Pumpkin Carving

Reagan watches Rob carve his pumpkin. This was during the World Series and so Rob carved a big T for Texas and the SF symbol for the Giants.
Morgan uses a template to draw on her pumpkin. Morgan's carving to a long time and was very intricate. Her pumpkin withered before I was able to take a picture of the finished product.
Reagan carved her pumpkin all by her self. I spent several days last week at school helping carve pumpkins in Morgan's 6th grade Social Studies class. Only adults could use the carving knives at school. I can understand why they do it, but it still seemed funny that at home my 6 year old had no problem at all carving her own pumpkin!!

Trick or Treating

This was our 5th Halloween in our current home. Since we've lived here, we have gone trick or treating to the businesses every year with my friend, Lori, and her kids. Lori drives her big green van from one end of the parking lot to the other and I walk with the kids. However, the kids are getting older and this year we let them go by themselves quite a bit of the time. We had a great time as usual. However, I couldn't help being a little sad knowing that this will be the last year that we'll be able to do this together because Lori is going to be moving.
I had all the kids go into this gazebo so I could take a few pictures. Brennan is in the back and then there is Chad, Maddie, Angelynn, & Brock. Morgan is hiding behind her pumpkin and I'm not sure where Reagan is at the moment!!
A little while later I took the girls to the church for a Trunk or Treat. They held it inside in the cultural hall which was kind of a bummer. Mark and the bigger kids were at the high school football game. Reagan is a cheerleader, Morgan is Raggedy Ann and Maddie is a movie star. We went for simple this year and just used costumes we all ready had around the house. Since Halloween was on Sunday, we didn't go trick or treating around the neighborhood, but at least the kids got to go at the church and to the businesses so it all worked out fine!!

Halloween Class Parties

I am the head room parent in both Maddie & Reagan's classes this year. Their parties each lasted an hour and they overlapped by a half hour. It made for alot of craziness and I wasn't able to take the pictures I would have liked to, but at least I got a few.Here is Reagan with some of her friends and the spider webs that they made.
Reagan eating the yummy snacks
Maddie all wrapped up like a mummy.
Maddie's friend all wrapped up like a mummy. The kids really enjoyed the mummy wrapping and we also played a bunch of games which they seemed to like.

A very determined girl!!

The night before the class parties, I had my kids practice playing the games so we could know which games worked and which didn't. One of the games for Maddie's class was to use chopsticks and transfer candy corns from one bowl to another. I felt like this activity was way too hard for kindergarteners. Reagan tried doing this and at first she couldn't do it at all and she was getting very frustrated.Reagan kept trying and trying and she actually taught herself how to use chopsticks the correct way (something that I can't even do!).
In the end she was able to transfer all of the candy corns and she LOVED it!! She even did it the next day before school!!

Maddie's School Program

Today I got a call at 3:30 saying that the music teacher needed help decorating for the music program tonight and they didn't have any volunteers. It worked out that I could go and I brought Morgan with me. We were the only helpers and it didn't take long at all. I was glad we went so he wouldn't have to decorate by himself. Morgan was in charge of hanging the signs around the halls with arrows showing people where to go. She had a huge stack and she pretty much hung them all up. When I was at the program, I saw someone arriving late who passed us in the hall and they were saying to each other in a sarcastic manner, "Wow do you think they hung up enough signs? I had to laugh to myself when I heard that!!A sampling of the decorations.
Maddie singing in the program.
Maddie playing the xylophone. She was so excited that she got to do this!!

Grandma and Grandpa Hislop

Grandma and Grandpa Hislop came out to visit us for a few days. They had been telling me they were going to come pretty soon and that they would let me know when they were coming for sure. We were driving home from church on Sunday and Morgan informed me that she forgot to tell me that Grandma and Grandpa were coming on Sunday. I called them when I got home and sure enough they were on their way and arrived a few hours later. We were happy to have them and they stayed for a few days. They then left for a few days and went to Branson and came back for a few more days.My Dad wanted to drive to Hutchinson so that he could visit the track there. He competed in the Junior College National Championships here when he was in college and was a Junior College All American. As we walked around the track, he could tell that it is still a 440 yard track which confirmed to him that this was the track he ran on.
We had to get a picture of him standing by the a steeplechase barrier, his signature event as a track coach. On our way home we stopped in Yoder and ate at Carriage Crossing, a Mennonite restaurant. It is a great place to eat.
Rob had a lot of fun playing catch with Grandpa. He would throw it so Rob had to reach out and dive for it.
Grandma and Maddie

Playing in the Leaves

I heard the girls outside and I looked out the back windows and saw that they were raking leaves into a pile to play in.Nancy and Reagan raking.
They stood in the neighbor's yard and then ran into our yard and jumped into the pile.
I really like this picture of Nancy!
Nancy and Reagan and the fruit of their labor!!
I just love this picture with Reagan's hat being thrown in the air as well!!

Halloween Crafting

I had some ideas for some Halloween crafts and the girls were excited to try them for a fun Sunday activity.We used Tootsie rolls and turned them into pumpkins. Morgan adapted the idea and cut the sucker sticks short and made those the pumpkin stems.
Maddie doing a stem for a pumpkin.
Reagan models the crafts they made, a pumpkin without a stick, with a stick and the bracelet made from candy pumpkins and ribbon!

Homecoming

Marissa went to a homecoming with a big group of friends!Megan & Marissa
A lot of the boys decided to wear sweaters and sweater vests and since Marissa had a sweater as well, she is in the "sweater" picture.

Picture of the whole gang!!

Pumpkin Patch

I went to the Pumpkin Patch with Reagan's kindergarten class for a field trip. It was nice that it hadn't rained, but it sure was hot!!!Reagan with her pumpkin.
Reagan and a few of her classmates.
Reagan and Mom
Reagan loved playing in this dried corn and it was even in the shade.
Reagan pumping water to move the ducks along!

Boa Spiders

The girls were really excited to do this craft that I had found on the internet. I thought about doing it for Reagan's class party, but it was definitely too difficult to do with a class of kindergarteners.Twisting the pipe cleaners together for the legs. Reagan was really good at doing this.
Nancy & Reagan show off their finished spiders.

Parade Time

Maddie, Reagan and I marched in the home town parade with the elementary school.Reagan shows off her jag outfit and paraphernalia.
The kindergarteners and first graders got to ride on the float this year. Maddie thought it was really unfair that Reagan got to ride on the float to years in a row while she had to walk. Reagan didn't see anything wrong with it.