More October Fun

Friday, October 17th we went with Zach, Tammy & Lana to Gardener Village. Tammy took us to lunch where we enjoyed their famous fried green tomatoes before our entree. Man, those things are tasty!
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We shopped around, enjoyed the beautiful day, and checked out all the Halloween decor.



I always enjoy a trip to Gardener Village, but it is especially gorgeous in the fall.

Christian saw the face painting booth before we went in to eat lunch, and as soon as his tummy was full he went into full on obsession mode. He wanted "paint", "cheek", and "spider" RIGHT NOW.


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We rushed right over after lunch and he got his wish. Faith got a pumpkin, and Zach got a spider like Christian's.

The kids, of course, loved the candy shop (even though it was PACKED and about 100 degrees), but their favorite thing was the petting zoo and pony rides.




Unfortunately, we had to wait in a long line while Buddy was tired and grouchy, but it was worth it!
He LOVED the ride even though it's hard to tell from this picture. The only bad part was when he shouted, "Again, AGAIN!!!" when I went to lift him off the saddle, and then thew a ginormous screaming tantrum the entire three mile hike to where our car was parked.





On Saturday, Faith had her last fall soccer game and she got a turn being goalie. She sure has loved playing, and is sad to not have practice and games during the winter.
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Christian was obviously happy to see her play.




Faith made this cool haunted house in school, then came home and glued on a lawn with a candy corn fence. The next week they made a haunted gingerbread house with graham crackers and candy, but Faith was holding it a little too tightly on the bus and it didn't make it. She was kind of sad about it and said, "I was going to have you take a picture of it and put it on your blog!"

Later that day, while Tony was mowing the lawn, Faith and Christian decided to help by cutting the grass with scissors. Where did they get such a crazy idea??? Carolyn--have you been giving my kids lawn care tips? ;)



On Monday the 20th, we met Ann & Natalie with each of their 3 youngest kids at Arctic Circle. I got this pic of Christian, but then was having too much fun chatting to remember to get out my camera after they arrived!








The next morning, Christian took off his soggy diaper and then, for some reason, ran off to our closet to get Tony's boots. I guess he wanted a Cowboy Nudie Butt retake!

On Saturday the 25th, we went to my mom & dad's ward Halloween party. Our ward party was the same night, but I didn't find out the date until we had already planned on this one. Plus, I LOVE that they have a bunch of people bring crock pots of homemade soup for the dinner!

After dinner they have a small carnival inside the church, and then it's outside for trunk-or-treating. The kids behind mine are Sarah's: the skeleton is Brendon, the first witch is Celeste, then Alaura, and you can almost make out Yoda Noah in Brad's arms. We were sad that Sarah couldn't make it, she had to work :(

After the party, my mom invited the kids and myself to her neighbor's "Haunted Backyard", the proceeds from which were going to Primary Children's. We worried that it might be too scary for the littlest ones, and Noah sure clung to my mom, but Christian was in creepy guy heaven!

Faith thought it was pretty cool, too, but Buddy enjoyed it so much that we went around twice so he could study every spooky thing.

Even after all of that, as we were leaving he was crying, "Again, again!!" I'm sure he would have gone into a complete break-down-fit, but he spied a yard full of Halloween inflatable decorations across the street and out of nowhere cheered right up and shouted, "Yaaaay!"

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The next day, while Tony had a friend from work over to our house to watch the Steelers game, the kids and I went to Lagoon.

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The kids enjoyed lots of rides and Faith took her baby bro on Puff (second car back).

She is such a sweet helper with him. She lifts him onto every ride by herself and gets him all buckled in tight. Truly the best sister ever!

On Monday the 27th, I had a bunch of errands to run and decided that it was time for Christian's first haircut! From now on, I'll probably be doing it myself, but I wanted to watch a pro do it first. His hair wasn't long down the back of his neck or in the front, but the middle hairs were long and tended to stick straight out sideways and had that crazy new baby fuzzy friz going on. This was the end of the trim so you can see that it doesn't really look any different, but it should look overall "nicer" more of the time now.