Spring!

Traditional caramel apple night (with Hillary and Todd)--so yummy!

Halloween day we had some fun foods--rotten eggs and milk for breakfast.

The Halloween parade at school







And our family pic--for posterity's sake, we are the Angry Birds, a popular phone app game. I (gasp!) sewed all the costumes myself from a tutorial I found online. Don't look too close. I'm just glad they survived the night.













After trick or treating--we went out for a long time this year--look how full their bag/2 buckets are. Claire stuck it out the whole time with us too, but she was beat. We also trick or treated both of the grandmas houses.

Jello brains

The loot--and yes, we're not close to finishing it and it's December. So, there's the Halloween wrap-up, it really was a fun month. Good weather, lots of family time. And here's Davis with the pledge of allegiance. :)