Fall Festivities

We just barely fit in our annual trip to the Underwood Family Farm in Moorpark this year. Amy and I have taken the kids there for the last several years, always on a weekday because admission is a fourth of the weekend price, and it's a lot less crowded. However we discovered this year that these kind of weekday activities are a little harder to plan with the girls in school.

We managed to meet up there after school just a couple days before Halloween. The advantage of this was the lack of crowds, the disadvantage was that the kids were pretty tired when we got there. My plan to have Caleb nap in the car on the drive out there backfired when he fell asleep about 5 minutes before we arrived. Hence the reason he is not smiling in any of the pictures.

Amy and Silas were the first ones to the haystack at the center of the corn maze

Almost a smile!

Mr. Silas, I think his favorite part of the day was his first pony ride, the boy was ecstatic!

BFF's

And this is the best picture we could get at the end of the day with two very tired kids:

As for Halloween, Hannah decided quite a while ago that she wanted to be a cheetah. Between online tutorials for making ears and a tail, and an animal print dress and leggings from Walmart, I managed to get a costume together.
Caleb's costume has a long history. It's always been called a leopard costume, although I'm not sure what would distinguish it as a leopard versus, say, a cheetah.

Anyway, it was made my my mom's cousin for her child and then given to my mom. I was the first one in our family to wear it and all the kids since have had a turn. At first Caleb was rather bothered by the tail, but then decided it was fun to chew on. I didn't think he'd keep the cap on but he never took issue with that. We have also learned that he LOVES candy, particularly chocolate. He knows which jar is the candy jar and will frantically point at it and yell until we either move it out of sight or give him a little. It's now permanently out of sight on a high shelf.

I'm glad to be past Halloween and just enjoying the fall season (now that it's almost over), thinking of things we're thankful for, like this boy:

Long Overdue

I have had a long blog absence. Mostly because I can hardly find any time to sit down at the computer. A certain little someone wants to touch the computer any time it is out. And if I take my eyes off him for more than 30 seconds he may end up looking like this:

Well, what have we been up to? At the beginning of October we took a trip that covered most of the west coast, ending in Prineville, Oregon at Chris' grandfather's ranch. Chris was able to do some hunting with his parents and brother, and successfully harvested another deer.

 

The kids were troopers in the car, thanks to a portable DVD player we borrowed from some friends.

We also stopped at McDonald's 5 times in the span of 3 days and made use of every playplace between the Bay Area and Prineville. I have not been to a McDonald's since.

We broke up the long trip by visiting some family in the bay area, including David, Kristl and Kolton and all my parents. (I even got to sneak away for an hour to stop at Crate and Barrel and wander in downtown Walnut Creek, bonus!) 

Chris drove up to Oregon with his parents a few days before me and the kids, and my dad was crazy enough to volunteer to drive with us from Pleasanton to Prineville in one day. I may have lost my mind had he not been in the car with me. Thanks Dad!

While in Prineville we also got to see my Grandma Mary, and on the way home Holly, Steve, Stellan and Preston. I loved getting to see so much family, and grateful the kids were able to see some cousins.

Our other favorite stop on the way home is, of course, the Avila Valley Barn.

I had grand plans to fill this post with all the highlights from October until now, but I'm too tired. So I'll leave it at that and you'll just have to wait for the halloween pictures (which at this rate will show up right before Christmas).