Halloween Box and Fall Leaves

With October comes the unearthing of the Halloween Box....

A whole new giant box of toys

Em was so excited to find this bat and she named her Stellaluna and immediately began imaginary play with her.

Addie found the spiderman mask that had been missing from her spiderman costume. Woo Hoo!

Trying on the witch fingers

Addie has been wearing her Spiderman suit A LOT since August, and she's been brainstorming ways to incorporate Spiderman into her Halloween costume. 

At the end of August, her thought was a nice combo of two of her favorite characters to create....

Spidermanelsa

 

But then our neighbors gave us a fireman costume, and Spidermanelsa quickly morphed into Spidermanfireman

 

But then, when she found the mask in the Halloween box, she settled on just going all out Spiderman. I made her some shoe covers so she could have Spiderman feet, and she couldn't be more excited about being straight-up Spidey

Emily is going to be Anna from Frozen, and Elizabeth is going to be a monster, but she always clarifies to anyone who asks, that she will be a NICE monster. Not scawey.

Our neighbor has a great big maple tree in the front yard, and we just love making big piles with all their leaves. When the leaves first started changing color, the girls began begging for leaf piles, and a couple weeks ago, the leaves began to fall and the leaf play began.

And because I don't think I ever posted any fall leaves pictures last year, here they are!

Fall Leaves 2014

I just love this last one of a tiny Elizabeth, clutching her fall leaves. And the really funny thing is, two years before this one was taken, Addie was wearing the same dress in the leaves! Click here for a little flashback!

Pumpkins and Monsters

We visited the Rock Creek Pumpkin Patch again this year. We like it because there are acres and acres of pumpkins to explore, plus there are bouncy castles and farm animals. This year we may have waited a little to long to get there, because the fields were pretty picked over. We didn't mind, though, because we already had our King Soopers pumpkins waiting for us at home. So we tramped around in the dirt a bit, explored some mushy pumpkins, and then headed to the entertainment zone.

Welcome to the pumpkin patch, Elizabeth!

 I remember when we brought Emily and Addison to the pumpkin patch for the first time, they ate a lot of vines. Elizabeth was content to just sit and observe everything around her. She was very serious as she studied the pumpkins, vines and dirt.

Off to the hay bale maze, animals, and bouncy houses.

We got to see a calf drinking milk from it's mama. 

Look! Baby!

Jump!

Happy Halloween!

 The Saturday before Halloween, my Twins' Mom's club put on their annual Halloween party. A friend and I were in charge of putting together a "Halloween House" (we put up a 10x10 EZ pop up tent with black plastic tarp walls, glow in the dark decorations, and a black light. The average age of the party-goers was 2, so it was quite a hit!)

The day before the party, I was decorating the tarps in the driveway with glow-in-the-dark puffy paint. Some neighbors came over to help and it ended up turning into a bit of a block party. While we were all hanging out, Addie walked across one of the tarps and slipped in the moon, giving it a shooting star effect. Here we are admiring the artwork.

The party had a carnival theme, so there were lots of games for the kids to play. Addie and Emily had a great time knocking over cans at this station.

An old friend and co-worker from Big T, Mary Kay, brought her daughters to volunteer at the party. It was so great to see Lauren and Michaela. When I started working with Mary Kay, Lauren was in Kindergarten. Time flies! Now Michaela is getting ready to go to college!

What fall post would be complete without a little leaf play? Our front tree is getting bigger and bigger, and dropping more and more leaves each year. That means plenty of big leaf piles to play in!

More Fall Fun

I put a bench out front this year with a pot of purple mums and some Halloween decorations, and it quickly became a favorite gathering spot for Emily and Addison. Every time we got out of the car, it was straight to the bench to say hello to their scarecrow friend and see if he'd like a bite of pumpkin.

Addie's getting ready to jump!

Scarecrow gets a kiss

All smiles!

Emily's looking pensive

But some sunglasses will crack her up!

Leaf Collecting

After the leaves in the front yard had really accumulated and begun to get crunchy, we did some raking and the girls had fun playing in the piles.

Addie shows Emily how you can put leaves up your shirt to tickle your belly

 Happy Fall!