The Zoo Goes To The Zoo!

Taking advantage of the kids being off of school and Abby visiting, we all headed to the zoo! It was me, Jacob, Allison, Abby, and my parents! It was supposed to be a sunny day however, the sun never came out but it was quite warm for November. This was Abby's first trip to the zoo and my kids had a great time showing her the ropes and pointing EVERYTHING out to her! Today's highlights were the treehouse playground and of course... the Naked Mole Rats! I think that Abby's favorites were the Elephants (a more normal choice in my opinion).

Aunt Kay

The kids are off for a couple of days so today we made a road trip to visit Aunt Kay. It has been several years since we've seen her. We have attempted to visit her a few times but someone has always seemed to get sick and prevented the visit. She lives about 1 1/2 hours away so it takes a bit of coordinating.

Since Abby was visiting, we took advantage of the opportunity and hit the road. We took her out to lunch and then visited with her back at her apartment! We had a really good visit with her and so thankful for the opportunity to see her again! Aunt Kay is so faithful about sending the kids cards and mailing them little notes so I'm glad that we had the chance to take them to see her. We miss her tons and can't wait to see her again!

Happy Halloween!

Today's activities started out at school with the school parade. The kids love parading around the school grounds waving to everyone!

We also had a neighborhood parade that kicked off the Halloween fesitivities! The parade was lead by the local fire department who had a couple of their trucks come to lead the way.
Everyone made their way down to "the patio" where lots of goodies awaited us. Thanks to donations of all the residents, there was pizza, soft pretzels, brownies, cookies, popcorn, water, juice boxes and more! After a quick dinner and some sugar.... the moment had arrived. We worked our way back to our house trick or treating at each and every house along the way! We finally made it home with WAY too much candy!


I was really glad that Halloween was on a Friday this year, no worries of rushing home and not getting ALL the candy we could possibly get! :o)

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!!!!!!!!!!

The Phillies won the
World Series!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pumpkin Decorating

This year the kids' school had a pumpkin decorating contest. There were 2 rules... 1) you had to use the "artificial" pumpkins; and 2) all pumpkins had to be themed around a local author of children's books.

Jacob's book was "They Came From Centerfield". This book was about aliens that landed while some kids were playing baseball. The aliens wanted to learn how to play the game so the group of kids taught them.


Allison's book was "Miss Daisy Is Crazy". Her book was about a silly teacher named Miss Daisy who actually taught the kids that they really enjoyed learning more than they admitted. Miss Daisy had very red and very curly hair!




The pumpkins will be on display for the week and the teachers will judge them and announce the winners. Each grade will have several winners so I think they have a good chance of winning something! :o) If nothing else, we had a good time creating them!

Trunked Treats!

Tonight we spent the night tailgating at our church's annual Trunked Treats! Trunked Treats is where people from our church congregation come and park in the lot for a giant tailgating party and all the kids get to go trick or treating from one trunk to the next. We brought pizza and lots of snacks to munch on before the festivities and shared with all of our friends. Before the annual gathering of the candy, the kids were invited inside for a show. This year was a magic show that the kids thought was pretty cool!

This was a fun way to kick off our Halloween activities!

Out of the mouth of babes......

Over the weekend, my parents took Allison out to dinner. While they were waiting for their food, she was busy coloring and drawing. My dad inquired if she always wrote with the same hand. Here is her answer....

"Yes. Even when I turn around, I still use the same hand!".

Hmmm..... :o)