A Pumpkin Filled Weekend

Our town celebrates it up for Halloween.  We had a fun filled week and weekend with friends and family enjoying the festivities. 

 

 

Meet Sir Topham Hatt and Strawberry Shortcake!

 

Grady's costume was all borrowed except for the top hat (Party City) and tie (Ebay).  I tackled sewing my first Halloween costume for Layla this year.  The yarn wig started it all when I was shocked at the sticker price of one for $40 on Etsy!!  I was able to make one this one for less than $5.  

 

 

 

Layla's carriage pumpkin! 

 

Grady's train pumpkins! 

At the festival!  They were very proud of their entries.  Layla was also freezing even with her multiple layers on :)

 

Trick-or-treating downtown.  Here you see Ryan, Grady, Layla and Layla's friend trick-or-treating in a bike shop downtown.  The crowds are always big for trick-or-treating, but I love this fun little tradition.

After trick-or-treating, we went out for dinner downtown at a favorite Mexican restaurant. 

We celebrated Kayte's birthday while we were there too!

 

On Sunday, I ran in the Pumpkin Run.  It was a 10K.  I managed to squeak it out in under an hour, which was great for me.  I am more of a 3 mile runner, so this run is always a bit of a stretch for me!  Cassie is planning on running it with me next year.  Pumpkin Run 2014...here we come Cass :)

 

Ryan and the kids were really cute cheering me on during the race. 

Grady is waiting for me to cross a bridge in this picture.

 

And I made it!  Here are the four of us after the race! 

 

We enjoyed the weekend with my parents, my sisters' family and Joan.  Wish I had more pictures.  Next year! :)

 

 

 

Happy Halloween everyone!!

 

a

Fall Fun

There are always so many fun things to do in October! First up was Stephanie and Adam's pumpkin party. They always do a great job with a hayride, games, crafts and best of all a huge leaf pile!  I was shocked they had leaves this year.  Most of the trees were still green and full when this party happened a little over a week ago.  Adam somehow made it happen :)

 

 

Katie and Josh's cute boys, Zander and Vinny!

Next up, pumpkin painting!  We had fun getting our pumpkins all ready for the upcoming pumpkin festival.  Grady made a train of pumpkins and Layla decided on a pumpkin carriage similar to last year.  She wanted to make some slight adjustments to the design :)

 

Grady sat and painted all of his pumpkins.  He actually stayed with the whole project, beginning to end.  What a difference from a year ago.  The giant leaps from year to year always amaze me.  And makes me a bit sad.  Last year he was still a baby.  This year...he is all two year old :)

 

Layla is helping Ryan draw out the design here.  She knew exactly what she wanted.

 

Grady added some beans to his coal car pumpkin

My hard workers!  Layla was working on a train track of Popsicle sticks for Grady's pumpkin train and Grady was getting the train wheels ready to hammer into the pumpkin.

And the hammering begins with Pat from Handy Manny!

 

And Layla worked hard on her painting.  It was wet for quite some time :)  

I will snap a photo of the finished products before we take them downtown for the contest!

And lastly, I have one picture from our carving night with our friends, Lincoln, Ryker and Mason (and their parents!).  The kids give their input on the carving design and scoop out a few seeds and then off they run to go play while the dads get busy carving.  Grady and Mason accidentally switched pumpkins in this picture :) 

We hope you are having a fun fall! 

Amanda's Big Day

Our good college friend Amanda got married this weekend!!  

We are so excited and happy for Amanda and Jeff!! 

 

College girlfriends!

 

The happy couple, Amanda and Jeff

The wedding and reception were adorable.  Amanda and Jeff are huge hockey fans and they infused their favorite sport into the decorations.  Their guest book was a hockey jersey 

with their last name on the back of it.  It was so perfect!

Amanda and Jeff invited our kids to the wedding and reception.  How sweet was that?!?  We decided to just bring Layla.  She is able to sit for longer periods and just loves anything bride and wedding related.  She also loves to dance and is typically able to stay up past her bedtime without a meltdown.  Thank you to my dad for watching Grady for us!!

 

Layla loved every aspect of the wedding.  She thought it was pretty cool to drink her water out of her coffee cup and she loved the fancy napkin on her lap.

 

Her favorite part of the evening was the dancing.  She loved it.

 

We let Layla try her first sip of pop in the form of a kiddie cocktail.  She thought it was fizzy but liked it :)

Stephanie, Katie and I.  So lucky to have found them in college!!  

Congratulations Amanda and Jeff!! 

October

Our end of September and October has been a bit crazy.  Crazy, but overall good! 

 

Ryan got into a car accident.  A car blew a stop sign by his work and just like that his car was totaled. The car is gone but he was thankfully fine.  Because it happened right by his work, he had lots of support immediately.  After a lengthy hunt, we found a car last weekend!   

 

I served jury duty for a week.  I learned a lot.  I learned both about the legal system and about working full time with kids.  I just got a small taste of working hours for a week, but man that is tough work.  It gave me a greater appreciation for working moms and for Ryan and working dads too. 

 

Grady started speech therapy.  His therapist is sweet and embraces his energy.  We waited until we could wait no longer to start therapy!  Early intervention is a wonderful thing to have offered to us and we are excited to hear the results from the therapy.  My favorite thing Grady says right now is "And be. And be. And be."  He means "And me" to make sure he is not left out of anything :)  I will be sad when he drops that little phrase. 

 

Layla is still loving school.  She is frenetic when she gets home from school.  I get to help in her classroom from time to time and watched her today as she ran for the school fundraiser.  She seems happy and is learning lots.  And apparently she has a schedule to rotate friends at lunch :) 

 

 Pictures are below!!

 

Grandma Cathy and Papa Ver had good luck with their pumpkins this year!!

Cousins!!

Apple picking!!

Dramatic Grady not loving my photo ideas ;)

 

Eating and learning :)

 

 

 

Running for the school fundraiser!!

Bear crawl during PE class!

 

Grandma came to watch the fundraiser too!!  Layla was pumped!