October Festivites

During the fall we always have so much fun preparing for Halloween. It is a beautiful time of the year to be outside and the kids love all the activities we do relating to autumn. This year was a lot of fun for me, especially, because I was still on maternity leave and was able to enjoy being home with the girls. Some of the highlights this year were pumpkin carving (as every year is), making a scarecrow with grandma Nancy (oops, we forgot to get a picture), searching for pumpkins throughout the neighborhood (Mylee was obsessed with "Ppppaaa"s), counting the bats and spiders hiding downtown Howell, visiting the animals at the Howell Nature Center, trick-or-treating during the Legend of Sleepy Howell and having cousin Jordyn win the funniest costume, searching for personalized pumpkins, and then ending the month with an unforgettable trip up north to celebrate Jaelyn's 6th birthday and spend time with the family and compete in the annual Kriegl pumpkin carving contest (post to come).

Pumpkin Carving as a Family

Our first attempt at getting a picture of the 3 girls with pumpkins

Kynzee all smiles by herself

Mylee loved the pa's on her shirt

Maddy showing us her pumpkin she picked out at a local farm

Maddy and Daddy cleaned the pumpkins out as Mylee and Mommy watched as we are both texture freaks and find the pumpkin guts pretty disgusting

...in fact she gagged

Mylee enjoyed her first pumpkin carving experience nonetheless

Maddy helped me poke holes

Our finished products...Shrek and Elmo
(We had to go easy this year as we have our hands full with the 3 kids as it is)

Searching for Bats and Spiders downtown Howell

Mads and Jojo enjoyed our night out as a family walking around downtown Howell

Maddy finds a spider

Mylee does too

Kynzee slept through it all...next year she'll be able to help

Maddy throwing a fit when we where finished

Howell Nature Center

The girls loved this buck...actually they loved all the animals

It was gorgeous walking through the woods on a fall day and having all the leaves crunch under our feet. This was one of my last days on maternity leave with the girls and it was a great way to spend the day!

Legend of Sleepy Howell

Another attempt at the 3 girls together, this time with their costumes
before going trick-or-treating downtown
Maddy - Pippi Longstocking
Mylee - Pippi's monkey Mr. Nielson
Kynz - Pippi's horse Mr. Alfonzo

Freckle-faced, red-headed girl

She is our monkey...that's for sure
She says she is an "uh, uh, ah, ah"

Can't get enough of this sweet pony

Jordyn as a baby
(She won the funniest costume in her age category)

Look who's coming to your town...2 Pippis

Maddy with Hayden and Kendal who came to enjoy Howell with us
and reap the benefits of still paying taxes here

Love this picture of Hayden...and love this girl to death

The gang losing control at this point (minus Marnie who was working)

Personalized Pumpkin Hunt

Trying to get a picture of the kids before letting them loose to find their pumpkins

Maddy helped Mylee find her's in a leaf pile

Maddy happy after finding her's hidden in the sand box

Kynzee apparently still looking for her's even though she is sitting right next to it

All 12 pumpkins after being found
My dad did an awesome job on the pumpkins this year.
The kids just loved having their OWN pumpkins.

All the grandkids accompanying their pumpkins and smiling

Grandpa wanted another angle and since the kids were cooperating we were able to get it

We tried again with costumes but by this time the kids were DONE
We should have known better

We tried another one of our 3 girls in their costumes
(I'm hoping next year will be a little easier)

Love this picture of the beautiful birthday girl
"Happy Birthday Our Sweet Jaelyn"

We unfortunately did not get any picutres from Halloween night trick-or-treating. We got home 30 minutes before it was time to go out so we were rushed. I took the older 2 girls out for about 30 minutes. Mylee was more interested in riding her new bike but eventually figured out what Maddy was doing and that she was getting candy so she participated. She was pretty cute running up to the houses holding her bag up. She would say please and thank-you but wasn't quite able to say trick-or-treat. Maddy was sweet helping her up the steps and telling her what to do. We only made it half way around the block and Maddy was ready to go home and hand out candy instead. Mylee was ready to go home and eat the candy. So it was over and done with before I even thought about taking pictures. Good thing we spent all month trying to take pictures of the girls in their costumes.