Halloween Festivities

The girls got to wear their costumes a few times this year.  We started last weekend at a friends party.  Although the kids were playing like crazy people, so the only pictures I got were when they were eating.  Here are the 'Light Up Fairy and Minnie Mouse'.

We also had a special guest that weekend.  Our friends Hannah & Chris let us keep their little monkey, Cooper, for the weekend while they went up north.  It was so fun to have him!

Lucy had to have a fairy action shot

 The girls and I also made a haunted gingerbread house this year.  I helped put it together and they did all of the decorating.  Pretty scary!

 I think they might have sampled some of the black frosting while I was getting the camera. . .

 A few days later, it was on to pumpkin carving.

 Lucy did her own carving this year.

 Ellen had a little help.

We're not done yet!  We got to go to the MN zoo for trick-or-treating on Saturday afternoon. 

We even had a special guest with us!

 AAAaahhh!  A Moose!

 Then, on Halloween, they got dressed up one more time for Trick-or-Treating in our Neighborhood.  I get just as excited as the girls to see the awesome decorations that our neighbors come up with!

Here we are before heading out.

 Grandma & Papa came to see the girls too.  Grandma stayed behind to hand out candy so both Mommy & Daddy could go with the girls.  That black eye didn't even scare the other kids away.

Here are Jer and Papa taking the girls up to one of the houses.

Tired little girls can still dump out their candy to see how much they got!



Now, I have to run to go get more decorations for next year!

Fall Fun

This year we took the kids to a huge corn maze.  Ellen, Emma, Natalie & Lucy ran through the maze and kept track of all of the check points on their maps.

Lucy got to bring Brown Bear home from school that weekend.  He came to the maze with us.

Lucy also braved the giant slide.

So did Natalie.

And even Emma!

The maze was shaped like stars and planets this year.  The girs pretended they were astronauts.

A few weeks later, four of us crazy moms thought it would be fun to spend a few days at a water park resort in the Dells with 9 of our children.  Here are 8 of them on their way to swim.

Here they are at the end of the day before bed time.  They actually did sleep pretty well.

Here is Katie with Ellen & Emma, then the big girls racing down after them!

We are always up to something fun.  We are so blessed to have such good friends to share it all with!

What a blast!  The Mercy Watson series is a new favorite of ours.  The production at The Children's Theater was great.  The girls were completely mesmerized the whole time.  They didn't even want to get up for intermission.

I guess any story where they love 'hot toast with a great deal of butter' would be a favorite in our house!

The Minnesota Renaissance Festival!



Castles, fancy dresses, Fairies; these are some of Lucy's favorite things.  We heard that you could find all of these things at the Renaissance Festival.

We did find some of each.



  

Before we went, we had to get ready.  Lucy and I looked at period clothing and hair online and went through our dress-up and ribbon selection to see what we had.  She wanted braids and ribbons in her hair.  This is what we came up with.

Lucy made it on stage again. . .  In the Children's Realm production of The Pied Piper, Lucy played a mouse.  Can you see her scurrying across the back of the stage?

She is more in the middle of this picture in the purple and blue dress with the red mouse face.



We also found a ride to go on.




The girls and I loved this!  The elephant's ears kept flapping back on Lucy's legs.  At first she was a little startled, but then she thought it was pretty neat. 



Hi Dad!

  

Then we saw a Knight in Shinning Armor!  Lucy was going to go have her picture taken with him, but she was a little nervous, so mom went with her.

 

The girls each got to bring home a puppet.  Here they are showing them off.  Ellen was being such a goof ball, this is actually the best picture I have of her.  We'll chalk it up to a long day. . .



Lucy was still quite smiley and excited.  She wanted to take lots of pictures.  So, here she is one more time with her new teddy bear puppet.

Vernon County Fair

We made it to the fair again this year!  One of our first stops was to the bunny building.  The kids were extra lucky, they got to hold some of the bunnies.

Of course we had a 'fair food' supper.  Yum!

There was a kids show on that night.  All of the kids got to go on stage.  Here they are 'freezing' during the freeze dance.

 Lucky Lucy got chosen to go back on stage.  She was a total rock star and got to do a drum solo.

 Of course they went on some rides.

 They even pet a huge boa constrictor!

Here is some video of Lucy rockin' it on stage: