Carving Pumpkins

Monday night for Family Home Evening we carved our pumpkins. The kids always love getting their hands into the gooey mess.

Kate's pumpkin from the pumpkin patch was a little too small to carve, so we made a jack-o-lantern face out of black cardstock. It was easy and she loved it!

Sarah and Rachel designed the pumpkins. This one is a bat.
And we had to have one with a more traditional face.

We made these jack-o-lantern pumpkin cream puffs for a treat.

I had never made cream puffs before, so it was fun to try something new. They had a really great pumpkin cream cheese filling, and they turned out cute.

Preschool Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

On Monday Kate and I went on a field trip to the pumpkin patch with her preschool. Unfortunately, it was really, really cold, and got colder while we were there. I think it dropped at least 10 degrees during the hayride.

Despite the cold, we had fun picking out the perfect pumpkin. Kate wanted to find "the littlest pumpkin," since we have a book by that title.

We saw lots of animals at the farm. Kate loved all the animals and kept oohing and ahhing over all of them. I realized what a city girl she is, since she wasn't born when we lived in Washington and had a farm right behind our house.

Kate and her friend Courtney were practically inseparable for the day. This picture cracks me up because they both look so cold!

Fall Pics with my New Camera

I love fall on the East Coast. The leaves are breathtaking! There are so many trees with so many colors. One afternoon the kids were playing in the leaves so I started snapping pictures and playing with my new camera (I got a Canon Rebel XSI for those who are interested).

I took these first three after I changed the white balance to shade. The two below I took on auto white balance. It is so amazing the difference one adjustment made. I'm having tons of fun playing with the settings.
I think this is a cute picture, but the colors aren't near as vibrant as the three above.

We have this great tree in our front yard that loses its leaves pretty early in the season. The kids love to make this big pile of leaves and then jump out of the tree and land in the pile. This one is Rachel in action.

I LOVE MY VAN!

I finally got my van back. One day shy of a month from the day I got in my accident. It has been a long month of squishing into David's car, driving him to work, and coordinating schedules (not to mention having to rent a van for our trip to Florida!).

Doing without it has made me appreciate the wonderful features of a minivan--remote doors and locks, spacious interior, lots of cargo room, kids spread out enough so they don't have to touch...I'm definitely glad to have it back.

Disney Wrap-up: Epcot

We spent a great day at Epcot! A few of our favorite rides were Spaceship Earth (inside the big Epcot ball), Mission Space, the Finding Nemo ride and Soarin'.


We also spent a good chunk of the day walking the loop through all the "countries." For lunch we sampled traditional food from booths in many of the countries.

In France we met Sleeping Beauty, watched an amazing street show with some waiters, and tried escargo and creme brulee.
In England we ate fish and chips.

In China we tried some amazing chicken and potstickers and worked on perfecting our chopstick technique.

The kids especially loved the gelato in Italy. I loved the cool architecture--and the ice cream too! Taking this "trip" around the world really made me want to visit so many of these countries.

Magic Kingdom

To me, Magic Kingdom is what Disney is all about. We spent two days at Magic Kingdom riding rides, greeting characters, watching parades, and having a fabulous time.

We tried hard to get a good shot in front of the castle but these were as good as we got. My sister's family picture turned out much better.

Ben, Rachel and David on the teacups.
We loved Splash Mountain--we also loved Space Mountain and Thunder Mountain Railroad. The kids called them the "three mountain rides." We pretty much had the system for fast passes and child swap passes down, so we rode the rides over and over.

This was a little roller coaster in Toon Town. Kate was tall enough to go on this one, so it was her first roller coaster ride. She was pretty scared on it since it actually went pretty fast, so after going on it, she wasn't too sad when she couldn't go on some of the bigger rides. David was having fun with the sports mode on our new camera and kept clicking away while we were on this roller coaster. It was fun to see everyone's facial expressions all during the ride.

We couldn't resist stopping for a picture in front of "Harper's Mill." However, we couldn't seem to get any pictures of Kate without her finger in her mouth. She has become a terrible nail biter lately. Half of my pictures of her from Disneyworld have her biting her nails or sucking on her finger.

We split up quite a bit at Magic Kingdom. David took the older kids on the fast rides, and I hung out with Kate. And, since I had the camera, lots of the pictures are of her. We waited forever to go on the Dumbo ride, and she was so excited to finally go on it.
We also met several characters.

One afternoon we watched the parade. Here are the kids waiting for it to begin.




The best part of the parade was watching Kate be so excited about seeing all the characters. It was truly magical for her.

Since it was October, Magic Kingdom was all decorated for Halloween. I loved all these pumpkin Mickeys.

Most every afternoon and evening thunderstorms rolled in. On the night we stayed late at Magic Kingdom, there was a big thunder and lightning storm and we got soaked. We had ponchos which helped a lot, but we still got pretty wet. They postponed the electrical parade for while due to lightning, but it eventually started.

Here are Danielle and Sarah in their oh-so-stylish ponchos, that we wore everyday. Yay for the dollar store. (To any of you thinking of making this trip, this was the best thing I did--buy ponchos ahead of time. They cost way more at the park.)

The storm eventually cleared and we loved how the castle changed colors at night. We watched the fireworks as we left for the night with four very tired kids.




We let the kids each pick out a souvenir. Kate had been saying for days that she wanted a stuffed Minnie Mouse. But at the last minute she spotted these shoes. Kate has always been obsessed with shoes, and these practically brought her to tears she loved them so much. I kept trying to talk her out of them, since they are so impractical, but she was convinced that was what she wanted and never turned back. She wore them every day the rest of the trip, and loves them still.


We had to get her the ears to match.

More Disneyworld: Hollywood Studios

On our second day at Disneyworld, my sister Julie and her family joined us. The kids had so much fun hanging out with their cousins--it was definitely a fun place to meet. We had a great time riding rides and exploring the park together.

Julie and all the older kids did an animation drawing class while David and I took Ben and Kate to meet Mickey and the Incredibles.

I finally rode Tower of Terror this time. Although I love fast roller coasters, I don't generally like the feeling of falling. Last time I skipped Tower of Terror, but decided to brave it this time. It was actually a lot more fun than I thought it would be. Benjamin was tall enough to go and really wanted to try it, but got scared in the room where they show the Twilight Zone movie ahead of time. He started crying, but David calmed him and he ended up loving the ride!

I love this view of San Francisco that is really just a painted wall. There was another one of New York City that looked so real.

Some of our other favorite rides were the Aerosmith Roller Coaster and the Great Movie Ride. Kate also loved the Playhouse Disney Show.

We left the park mid-afternoon to go back to hotel and go swimming at the fun pools there.

The girls had a fun time pretending they were mermaids in this fun fountain pool.

We returned to the Park that evening for the Fantasmic Show, which was incredible!