Halloween Fun!

We have done a few things in the last few weeks to celebrate Halloween and enjoy the fall season.  The kids had some neighbors over for pizza, a movie and cupcake/cookie decorating.  They watched the Nightmare before Christmas and then made some crazy dessert creations. Overall it was a pretty fun night.

Decorating desserts!

Teresa's creations

Timothy's creations

Another afternoon, we went to the pumpkin patch with some friends and church youth.  The highlight was the corn maze.  The boys were eager to try the paintball wagon, but all the times were sold out.  It was still a beautiful day to be outside.

One night for dinner we had our cute pumpkin face appetizer plate.  It's cute and the kids actually like this dinner, so a win-win!

We make these pumpkin chocolate cupcakes just about every year. The first year was 2014 at Grandma's...the picture below.  The originally were decorated all as spiders.  Now we are a little more creative and crazy with whatever supplies we can round up!

At work this year I got to celebrate two days with my preschoolers.  One day I dressed up as a cowgirl.  The other day I was an elephant with my elephant hat and gray sweats.

It has been a fun fall!

 

Fall mini vacation

 We had hotel rewards to use, so Troy booked us at a nice place in Wisconsin with a mini waterpark to enjoy.  We tied this in with a visit to my Aunt. We only stayed one night, but we got in a lot of swimming in.  Two swimming times on Friday and a couple hours Saturday morning.

The little slides at the waterpark

In addition to swimming, we walked to picnic point on Lake Mendota.  We went to the fall fest in Verona. And we also had some yummy Hurt's donuts for breakfast.  We got to visit and have dinner with my aunt on Friday night and returned to visit on Saturday afternoon.

Enjoying Hurt's donuts for breakfast!

Troy and I enjoyed the short walk near the lake.  The kids tolerated it!  They loved the swimming, so it was all good.  We stopped for an hour at the fall fest.  The kids had a lot of fun in the petting zoo with chicks, bunnies, ducks and goats.  They also had a brief run through an obstacle course and got to make sucker ghosts and stained glass Halloween decorations.

Timothy and a chick at fall fest.

After the fall fest, we had our traditional pizza hut dinner with Aunt Mary.  It has been quite awhile since we have done this and it was fun! When we visited on Saturday we got to open a few gifts from Aunt Mary.  The kids were excited to have new blankets! We had a fun time visiting with her.

It was a quick trip, but we did a lot and enjoyed the family time!

Birthday time

 We were able to once again celebrate Troy's birthday with others.  Last year we had to take a break from the party with friends that has become a tradition it seems!  We had great weather, and it was so nice to be together with friends and neighbors again.  Troy did some grilling and we had a delicious and simple dinner!  Of course I failed to take one picture except for one with his birthday cookie bars.

We continued the birthday week fun with a family outing to see the Marvel movie Sheng-Chi and the 10 Rings.  We had the whole theater to ourselves!  It was a better movie than I expected and a fun thing to do on a Tuesday night!

Troy's birthday was a busy work day for him, and a confirmation night for Timothy, so the celebrations were not huge.  But Troy got some gifts...a few coffee themed things and dark chocolate of course!  He also got a new Cubs mask and a Fathor shirt that Teresa wanted him to have. 

He and I had a dinner of his favorites after I dropped Timothy at church.  Salmon, brussels sprouts, cheese and bread.  For dessert we went out to Culver's for some ice cream after confirmation.

It was a pretty fun week of celebrating a very special guy! Happy Birthday Troy!