Thanksgiving

I know that I am late in posting but I want to catch up. For Thanksgiving we went to Newcastle and spent the day with Matt's family. We had about 24 family members for our dinner so we reserved the gym at the church. It was great to be at the church and have plenty of room for all of the kids to run and play. Once we were done with our fabulous dinner and the gym was cleaned up a game of basketball was played. I enjoyed sitting around talking to my sisters and just relaxing most of the afternoon. I am very thankful for the family that I have and that I am able to live close to at least some of them.

Some of the cousins

Matt and Rachel

John playing ball

The game is on

The game ended with poor Rachel getting bog piled!

Trunk-or-Treat

Halloween is one of our favorite holidays! The kids get so excited when thinking about what they want to be for Halloween and they almost always surprise me with what they want to dress up as. This year our Halloween consisted of going to two Trunk-or-Treats and going out Trick-or-Treating in the neighborhood Sunday night. This picture is of the kids all dressed up ready to go to the Trunk-or Treats.

John always has to be something scary for Halloween and this year was no exception. He wanted to be a pirate,but not just a regular pirate. He had to throw in this gross mask to make himself look scary. He also informed me that he is getting to old to go out Trick-or Treating with his family and that next year he wants to go with friends.

Jessica wanted to be a clown this year. It fits her personality so well and everyone loved her clown costume. I loved it because all we had to buy was the wig and red nose. Jessica was invited to a Halloween party Friday night at Grace's. She wore her costume for the party, so Jess ended up wearing her costume 3 nights in a row. In order to make it to the party on time Jess had to wear her costume to piano as well, she was little embarrassed when people would stare at her as we drove down the interstate.

My Abbi wanted to be a cat. We looked at many cat costumes and she finally decided to be this black and white one. We found this really cute cat nose to wear with the costume, but it was a little tight and hurt her nose. Dad did a great job at painting her face though.

For all of our festivities this year the weather was great. Normally on Halloween night it is really cold, the ground is often covered in snow and you have to bundle up so much that you can't even see the costumes. This year the kids went out just how you see them in the pictures. John and Jess did not have anything on under their costumes and Abbi just had leggings and shirt under hers. We could not have asked for a more perfect night.

Pumpkin Carving Time!!

We got our pumpkins at the beginning of the month at a pumpkin festival and the kids have been dying to carve them ever since. So today for family home evening we finally carved our pumpkins with Steve, Mike and Chantel. John decided he wanted to try etching his face this year instead of doing a typical carving. It took a lot of time but turned out great as you will see later in the post. I have a creative son!!

Jessica dug right in when it came to taking out the seeds. This girl loves to get her hands dirty!

Abbi on the other hand was little more neat about the process of taking the seeds out. She took her time and used a spoon or the scoop to clean her pumpkin.

Here is Abbi's finished pumpkin. She had very little help from me and did wonderful.

Here is Jess' finished pumpkin. She decided to do an owl and it turned out great, with a little help from dad.

Here is John's finished pumpkin. As I mentioned earlier it took a lot of time, but it looks awesome. He had pumpkin shavings all over Mike and Chantel's house, but he is very proud of his pumpkin.