Happy Halloween!

I love holidays...all of them! But, I must admit, Christmas & Easter are my favorites, but Halloween is just so much fun! So of course, I try to pack in as much holiday fun as possible! :)

Happy Apple Halloween!

Thursday was Kate's 1st preschool holiday party! And, just as I had heard, Happy Apple does everything with style!

Kate & Mrs. Kolgaklis

The party began with a parade. All the kids lined up and walked a couple of blocks where several city offices had stations set up with candy! Our parade was led by the pastor of the church dressed up as a bulldog (holding a gator), in honor of the Florida/Georgia game tomorrow!

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After the parade, all the kids were brought in for a short program. The kids sang 3 songs and then sang the blessing for their meal. Unfortunately, since Kate is only about 75% better, she wasn't exactly in the mood to sing and dance. But, it was still cute.....and Thanksgiving will be here before we know it! (Kate's class is the front row)

Time for fun foods. She did have chicken on her plate too but had already eaten in by the time I took the picture.

Kate was loving on little brother.

Not So Haunted House

Now, on to October 31st! We began our day by heading downtown to Studio S for their "Not So Haunted House" charity fundraiser event. The studio was offering free 5x7 photos of the kids and an afternoon of fun activities in exchange for 5 cans for a local food pantry - what a deal!

Suzanna, it was great meeting you today! Thank you so much for this opportunity...we all had so much fun!!! I can't wait to see the pictures! (I think we get them in about a week)

Little Red Riding Hood (Suzanna) & Kate

After pictures we went back outside for a hayride to downtown to look at all the scarecrows.

Then, of course the kids insisted on getting in the bounce house.Kate, Griffen & Emma had a blast wearing themselves out. (Kate napped for 2 hours!!!)

And, of course, Kate & Griffen just had to wrestle!

Both kids came up laughing every time though so that's good. :)



Gabe & Madeline loved watching/feeling all the big kids bounce too!

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Trick or Treat

Finally, the main event! We were originally scheduled to have a yummy dinner (the chili was great...thanks Nathan & Phoebe) with several friends, but unfortunately, Kate's buddy, Walker, was diagnosed with strep throat today so the big party had to be cancelled. Walker, we missed you tonight.....we hope you are feeling better soon!!!!

So, we went with Plan B and met up with Madeline (mommy & daddy too) and headed out house to house. Are these kids not just so cute! :) I know, I'm a little biased!


We decided to still go to Walker's neighborhood because just look at this...their neighbors really go all out!



I think Kate thinks that Sarah & Chris are actually her friends, not merely Madeline's parents. Kate LOVES picking on them and getting them to chase her!

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And we know how much she loves Grandma & Pawpaw!

Gabe loves everyone too of course, but something else this kid loves.....CANDY! I have known about his sweet tooth for some time now, but this week, with candy everywhere we go, this kid has been crazy trying to get at it! Tonight was Gabe's 1st time to really go out and trick or treat!

And after inspecting all the candy, and while Kate was off playing with Grandma....Gabe was one happy little boy eyeing all of his loot!

We hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween!!!

Now it's time to start planning for Thanksgiving!!!

Trunk or Treat

Well, despite our very busy week filled with Fall/Halloween events, we have been forced to slow down a little bit. Kate (along with several of her friends) caught a pretty bad cough that has left her just sort of feeling "yucky" off and on this week. So, I kept her home from school on Tuesday for a pajama day. Here is Kate having lunch and talking on the phone to grandma!


After staying home for nearly two days (that's alot for us!) we decided to venture out and meet up with our friends for "Trunk or Treat!" It was so much fun....You wouldn't believe some of these "trunks" - Incredible!

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Gabe enjoying a lollipop - Of course!

Our friends. We tried to get them to all stand together for a picture....Yeah Right!

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Kate LOVES baby girls! In fact, she has started telling me everyday that she wants a new baby to bring home. She even tried to buy it a sippy cup at the store today. I told her she had to talk to daddy about that one. ;)

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After enjoying lots of fun and festivities outside, we headed indoors for hotdogs....and the cakewalk!

And after only two rounds.....We WON!!!! Kate was so excited! She got to go pick out any cake and decided on the chocolate one because "it matches grandma's birthday cake."

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Time to go back out! Unfortunately, my camera battery was dying by this point so no good pictures of kate in the bounce houses or all of us on the hayride, but this picture of Gabe was just too cute not to post! He LOVED the bounce houses!!!

We want to wish three very special people a very happy birthday!

From Jon, Deanna, Kate, & Gabe - we hope you all had a fantastic day!!!!

Super Saturday

Today was certainly an action-packed Saturday! I really don't think we have many "do-nothing" weekends planned until well after the holidays, but fortunately the kids & I love it and daddy puts up with it. :) So, let me present to you our very long, but fun-filled, Saturday!

Tabitha's Tea Party

Happy 3rd Birthday Tabitha! We started out our morning at a very cute tea party in honor of our friend Tabitha! The party was great and all the little kids looked so cute dressed in their "Sunday best."

The birthday girl!

Tabitha & Kate enjoying a little tea together

While the boys, Walker & Gabe, thought it much more fun to build a tunnel with the books and drive their cars over and under.....these two are definitely car buddies in the making!

But, they did decide to participate in some of the fun!

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Celebration Church Fall Festival

After the tea party we drove down the rode to let the kids run off some of their energy. One of the local churches was hosting their fall festival at a nearby coffee shop, and since we are always up for fun and games, we didn't want to miss it!

Of course, what would a festival be without games and LOTS of candy!

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Do you think Gabe likes lollipops?!? :) He ended up with one in his mouth (wrapper on) and three more in his hands before I pulled him away from the prize bucket. He literally sifted through all the candy just to find the lollipops!

And the race is on! Kate started out doing it right and balancing her pumpkin on the spatula, that it until it looked like Walker might actually catch up and win.

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Finally, we ended our time with nails and face painting. Kate wanted flowers on her fingers and dots on her face to match her dress.

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She was very excited about all of her polka dots!

Pumpkin Painting

Unfortunately, Jon has to work out of town this week and will miss several of our Halloween events, but one thing he didn't want to miss was our annual pumpkin painting and carving. So, despite the very busy day, after waking from naps we headed to the backyard for pumpkin fun!

This is Gabe's first year to paint a pumpkin and I must say, he did great! He was so excited and seemed to know exactly what he was doing. As for Kate, she loves to paint but gets very serious about her art projects so she may not look "all smiles" but was instead very focused!

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First she added the paint, then LOTS of glitter.....

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.....and then she glued on the face

Gabe caught on instantly and sat for nearly 10 minutes painting the perfect pumpkin!

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Our little Picasso!

A very proud daddy caught the whole experience on video!

And a very proud Gabe at the end of pumpkin painting!

Gabe & Kate

Then it was time for mommy & daddy to enjoy a bit of pumpkin fun!

This year I chose to carve Cinderella for Kate and Jon carved the ghost for Gabe.

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Our 2008 pumpkin family!

Spooky State Park

Not quite done with the day yet, we cleaned up the kids, enjoyed a quick dinner, and drove to the local state park for their Haunted Nature Center & Haunted Hayride. However, I don't think the park anticipated the crowds so the night didn't exactly go as planned. We waited in a long line for the haunted nature center and dicovered that it was a little too spooky. Kate liked looking at all the snakes and other animals, but wasn't so fond of the monsters lurking behind the curtains or the science lab with lots of gooey things.

Next we walked to the long line for the hayride, and after waiting an hour and realizing that this was a 25 minute hayride, we had at least another hour to wait, and the fact that we were past bedtime and Gabe is kid who likes his schedule, we decided to call it a night and head home.

But, I did still manage to get a few cute pictures of the kids...of course!

Walker & Kate running down the trail to the Haunted Nature Center

Lots of Love for Madeline!

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