Our river of life: All things fall

The kids costumes this year. Banden as Legolas, Atticus as a chick-a-dee, Ira as a viking, and Leiella as a cowgirl (of course). :) They were so creative this year, came up with their costume ideas and did a lot on their own!

Leiella forgot to put her boots on so of course we had to take more pictures later, ha ha! The girl has a tenancy towards melt downs lately, oh the drama!

We made that arrow pouch using a sleeve (from Ira's jacket turned into a vest) and it turned out perfect!

His very best serious business face. :)

Ira is the opposite of serious. Ha ha!

He makes a great little viking. :)

There's a chick-a-dee in the house!

He was very particular about the details, referring to his various bird books and the regular visitor to our yard. :) We reused his bird hat from the year he was a raven and the wings from the year he was a dove, ha ha! We just spray painted the top portion gray.

We found the perfect stick horse at Value Village! Super good condition and still made noises. I think this was the high point of her outfit choice for her. ;)

Cowgirl La!

She got her boots on! :)

The kids (mostly Leiella my party planner extraordinaire!) threw a harvest party for some homeschooling friends. It was a lot of fun. We had yummy snacks and set up some games like, pumpkin ring toss with glow stick necklaces, a large tic-tac-toe set up on the floor with tape and two sets of differently colored pumpkins, and pumpkin stomp. Pumpkin stomp was a hit! We got a huge package of orange balloons and blew them all up, putting confetti in most of them. Then half way through the part we told the kids that they were like pumpkins and the kids got to stomp on them. Every kids dream, every parents nightmare, ha ha! They made quick work of them and then they one minute to pick all the pieces up. I told them if they beat the time they would get a treat. :) The treat being these cool chocolate things that Ira made. Those were a hit too. I got a lot of really awesome pictures of the party but can't post them here, so you get pictures of food, ha ha!

The kids made pumpkins with peeled mandarin oranges and celery stick stakes. They also made deviled eggs and each one had a spider on top made with olives. Roasted pumpkin seeds were a must as well. And apple cider. :)

The cool treats that Ira made! These were fun and not very hard to do and look super cool! You can put all kinds of toppings on them. We chose dried cranberries and slivered almonds.

Silly boy.

We do date nights with our kids every two weeks one of the kids gets a date with Ryder or I. It's complicated and scheduled into the calendar for the year to make sure it's fair. Ha ha! Anyways the kids love it and constantly check the calendar to figure out who's next. This was a date night for Leiella with her daddy. I just love how she got dressed up. :)

Seriously weekend puppy pile, ha ha!

Pumpkin guts time!

Me and my girl, all about colors!

I love this so much. :)

Every time I ask Leiella to pose for me she expects me to pose for her, so funny. I think she just wants an excuse to use the camera on my phone. She is obsessed with my phone. :/

Fall colors!

Being silly.

Making fire cider, with is so beneficial during cold and flu season. But super spicy!

Ira making tortillas on his own, from start to finish!

She's homeschooled, bwahahaha! I love that she drew Texas and Washington as independent countries. We talk about those two places a lot. Oh man, I laughed so hard. She was embarrassed, because she's a perfectionist, so I had to change my tune. I told her I loved it and then we had a talk with a globe on our laps. ;)

It's that time of year again, eggnog time!!! Chai tea with eggnog makes me a happy girl. :)

Most of us can't have corn around here and we've been missing popcorn something fierce! Well I recently found out about popped sorghum and then found some at our local co-op! It tastes like you are eating little mini popcorn! I popped it in a pan, which was a pain and took too long. So now I totally want an air popper! We were thoroughly impressed!!!

The kids chose their own patterns this year on a free website. Ira's is the spider and Leiella's is the one that says Jesus. :) It was quite the search to find that one but she was determined!

Atty's jack-o-lantern.

Banden saw this pattern after he had already done his jack-o-lantern last year. He remembered that and found the same pattern this year.

Teal pumpkin project! We've got our teal pumpkin set out and our non-food treats available. :) Because we were staying in and watching a movie we put up a sign welcoming people to grab a treat. That way we wouldn't have to jump up and grab the door over and over again. Sort of a cop-out I know. ;) Honestly though family time is just more important!

All dressed up... To watch a movie! ;) We switch between a harvest party or trick or treating and the Great Pumpkin. This year it was the party. Good thing because it was gross out. I don't really like trick or treating, didn't grow up doing it. We didn't dress up either. I do like the dressing up part and I love seeing what my kids come up with. But the whole going out and knocking on strangers doors for candy I don't want and we can't have seems so very pointless. I don't want my kids to feel left out though, if they want to do it, so that's why they get a choice. Thankfully they often pick the party option. That's more fun because you get to dress up and hang out with friends!