Fall Fun

We've had a busy fall season!  

My parents came in the beginning of October for dual purposes.  First to see Abby and watch her while Brent and I went away for the weekend.  We then had a small birthday party for Abby since they would not be at Abby's 'real' birthday party.  

While my parents were here and did some fall-related mandatory activities like visit a pumpkin patch and put your face through a billboard and have your photo taken.  We went on a Monday so there weren't any hay rides going and it was too early to pick a pumpkin in my opinion so we walked around the pumpkin patch and did the hay maze, corn "maze", played in the kid size play houses and saw some farm animals.  

The following weekend after my parents left, Abby had her official birthday party.  It was a gorgeous day for some outside activities for the kids.  We painted pumpkins and played with homemade koolaid playdoh.  

We carved pumpkins - a Halloween tradition, of course.  We have yet to master the timing of it all - not too early that the pumpkin rots before Halloween arrives and not doing it the night before because it's been a hectic week.  It ended up being Brent cleaning out the pumpkin with a few opportunities for Abby's help and then Brent taking care of the rest.  Hmph.  

We dressed up - three times!  The first time was for daycare - their halloween party was a few days before Halloween.  These are Abby's friends that she talks about all the time.  When we ask her "What did you do today?", she responds with, "I played with Alex and Hadley and Maggie.".  In that order.  Every time.  It's very cute.  After the daycare party, we went to Ikea to go trick-or-treating there with Alex.  Did you know Ikea does trick-or-treating?  I didn't either.  

Abby, (Elmo) Alex (cupcake) and Hadley (Minnie Mouse)

Hadley, Abby and Maggie

Second time was for Halloween night and unfortunately it was raining (like it was the previous year!).  We went over to our friends' house and had the kids do a quick trick-or-treating to 5 houses before we called it quits.  Abby dressed up a bumblebee this night.  

The third time wasn't for any festivities.  Halloween had passed, but I still needed to get an obligatory picture of Abby in the Mittelkamp clown costume.  

We raked leaves  - and then jumped and played in them!  Abby had a blast jumping in and rolling around in the leaves.