Hallowen

For the school parade, Karis wanted to be Batgirl. 

Makena wanted to be a cat. 

The 2nd graders don't do a Fall class party, but the 1st graders do. Makena's class rotated through each 1st grade classroom for a snack, craft, game and a story. 

 

In the evening, the kids dressed up for some trick-or-treating. Kyle initially wanted to be a policeman (with his police dog).

Halloween night was pretty warm so we talked him out of wearing his fleece-lined policeman jacket and into wearing his fireman rain coat and putting on his fireman hat he got from the fireman visit at preschool. 

Our first stop was a visit with Mockingbird's 1st grade teacher cast of Inside Out characters.  So fun!

We met Makena's friends there. 

We were then off to collect candy!

Last year we visited Karis' 1st grade teacher (who is now the director at Kyle's preschool). Karis remembered fondly last year's visit so I texted her teacher to see if she was passing out candy. When we arrived, we found friends visiting her as well!

 A fun night with these sweet kiddos!

Trick-or-Treating

Karis was a puppy fairy for her school parade but wanted to be a "friendly witch" for Halloween night. She changed her mind and then changed it again (after I returned the witch hat)... and then decided to be a trick-or-treating fairy. Her costume consisted of the parts of her fairy costume she liked best, a halloween shirt, and the striped tights I bought for her witch costume. 

It was a little mixed up looking but I loved that she made it up herself and she loved it!

 

Makena wore her horse costume. It was nice and warm but her mane was so heavy her hood wouldn't stay on!

 

Both of the girls' teachers invited their students to trick-or-treat at their houses. How sweet is that? The girls were so excited to see their teachers. First stop was Ms. Carlton's friend's house. 

We then went to Mrs. Taylor's house. Karis even got a special treat for visiting. 

We dropped our car off at home and then walked to our friends' house where we were having our church's Light the Night event. Daddy, Kyle and Ryder were already there. On the way, we

 made a quick stop to see one of Karis' friends.  

We finally made it to our friends' house where we hung out and passed out candy with the church's information. 

Just like last year, Kyle didn't want to dress up. In the weeks leading up to Halloween, I tried to talk him into so many different costumes. He didn't take to any of them. The only thing he (sort of) wanted to be was Izzy from Jake and the Neverland Pirates. I couldn't get myself to dress him up as a girl (tho Derek thought we should for good black mail material later). I finally gave up. I realized if Kyle didn't think it was fun to dress up, why was I trying to make him? He happily wore a sweatshirt that said Boo! He kept saying, "My shirt says Boo! so I say boo to you -- BOO!" And not surprisingly, no one denied a 3-year old candy for not dressing up!

It was a fun night visiting with friends and collecting candy!

Character Parade and Fall Festival at MKB

Karis dressed up as Lauren the Puppy Fairy from the Rainbow Magic book series. She didn't want to go to school that day because she didn't want people looking at her in the parade. We talked about it in the morning and I told her she didn't have a choice and that she had to go and people will look at her. But she did have a choice as to how people were going to see her -- head down with a frown or smiling and having fun.  She made a great choice!

Makena wanted to be a horse so we found Pony Crazy from the Pony Scout series.

Later in the day, the girls had their class parties. Each Kindergarten classroom had an activity. Our class served the snacks. We made some festive treats for the kids.

It was finger licking good!

The other classes had actives and a craft. 

In between serving snacks, I popped into Karis' classroom to see what she was doing. She got mummified!

And then the toilet paper was used to make friendly ghosts. 

Halloween Night

My butterfly, sheriff and Hello Kitty!

We met up with some friends and went trick-or-treating in their neighborhood.

The girls were so excited for candy. Unfortunately a lot of people weren't home and they had to go to lots of houses to fill their bag. But they didn't seem to mind!

Kyle joined us for just part of the time because he wanted to go back to our friends' house where Daddy was. He was happy with just a handful of candy. 

Like last year, we let the girls have unlimited candy for two days and then they would be done with the candy. Last year, they were so sick of candy before the end of day two and it worked out great. This year was quite different. They ate so much candy and actually finished most of their bag (thankfully it wasn't that big of a loot). Makena started picking through our leftover candy because she had eaten all the ones she liked from her bag. That wasn't part of the deal! I was surprised at how much more candy they could consume this year compared to last year. But after day two and multiple teeth brushing throughout the day, the candy was gone and we didn't have to deal with it anymore.

Preschool Open House and Fall Festival

Here are a few pictures of our time at the preschool. We had one less class to visit this year. After talking to Makena and Kyle's teachers and seeing some of the kids' work, we went to the fellowship hall to play games and jump in the bounce house. 

Someone gave me a sheriff costume for Kyle, but he cried and cried when I tried to put it on him. The costume ended up being too big but I didn't want to go buy another costume with no guarantee that he would wear it. Luckily I found a sheriff pajama shirt and decided he would wear that instead. He wore the boots but he wanted nothing to do with the hat. I told him that if he wore the hat he would get popcorn at school. He wore the hat, so he ate popcorn all night long.

The Search For The Perfect Pumpkin

Last Saturday, we took the kids to a pumpkin patch to pick out pumpkins. 

There were lots to choose from!

  

I figured paying a premium for our pumpkins would be worth the cute photo I would get of all three kids. I told the kids, if mommy doesn't get a good picture, no one gets a pumpkin! So the girls obliged but Kyle didn't!

But in the end, everyone found their perfect pumpkin!