Trick or Treat

Trick or Treat is so fun to watch.  Them running up to each house, then my favorite part, watching them run back to us screaming what kind of candy they got with just sheer happiness in their voice.  It's awesome.  Princess Peach, Jesse and Jake the Pirate (Tate) made out like bandits!  We went trick or treating with all the tight ends in the Olsen's neighborhood, which is high end, so they were only giving out the good stuff there.  No orange peanuts or candy corn here folks.  Nope, full size candy bars here and there and even the small stuff was the good stuff. Snickers, Kit Kat, Reese's Cup...which, why is called Reese's Cup?  Who is Reese?  I need to look that up...Anyway, trick or treat was a lot of fun.  Wishing I could freeze time.

By the way, the Reese's Cup is named after H.B. Reese a dairy farmer turned candy maker.  I feel better now.

Pumpkin Carving

Pumpkin carving was bittersweet this year.  All the other years the girls were sans clothes during the process.  This year, we didn't think it was too appropriate for our big Kindergartner to be in just her undies.  For sure if they weren't going to be published pictures, but that's not the case, so...no more cute naked bodies flipping and flopping in the pumpkin gunk like in previous years.  Yet another cold, hard fact that these girls are growing up.  Fast.  While daddy was at work the girls and I each drew what we wanted the pumpkin to look like.  Then daddy chose one feature from each drawing.  We used eyes from Whitney, a nose from mommy and the mouth from Lindsey.  That daddy sure can carve a pumpkin!

Writing

So, Whitney is obviously working on her writing.  And when little Lindsey saw big sister write her name on a paper, of course she wanted to do it too.  I'm ashamed to say that I haven't been working on writing with her at home (second child syndrome) and they've only been tracing letters at school, so I didn't think Lindsey's writing would be so hot.  I helped her once to write her name foolishly thinking that would appease her desire.  But no, she wanted to do it again, so I just wrote her name on a piece of paper for her to look at and this is what she came up with!  I was very surprised and proud of her!  Guess they really are capable of more than we think.

Pumpkin Patch

Gotta do the pumpkin patch every year.  Animals, straw bales, a hayride and of course, pumpkins.  But this year we added a corn maze (which really was sorghum) into the mix.  It was a blast!  The girls loved being on an adventure and were ecstatic when we found each mail box check point.  We used the "cheater map" but that was fine by us because, let me tell you, it was still a little difficult with the map!  Love having fun with my sweet family!

Lindsey's Preschool Fall Festival

Lindsey's school had a fall festival with games and a little program with the kids.  They got to dress up in either rodeo stuff or their costume.  Since Lindsey was going to be Jesse from Toy Story, it worked out perfectly for us!  We love her sweet little school up here in Charlotte.  The teachers are so sweet and Lindsey just loves Ms. Melody, the music teacher who does a great job getting all the kiddos to sing together.  Whitney enjoyed seeing her old teachers and playing games.  The doughnut game was a huge hit again this year!

Swimmer

This girl is sweet.  She loves swimming lessons!

Panthers vs. Cowboys

Unfortunately, we lost another one.  It's quite the bummer being on the losing end.  They just can't seem to find a way to win.  There's always next week.  On the up side, our friends Rob and Merideth came to visit for this game.  The girls loved playing with Shelby Claire and it was fun for us to get some Georgia love for a couple of days!

Field Trip to Hunter Farms

Now that Whitney is in school, I get to go on field trips and work in the classroom with her.  I feel so fortunate to be able to do this.  Their class went to a farm to learn about animals and food grown on the farm and pick out a pumpkin.  I love seeing her interact with her classmates and watching her learn!

Feeding the sheep

Whitney with her friends Ameila and Addison

And finally, she found the perfect pumpkin.  It took her awhile to find just the right one.

I Don't Know

I don't know where this was taken or why, well, I know why, cause they are really cute.  But all I know is that it came from Ben's phone and they look cute and really happy to be wearing those hats!

Bye Week in Ohio

With Whitney in school now, our usual trip to Ohio after the season isn't going to happen so we opted to head back to Ohio for a quick trip to say hello to some family and friends on Ben's bye week.  The farm was harvesting so the girls got to spend some time in the fields and in the corn and in the tractors.  They always love that.  We also got to visit with my parents and my aunt and uncle.  My aunt was recovering from hip surgery so we were thankful for the timing that we got to see her when we did.  We also took the girls to see Ohio Stadium which was fun for them to see that and run around on the field.  And the girls got to take in their first high school football game, at none other than Unioto High School.  When we were walking in Whitney said, "I think I heard them talk about the Top Cats!"  The Top Cats are the cheerleaders for the Panthers.  It was then that I realized she was probably in for a big disappointment since the only thing she has to compare to is NFL games.  They really liked the game though and thought it was cool that that was where daddy played and mommy cheered.  We'll take it since in a few years that won't be "cool" anymore. :)

Sweet Girls

Precious!