A personal challenge.

I thought I would get a jump start on my new years resolution to finally loose my baby weight from Elliot (can I still call it baby weight even though she's about to turn 3?). Anyway, so my personal challenge is to go Sugar-Free from the day after Halloween to Thanksgiving. This has got to be the hardest thing for me, and I'm not 100% sure I can do it, but I really do want to be healthier and this will help me. Why am I telling you all this? Well, I figured I would have much more success if I made my goal public on my blog. Look forward to a Sugar-Free counter.

Knight family Par-ty!

Every year the incredibly generous Knight family host a Halloween party. This year was especially fun, since they had Madam Zucchini and Madam Panini come and tell fortunes, paint faces, and play music with the children. They set up a tent and brought small groups in at a time. They were so funny and creative, never breaking character. The kids had so much fun playing carnival type games, eating pizza, and shoving in as much candy as possible.


Aren't these women adorable. Jen York and her sister were the gypsies for the night. Madam Zucchini told Miles he would be tall and handsome, he would have to be nice to the girls, since he would break all of their hearts, and she also said he would serve a mission one day. On the way home he said to me, "Mom, I don't know if they were real gypsies, but I am pretty tall and cute, and I mean, I do want to serve a mission."
Everyone is waiting patiently for their turn. Thanks Michelle for all the hard work! The kids had such a great time.

Jack's

This year carving Jack O lanterns was great. The kids did most of the de-gutting, and all of their own carving. It was a bit frustrating for Griffin, but he had a good attitude about it. I think the sense of accomplishment overrode his frustration. They turned out great.

What can't Caleigh do? She is so super-crafty, and creative. Her pumpkin turned out so cute.

No, I don't clean Elliot's face.

GUTS!!!

Keene Pumpkin Festival!

Before we even moved to New Hampshire we knew about the Keene, NH pumpkin festival. The town of Keene is an hour and 45 minutes away from us, but it was totally worth the drive. The town is so charming, and the festival is HUGE! Mike and I are waiting for the website to come up with the official count of pumpkins, but there were so many, I don't envy the guy who's job it is to count them all.

These were some of our favorite pumpkins, you could literally spend hours seeing all the different ones. There are some pretty creative people out there.

Somehow we ended up forgetting Elliot's stocking hat, so we bought her one of the pumpkin ones, so cute. We enjoyed just walking around looking at all the pumpkins and eating. We ate pumpkin spice donuts, fried pickles, pizza, hot dogs, and chili cheese nachos.

The pumpkins were most impressive at night. We ended up skipping out early but fireworks were scheduled for 8:30. We all had a great time. We hope to go again next year.

October Fun!

Monday, Columbus day, we all had the day off, and decided to have some October fun. We found a corn maze close by to us, and it was on a charming New England farm. The shape of the maze was in a skunk smelling a sunflower. Throughout the maze they had mailboxes with questions about skunks and sunflowers. All the questions were multiple choice, and each answer led you in a different direction.

We all agreed Uncle Jeff would appreciate the Haunted maze they have there also. Some of the characters looked like something He would create.

And of course we couldn't walk away with out some pumpkins.

Lotsa Locks of Love

Caleigh has been growing her hair out and I have been begging her to cut it (not herself, we've had problems with that in the past). She has gorgeous hair, it just looks scraggly half the time. This morning she decided she was ready, they cut off 71/2 inches which means we will be able to send it of to Locks of Love. I love this little pip-squeak with short hair. Too cute.

Crafty-Crafty Me!

Some how I got the rep of being crafty. Mostly, I just LOVE a project and making new things.

Our ward had a fall pot luck, and Sue Cane( the greatest activity leader) asked me to make center pieces for the tables. I happily took on the challenge (things like center pieces never come easy to me.) I wanted metal lanterns, but couldn't afford real ones, and what would I do with them afterwards? I ended up making my own out of paper. Sorry to Kata who called right after I finished my first one, and couldn't stop telling her how cute I thought they were. Anyway, they were really fun to make, and I love them.


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Griffin's 1st grade fieldtrip

I was so lucky to go with Griffin and all the other 1st grader's to Applecrest farms. It was a change from traditional pumpkin patch field trips. The classes learned all about how apples are picked, sorted, stored, and processed. I loved learning about Bee's and their importance in the apple growing process. I also learned Bee's can't see the color white, and they do actually die if they sting you (a fact I was not sure on). The children got to pick their own bags of apples, and my favorite part were the homemade apple donuts. YUMMY I ended up buying 1/2 dozen to take home, and eating mine and Mike on the way home. Ooops! Don't forget to count the one I got on the apple tour.

Here's Mrs. Weidacher's 1st grade class. Griffin is on the far right.
This was our tour through the farm, we lovingly named her the "General" because she was so good about keeping us all organized and on schedule. I loved her outfit. It was freezing, but she was working those shorts.

Future Photo Ops.

Being renters I can't add too much to the personality of our house. But I did find this cute bench about a month ago at Kmart. It was marked way down for the end of the season, and I just fell in love. My friend Danielle told me once if you want something that bad, then you were meant to own it. I can't wait to take photo's of the kids in their Halloween costumes sitting on my new red bench! Oh and they all call it, "Mom's bench."

Happenings

So we really have been having a great couple of weeks. Aunt Tracy came for a short visit and we had fun taking her to the seacoast science center, then to tour a submarine (Holy Crap, it is small).
Her time was short here, but we love that she gets to come so often. Thanks Tracy for helping with Elliot and her potty training.

Before she left we were able to grab sandwiches at D'Angelo's. The place was busy with it's usual lunch rush and we chose to sit down at a table close to a man filling out an application. Elliot looked over at the 20-something year old guy and said in her loudest voice, "mom, I don't like that boy." He didn't even look up, but there was no doubt to anyone in the place who she was talking about. Uh... I wasn't sure what to say. "what do you mean, what boy?" Wrong questions, because she then repeated her previous statement, "I don't like that boy!" Tracy was quick at covering saying, "Oh, who Griffin, your brother, Of course you like him." She luckily dropped it, but I wonder what offended her?