October Fun

We were lucky enough to have my sister Katie and her kids come visit. I am not sure how much longer she will be able to pull this off as she has more kids, but I am glad she still can for now. We actually bought pumpkins this year from a pumpkin patch and even got around to carving them, which is a first since our rotting pumpkins our first Halloween in Texas. The pumpkin patch had a little play area for the kids.

John got a great leg workout helping King and Netta on the teeter totters.

Part of the reason Katie was able to visit, was that my parents came up for the weekend and then drove her back with them to Pittsburgh, so she could get 2 trips in one. We decided to head to the fall festival at a local apple orchard. They have amazing donuts and cider. Unfortunately, it was unseasonably warm and we were not ready for that, which led to some grumpy kids. We still were able to have some fun and scare the crap out of our kids by going through the haunted house. It really wasn't scary at all but it was more than Netta or King could handle.

We had a "Witches Night Out" at church for the ladies. It was really fun. Part of it was a scavenger hunt around town. It was really funny to be doing that with a bunch of grown woman and it was even funnier to see who would throw themselves completely into it and who didn't want to get out of the car. HaHa. There was also a hat decorating contest and I decided to go for Dia de los Muertos. I was pretty proud of my cheep finds that let me put the hat together and I was equally as proud of my makeup job. Wasn't sure if I could pull it off, but it may be my go to costume from now on. 

Our realtor is amazing and he sponsored a day trip to Chicago for all his past clients. He rented 2 buses, stocked them with snacks, and then drove us around Chicago to different popular spots. From the invite I thought you were only allowed to bring 2 people, so I told John I wanted to have a special date with King. Being the middle child, means poor King misses out sometimes. EZ, as the oldest has gotten to do a lot one on one with John and I and of course Conrad gets all my attention most days. Netta is technically also a middle child, but being the only girl, she gets more then here fair share of one on one time with John and I. So, King and I had our date and our first stop was the Museum of Science and Industry. They just had had a sweet groupon deal where you could get a year long family membership for half price, so it was perfect timing. Then to make it even better, when we got there they had a special limited time exhibit just about robots. King was in heaven!

We spent most of the day there and then the bus took us up to Water Tower Place and King was once again in heaven in the Lego Store. We spent an hour just in there. From then on King started to crash and so we decided to go get some pizza at Gino's East. I have only been there at lunch and it is so much more affordable than dinner. I still can't believe I spent $50 on a pizza dinner for King and I. Haha. King got a new Mixel lego pack from the store and insisted on keeping it safe in his minion hat. Hence the interesting pump on his head. All and all it was a great day and we found out we could have brought the whole family. I am really glad King and I got our date this time, but if there is a next, we will all be going. 

EZ got to play some of his piano pieces at an old folks home and all the kids playing wore costumes. Christine Velasco, a friend from church, organized the whole thing. EZ is loves piano and actually enjoys working through things when they get hard. I am grateful and amazed by people who organize these kind of things. I wouldn't have even thought of it!

Halloween means Halloween parties at school and this year I got to visit Conrad and EZ. Conrad's preschool had different employees stationed around the Y with candy and toys and the kids walked around the entire place trick or treating. He was surprisingly shy on this visit. Sometimes Conrad is beyond out going, but then he still has those days where he clings to me and acts like he is afraid of people.

Parents at Brown school are very hands on and always willing to volunteer, which is awesome, but it also means sometimes it is hard to get into your kids classroom. For 4th grade you get to sign up to help with one major event and so I was in charge of the Halloween party. I didn't have to really do much except make sure all the different stations were taken care of and there were plenty of volunteers for that. I was in charge of the snack station and I decided it would be fun for the kids to decorate their own monster cookies. They had fun and I didn't have to do as much work. ;)

Here are all the kids in their Halloween glory. EZ and King were both characters from the Skylanders video game and of course if you kids aren't obsessed with those like mine are, you have no idea who they are. Netta was a spunky witch and Conrad was the cutest dinosaur ever. 

Our first year here, Halloween was kind of ruined by horrible weather that came through and this year was kind of the same thing. It rained a ton. EZ went out with some friends and their parents were so miserable in the rain that they finally told the kids they would talk them to Walgreens and buy them candy if they would quite trick or treating. Conrad and Kingston opted out of trick or treating at all and I had the fun of taking Netta and her buddy Elizabeth. They didn't last long and that was fine with me.