Raking leaves

Depending how the year and the weather our leaves may fall before or after Halloween. This year they started to fall a little bit into November. 

We have a huge maple tree in our front yard that I will say I love most times out of the year. In the fall it drops A LOT of leaves and in the spring we have to deal with all the annoying helicopters. As we have grown up in our house the falling leaves have actually become fun of the kids.

Like most other kids the joy of raking the leaves into a huge pile and having someone either throw you in i.e. Daddy in their case or jumping in can entertain and have a lot of fun for a long while. This year Olivia was able to join in on the fun. She is a little more of a girly girl so she was not too interested in being in the leaves. Her fun came with putting on the tutu and dancing around the pile ; )

With the boys getting older we are also starting to put them to work a little more. With this job at least we didn't have any complaining, which is a big plus in my book ; ) As they get older and the joy of the leaves become more of a chore then fun I am sure it will change. But at least for the time being it is still fun!

Post Halloween dinner

Even with Halloween being on a Saturday this year, we were bust finishing up costumes, I didn't have a chance to make our special Halloween themed meal. 

 Making themed meal is something I really like to do so I didn't want to skip out on it, so I decided to just make it for our Sunday dinner the next day. 

 We always have the mummy hot dogs so that was a given. The side or the other items I like to see what other fun things I can try and make. This year we went with the vegetable skeleton, witch finger breadsticks and a pumpkin cheese ball. 

For dessert we made grave yard pudding pudding cup. Originally this was suppose to be in one big cake pan. But when you put pudding on top of cake its really hard to have an edible leftover. So I went with individual cups. This way they put as much cake on the bottom then their pudding. On top they put crushed Oreos and then topped it with a Milano cookie for the tomb stone. I also found these bone sprinkles that they could put on top. The boys had a lot of fun with these because they could make it how they wanted : )    

Halloween 2015

This year was a fun year for Halloween. The boys picked some interesting costumes and Livvy was old enough to kinda know what was going on. She also had her big brothers to show her the ropes. 

So this fall Thomas really got into the Titanic. He really likes reading the "I Survived…" books and after he read "I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic" thats all he wanted learn about. So when we asked him what he wanted to be he said the Titanic I had no idea what to do and was going to tell him to think of something else. 

Eric has a pretty creative mind and said he would be able to make it for him and had an idea. He and Thomas made the boat out of cardboard. It took a few weeks to make and paint, but it turned out really nice! Thomas was pretty impressed and so was everyone else! Phillip was pretty funny he wanted to be the boo berry ghost. Yes the cereal that comes out every Halloween. So I went with a blue fabric and actually found this fun little hat at the party store. Olivia I went with a little witch costume. It was fun to make a little girls costume : ) I was able to find a witch hat headband, which was perfect for her! 

Thomas by far got the most comments when we were out trick or treating. There were a lot of people who had their spouse come to the door just to see. He did have some trouble getting around tight spots but for the most part he was pretty proud of all the comments he got. I would have been fun to enroll him in a costume contest ; )

It was so nice to have Daddy come a long this year! We were out for a couple of hours and all the kids made out really well. Livvy was a pro after the first house and realized she got candy after knocking at the door. She really didn't need any assistance at all and was not all a bit shy to go up to the door. She loved it when they thought she was just so cute and let her take 2 handfuls of candy instead of one ; )

Running water !!

By the end of Oct 2015 Eric was working hard on getting the bathroom into a a workable state. After only having one bathroom for over a year, I think we were both excited to see the bathroom start coming together. 

We had actually bought the sink faucet a while back but after getting the sink and countertop in it was time to do some plumbing. 

The first if the running water came with the sink. Eric was relieved that it all seemed to run well and was successful with no leaks! Olivia was the first one who was able to test it out. 

Fall Fest 2015

This past year we had a lot of fun at the fall festival. This year it was fun to have Papa Jim along with Aunt Sara and Uncle Josh to experience the fest with us. 

Olivia is by far the best eater we have. Thomas can eat a lot but can be very choosey in what he eats/willing to try. Olivia will try just about anything as long as she is hungry. She can also surprise you in the amount of food she can consume of just a little girl.  

In the past the boys have been pretty predictable on what they are going to eat. This year Thomas did surprise us with a few things. He has become a fan of onion rings so he got a "small" order ; ) he did eat most of them but I think he did have a little bit of help from us as well. 

Phillip is really into the shakes and ice cream type foods. It was pretty warm most of the days so it seemed to work out well for him, except when his ice cream melts too fast ; )

One of Thomas's favorites is the Texas Tenderloin. There are a lot of booths with this as an option. But as many will tell you after you go to the fest a few time you scout out the good places. This booth ALWAYS has a line so thats where we go. 

Thomas and Olivia had a couple of these. It seems that she was just as a fan as her big bother ; ) And thankfully it was big enough that Thomas was willing to share too!