Halloween

If you know me you know that Halloween is my favorite holiday.  This may be hard for some of you to understand but that doesn't really matter.  I still love it!

Every good Halloween celebration starts with a trip to the pumpkin patch.

We were lucky this year to have our good friends the Sampsons with us.

Greysen knew right away what to do. 

Too bad he couldn't lift it.

Neither could Zoe.

Here we all are looking for the perfect squash.

Zoe, Jack

Tate, Grey and Kenzie

Cute face!

Spooky!  And cute!

Me and Zoe.

I wasn't feeling great that day due to our new little addition.

Grey caught a ride!

Next we have to carve the pumpkins

Greysen can't believe what we are asking him to do.

Tate dug right in.

Grey is still not sure.

There he goes!

Zoe too!

Even Oat got into it.

He doesn't like to get dirty.

Carving is very serious business.

Here are the masterpieces!

Tate's is the spooky tree and Oat free handed the face next to it.  Pretty amazing for a first time pumpkin carver!

Ben made the Darth Vader of course, and the one next to it was Zoe's first attempt at carving free hand.  Not bad eh!

Here we are all dressed up for trick-or treating

Can you guess what we are?

Those of you with small children probably had an easier time,

Ben and I are Phineas and Ferb.  Zoe is Candace.  Tate is Heinz Doofenshmirtz and Greysen is Agent P, or Perry the Platapus.

Halloween cake pops made a delicious Halloween craft.  To bad they make me sick to even look at now.

One last fun fall activity.

Raking leaves...

and...

then...

Jumping...

in...

them!

We have always loved the fall but here in Wenatchee it is so much easier to love.  The fall here is amazing!  It is warm and sunny and colorful.  Plus lots of crunchy leaves instead of soggy ones.  We love it!

Oat's Homecoming

This was Oat's first experience with an American dance.  The whole process from the "asking" to gathering all the needed supplies, to pictures and dinner and paying for the dance.  The whole thing was very foreign to him.  He was so confused about why I wouldn't just let him call the girl to ask her out.

Thankfully his friend Natalie helped him come up with an idea that wasn't too intimidating.

Here is his date Caroline.  Isn't she gorgeous!

Here are a bunch of the girls in the group he went with.

Silly girls!

Here is the whole crew.

Handsome fellas!

They ate thier dinner at our neighbors house because they have an outdoor pizza oven.

Yumm!

Pizza!

This is the Oat pose.

Tate's Soccer Pizza Party

Tate finished out his first soccer season in the best way possible, at the pizza parlor!

Clearly Tate had a great time!

 

Some amazing mom made these fabulous cupcakes.

Here is his cool bobble head trophy.

Here is the whole team there are only 2 girls not 3!  Tate just needed a haircut.

Tate and Coach Burns.  The best coach ever!

Yummy Pizza!

Zoe's First 10K

Zoe has always had a very difficult time with running.  Unfortunately she got that from me.  I really hate running.  Ben wanted to help her over the summer by taking her running with him.  After running with her a few times he thought it would help her by setting a goal.  He wanted to plan to run a 5K at the end of the summer.  The only problem was that there were no 5K's around the Wenatchee Valley at the end of the summer so they decided instead to run the Chelan Shore to Shore 10K.  I thought that seemed pretty ambitious but Zoe was excited about it, that is until she ran 3 miles.  After months of training though she was able to run the whole 6 miles.

Here they are lining up with all the other runners.

 

Off they go!  Ben bought them matching t-shirts and promised to stick with her no matter how slow she needed to go.

 

Here they are crossing the finish line about an hour and a half later.  Zoe was the youngest runner in the race.  They ended up coming in last but because Zoe was the youngest she came in first in her age group and still got a prize which was a glass with the race info on it.

 

She looks so tired!

 

They also got these great shirts.

 

Let me just give a shout out to this guy.  He is the most amazing father.  He totally had to put his pride aside in order to make this day all about Zoe.  He said there was one time where an elderly woman was walking faster than them on the sidewalk and he just kept telling himself ...This is all about Zoe!

 

They have tons of yummy snacks for the runners.

 

The race began and ended at Manson Park.  There is a beautiful marina of lake Chelan there so we decided to hang out and have some fun.

 

What better way to cool off after a long race!

Tate's First Day of School and Soccer

Tate started kindergarten this year.  His first day of school came about a week later than Zoe's.  Ben and I met with his teacher the week before and she showed us the curriculum.  I was a little worried because I was pretty sure that he already knew the list of words that he was supposed to know at the end of the year.  His teacher assured us that if he knew all of the words they would just start him on the first grade list.  So that is what they have done.  What happens when he has already learned the first grade list?

Here is my silly man in the morning before school.  He loves his camo backpack.

Here he is out in front of the school.  He was anxious to go and he wanted Ben to leave right away.

Here he is in line telling Ben that he should leave.  And Tate wouldn't even give him a kiss goodbye.

Ben played secret agent and followed him to class to see how he did.  He was just so ready.

Tate has been in his first real soccer league this fall.

A lot of the games look liked this picture at first.  The boys standing around looking at the ball not sure what to do with it.

Now he starts getting into it!

Can't wait for the after party at Abbey's Pizza!

The kids rode the bus for the first time about a week after school started.  Zoe and Tate ride the same bus and best of all it picks them up right in front of our house.

This picture was taken from my front door!

There's my sweet little guy!

Look at this styling guy!