This years costumes:

Quick photo shoot the day before Halloween!

7 Months Old Today

and what to be for Halloween.....???

Kate is 7 months old today! I can't believe it has been seven months already since she became a part of our family. She is doing great and learning new things everyday. Her personality is really blooming and it looks like she is going to be quite the corker. She laughs and smiles at just about everything. She is definitely hitting the stage where she wants to know where Mommy is at all times and if she doesn't know someone, she doesn't want them to talk to her or touch her. Not the easiest of stages to go through, that's for sure. She's growing great and loving her baby food more and more each day. If she sees us eating anything she demands to eat as well and her favorite the thing to do right now is squeal as loudly as she possibly can. She is sitting up pretty good, but still falls over so we have to stack pillows behind her. She loves that she can manage herself upright and it gives her better access to her toys. She is also rolling all over the place and I know it won't be too long before she's crawling and then we'll really be in trouble. She is wearing 6-9 month clothing and size 2 diapers. Just when you think you can't love someone any more than is possible.. you do. =)

Carving Pumpkins

Rachel originally had round eyes on her pumpkin, but I had to convince her re-draw them.. I just could not cut them like that and was too lazy to go grab the drill this year!

Kate was pretty curious about the pumpkin guts... YUCK!

Our pumpkins!

Kate's pumpkin (designed by me)

Rachel's pumpkin she designed.

Noah's pumpkin he designed... it might just resemble him just a little.... lol

Wow, talk about leaving the pumpkin carving for the last minute! With tomorrow night busy with the kids spending the night at Chris's house and Doug and I heading to a Halloween party, it was a busy night tonight with the kids drawing their faces on and then cutting them out for them. The kids did great - we usually get one pumpkin per family member, but now that there is 5 of us, that's a lot of pumpkins... So, we ended up getting three this year - one per kiddo! Noah and Rachel did awesome drawing on their own individual style faces and were pretty patient while I cut them out. We also turned on Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin when they got a little anxious for the cutting to hurry and things went a little smoother after Kate had a 'mid-carving' feed. Noah wanted a big goofy smile with lots of crazy teeth - kind of like him right now. Rachel wanted a sad face (not sure why that was...) and lots of crazy teeth as well. I wanted simple and quick - yay! Good times =)

Gymnastics

Rachel started gymnastics in mid October and is loving it so far. She does a fantastic job listening and really trying to do what her instructor is teaching her. Doug and I are both glad to see her enjoying it so much and also trying so hard to do well. She has been asking for some time to do gymnastics or ballet and was so excited to get started. It is exciting for me to see her do those things because I did them as a child and actually understand what she's doing. I hope she continues to enjoy it for a long time to come. We are also looking forward to Noah starting basketball in December. He will be playing through Parks & Rec. He's been practicing and we are hoping he will enjoy it as much as he enjoyed playing soccer.

Pumpkin Patch With Daddy

We went the pumpkin patch earlier in the week as a family and were dissapointed to find that most everything was closed. We were invited to look around and could certainly buy pumpkins, but that they wouldn't open all the fun stuff until later in the day (Sorry Doug.. you're right, I'm not so good at researching and planning). Still, it was a beautiful day and it was nice to see the fall colors.