Snow White and the Harvest Carnival

This year I made a deal with the kids for Harvest Carnival. Usually the kids choose the theme that we will all dress up as and I work hard to get everyone's costumes put together so we can go to the Harvest Carnival at our church as a dressed up family unit. But this year was the only year we would have 7 children in our family for Oct. 31st, so they agreed to be the seven dwarves from Snow White. I told them we would make it even funnier and they would look like real dwarves if Dada was Snow White! They were excited about that one and Dada said yes to our little plan. They all chose which Dwarf they would be and miraculously they all wanted to be a different one!

They all made the cutest little dwarves and wore their beards and pouchy bellies happily, but Dada, of course, was the fairest of them all.

A sweet young couple in our church, who are now in our young marrieds group, dressed up as our family next to the carnival booth that they ran. They taped clothes on the wall with balloons as heads and rocks as faces and dressed up as Peter and I. It was the best thing of the night! So hilarious!

So we started our evening at their booth and went around the room playing the cute carnival games, getting our badges marked off, posing for random pictures and getting candy.

Seeing all of our friends dressed up in their costumes is a highlight, too!

The Rest of October 2015!

Eben turned 12 on Oct. 20th! Even though were weren't having his party yet we took him out for Red Robin burgers for lunch. He got a sundae and a birthday song!

Later that night we went out for milkshakes at Herfy's Burgers because Berg had finished his next Phonics reading box. Everyone chose a partner and a flavor and some milkshakes still didn't get finished!

On Oct. 23rd Tuffy decided to learn how to climb stairs, which is a good thing since we have many stairs in this house. These stairs in the hallway are actually very good little stairs to practice on because he can't fall very far.

Oct. 24 we went to our free pumpkin joint - the Lakewood fire department!

We didn't carve them until Oct. 28th because we've made that mistake before and they get all moldy. This time it was just the little five as Eben and Kivi chose to go to youth group at church instead of carve. Everyone worked really hard at cleaning out their pumpkin and then lost motivation for actually carving faces on them. Tuff loved how the inside of the pumpkin felt and just kept trying to eat his.  Then the kids made up a cute little tune to sing to him to get him dancing and it went on forever. They all stopped scooping and just danced to their little song. Except Berg, he was very determined to finish.

Jasper's Building Birthday!

Jasper's birthday is on September 20th. We were actually living with our friends the Millers at the time. So poor Bubba had to wait a while, all the way until Oct. 17th, so that we could get our act together to have his party. Eben's birthday is on October 20th so we thought ready or not, we better have this party before we get all backed up in the birthday process! The good thing is that he chose a building themed party and we just happened to have a gazillion boxes!

The first game we played was a team challenge to see who could build the best building out of their materials. Blocks, logs, stick blocks or Legos. The parents judged and decided that the stick team won.

We got our group photo and ate lunch; "build your own" cashew butter and jelly sandwiches for the kids and soup for the adults.

Then we let the kids loose for some big box building in the newly finished basement. They ended up making a fort where they all had their own "houses" in the walls. Even Tuff got his own box house.

Next we played a game we had played at camp a few years ago where one team tries to build a wall and the other team tries to knock it down. The girl team built their wall faster and won.

We kissed the birthday boy, sung him "Happy birthday" and ate delicious cobbler. 

We played one more game where I hid candy all over and inside the kids' fort (they had built another one) and they mad dashed to find it all. Kind of like a piñata, but it didn't take as long, and no one got to hit anything.  

Jasper opened his presents and felt loved. It was a good day!

Jasper you are such a joy to have in this family. You are encouraging, exciting and eager to do most anything. You do love to build. There is no material you cannot build with. You are Mr. Outgoing and have tons of friends because you make everyone feel like your best friend. You are amazing at math, working hard at reading and spelling and probably wish that drumming and dance were school subjects. You are very precise about certain things, your bed has to be made before you sleep in it. You like a certain order. You cannot be distracted from a task once you begin it. You love doing cartwheels (to your brother's dismay), shorts, and Arnold (your hair). You are still loud, but we don't care, because your so super cute. We love you! We love how you love others and love God and can't wait to see what you build for Him out of your life. Happy 9th Birthday, Bubba!

Fall 2015 - Muffins, Corn Maze, Boys w/ Tools

On Oct. 11th we decided it was time to make our fall muffins and meet the neighbors. A little later than our usual fall muffin delivery, but hey, we just moved so better late than never. We had a great time meeting our sweet neighbors even though some of them weren't home. They were all very happy to have some young blood on the block as they are all over 50 and there are no kids around. Two of them even invited us to come back for Halloween.

On Oct. 12th We went to Spooner Farms so that we could go through the Corn Maze! Yippee always my favorite part of fall. We tried to take our traditional kids on a bench picture, but it was super bright, so yeah for sun, but not good for kids all looking at the camera. I loved the kids hiding amongst the pumpkins pic though. We  were the only ones in the entire pumpkin patch. And we never buy them because the fire dept. gives them away for free!

This year's theme was Passport to Adventure. Everyone got their own passport and as soon as you went into the maze you had to go through a plane. Then we had to find all of the different countries hidden throughout the maze. I love their creativity and how they are so clever working the theme throughout all of that corn.

Here are some of the countries we found:

This year we thought ahead and packed a lunch, so we stopped half way through finding all the countries and took a potty break and had some food. But of course that was enough mazing for Dada and he and Tuffy took a nap in the van while we finished the rest of the maze. 

That same day the boys worked together to finish their bunk beds and used rulers, a level and a saw to cut the boards for the bottom of their beds, so they could finally sleep in their own boys' room!