October has came and went and what an amazing October it has been. It has been quite a rainy October with lots of overcast skies but the leaves on the trees have been beautiful. The colors are so bright and vivid. I just can't get enough of them. I just wish we had trees in our yard.
October has become the start of the holiday season for me. It is the time of the year, that I start pulling decorations out of the the attic and we start planning for the "big one".
The first big event of October is our family hayride. For the past 7 or 8 years, my parents will plan a hayride and bonfire for the family. My dad gathers branches in his yard and piles them on his bonfire rock in their backyard and starts a bonfire. My mom gets together all the makings for for a feast, hot dogs and chips, graham crackers, chocolate and "mar-moes" for s'mores. The kids have a fun roasting their hot dogs using Granddaddy's special
roasting sticks that he made years ago. After we get our fill of hot dogs and s'mores, the real fun begins. Granddaddy fills the back of this pick up truck with hay and we all pile in the back and Granddaddy takes us on our "hayride" around Mann Road and Berea Church Road. Every year we wonder if we are going to fit in the back because the kids just keep getting bigger every years but we have so much fun.
Faith seriously contemplating cooking her hot dog.
John Derrick and his adorable goofy grin.
Roasting his "mar-moe". The one part of the of the bonfire he couldn't wait for.
Here we are gathered around the bonfire. I almost was not able to make it this year. I had spent most of the day sick in bed but I could not miss this day because it is so much fun. I stayed in bed and when it was time to go, I felt good enough to get dressed and go sit and I was so glad I was able to.
Here is the pick up truck with the kids in the back.
The weekend before Halloween, we had a Family Fall Festival at the church. Our friends, Laura and Jeremy along with their little boy, Bradley came to visit us that weekend. We decorated our car with a 70's Disco theme. We had bright streamers, strobe lights and a disco ball. We even had disco music playing in the background. It was a lot of fun especially watching the kids come up to the car. They would just stare at the lights and wouldn't even think about getting candy.
Even Kevin got in on the fun by wearing an afro wig and a Pink Floyd t-shirt.
The kids loved being there and dressed up in their Halloween costumes.
One of our favorite things to do at Halloween is carving the pumpkins. We spent a fun evening cleaning out the pumpkins and making faces on the pumpkins.
Faith loves to pull out the "pumpkin guts" We saved the seeds and roasted them the next day. Yum!
John Derrick was not very adventurous this year and wouldn't stick his hands in the pumpkin. He did use a spoon but I did most of the work.
Faith's pumpkin was a cat on a broom.
John Derrick had a scary face pumpkin.
This year I made a new decoration for our yard. I found this idea in the Family Fun magazine. They are called "Ring around the Ghosties" On Halloween night, Kevin put a strobe light in the middle and they looked very "scary".
Since our neighborhood is a good place to trick or treat, I try to have a family Halloween party at our house. Marty and Penny and the kids come over and so to Grandmommy and Granddaddy. This year Grandmommy made a big pot of chili and brought it over for us to enjoy. I made the sweet treats along with John Derrick's help. He loves to bake.
These are the cookies that I made for Halloween. I also made some for Faith's Halloween party at school.
This year Faith was a gypsy. She decided she was too old to be a fairy this year and wanted to be something different. I thought that was great fun especially when she decided to be a gypsy. The skirt that she is wearing was my skirt from when I was her age. I found a shirt at the Goodwill store. It was the perfect shirt except that it was pink and the skirt was red but when we paired it with some of my scarves, it looked great. John Derrick of course wanted to be Batman again this year. I bought his costume. He was so cute, the costume was a little too big and his "muscles" kept riding up.
The kids of course had a great time trick or treating in the neighborhood. John Derrick is a bit lazy and he wanted to quit after we went around the block. So we brought him back to the house while Faith kept going with her cousins. I don't think John Derrick missed a thing. He had more fun giving out the candy to the kids.
So now we have way too much candy at the house. I'll leave it out for about a week and what is left over, I will probably throw away or put up in the freezer for treat through out the year.
It is November and a busy month is coming and it is going to be fun!!
I don't throw big birthday parties for my kids. I have a thing about birthday parties. I like to keep things simple and do something special for the kids. This year I let John Derrick have his best friend Cooper come and spend the night. They had so much fun. John Derrick was excited because this was his first time to have someone sleepover. Faith has had friends sleep over so he knew exactly what to do. We got out the air mattress and they put on their matching Batman pjs and watched a movie at bedtime.
