Happy Halloween!

Although by now you have seen plenty of pictures of Kenzie & Lexi in costume, here is our actual Halloween evening in pictures!



















Once Kenzie overcame the fear induced by a life sized taco with a mustache (a 10 year old neighbor boy 3 houses down and only our 2nd stop), the girls had a good time :) They enjoyed going up to the houses to get treats, but the most fun was had down in the culdesac where they played with the other neighborhood kids ... a fireman, cow, bumble bee, elmo, strawberry shortcake, strawberry, dog and tiger.

What a fun October we have had! Happy Halloween everyone!

Halloween Buildup

We have been spoiled with beautiful weekends this October. And this weekend was no different. We filled our days with activities building up to Halloween.

On Saturday morning we made our way over to Halloween on Hyde Park Square.


There was a costume contest, parade and trick-or-treating with the merchants. We met up with the Stealey's and our little pig & lamb had fun playing with little red riding hood & the big bad wolf.





We thought the girls would have no idea what they were receiving when trick-or-treating since they have never really eaten candy. Oh, was I wrong... they learned very quickly by watching ... and were delighted by the sweet treats.





All three of our kids checking out their loot...



We tried to steer them towards the healthiest option ... pretzels!






Kenzie, Lexi and Tobi (our lamb, pig and cow barnyard trio) won the best child & pet pair division of the costume contest!



Later that afternoon we went up to Ault Park and the girls had a great time playing on the playground and crunching in the leaves!




Have I mentioned that I love this time of year?! Can't beat these glorious colors. Thanks Randall for capturing this photo of Kenzie and me ... I am usually behind the camera and love this pic of us together!







On Sunday morning we carved our pumpkins. Not quite the super-fun family activity that I had anticipated ... for some reason Lexi was terrified of the pumpkins and refused to let me put her down for the most part. So it was basically Daddy carving the pumpkins, Kenzie playing in the pumpkin guts and me holding Lexi. Oh well, not all things turn out as planned. We did end up with 2 cute pumpkins and once they had faces Lexi warmed up to them :)




The girls showing of their (Daddy's) hard work!




We roasted the pumpkin seeds and later in the afternoon the girls helped me make pumpkin granola. Yumm!

After our pumpkin carving adventure, we were off to brunch at our neighbor's house. They invited several of the neighbors over and we enjoyed a delicious brunch while all of the kids played together. What a fun idea! We should do this more often!

Later in the afternoon, the girls "helped" Daddy with some yard work. Kenzie was into sweeping the leaves. Lexi was once again terrified, this time of the leaf blower and wanted to be held by Mommy the whole time.










What a fun weekend! Looking forward to Halloween tomorrow!

{wordless wednesday: make a wish}

firetrucks & slides & leaves, oh my!

It was another beautiful fall weekend. The mornings were chilly & foggy, but once the sun was fully awake the days were glorious. We took advantage of the nice weather and spent much of our time outdoors. On Saturday we went to Hyde Park Square for lunch and enjoyed some time checking out the fire truck and playing in the square. Kenzie was a little frightened by the enormity of the fire truck. Lexi was very curious about all of the gadgets. They both had a blast chasing each other around the square.







While the girls napped on Saturday, Randall took a trip to Toys R Us to pick up a playset for our back yard. He set it up during their nap and it was so fun to watch their reactions when they first spotted it. They ran towards it, giggling and shrieking with excitement! Every time that they saw it for the rest of the weekend they would shout "Slide! Slide!" as if to say, "Can you believe it? We have our own slides in our own back yard!"







On Sunday we had some fun in the leaves. Daddy raked a huge pile of leaves and the girls had fun jumping in it. Kenzie wasn't a big fan of the leaves getting into her shirt and was a bit unsure about the whole thing. Lexi on the other hand loved it, and was quite disappointed when Randall actually bagged the leaves... although she was a good helper in the process. Don't worry girls, there will be plenty more leaves to come this fall!









For the rest of the weekend, the girls took every opportunity to play on their slides ...