October 2008

Allyson's birthday...#17! :)

The pumpkin patch...California style. Unfortunately, there's no such thing as a real pumpkin patch locally. So every year we make do at the "pretend" pumpkin patch that's more like a carnival with piles of pumpkins under a big a tent and lots of rides, monster blow up slides and smiles.

Michael and his John Deere ride! :) He quickly turned this into bumper cars....repeatedly rear-ending Hannah and Riley. He must have had the faster car or maybe a heavier foot?

Riley Jayne and "Scout" the pony :)

Allyson is lovin' it!


Madison...."Woowhooo!!!"

Taylor..."Oh my goodness!" ...and yes you can actually see her tonsils! :)

Hannah...hanging on for dear life... "this is scary...but I love it!"

This year at the "pseudo" pumpkin patch, they had a new ride (i guess you would call it) maybe "attraction" is a better word?... with four "bungy jump" -like stations. As you can see, the kids are harnessed in and then attached/held by huge rubberband like ropes. Beneath them is a huge innertube looking trampoline. The worker would tighten the rubberband like ropes, raising them several feet in the air, then pull the kids down to the trampoline and then quickly release them like a big sling shot...hurling them into the air. (if that makes sense) Allyson was the first to insist on trying it out with everyone else clammering to try after they saw how much fun she was having. Michael was terrified at first, but relaxed and enjoyed after a few times up and down. It was great fun to watch!

Halloween is here!

Here's two of our four jack 'o lanterns "spidy" complete with a web and "smily". We also carved one with a cat (which suprisingly turned out very good) and another one with I can't even remember what, but for some reason we didn't get very good pictures of those two. Oh well.

ready to go! Hannah is a scarey-pirate, Riley is tinkerbell with light up wings, Michael is Batman (for the third year in a row, I think) and Taylor is a cute kitty. :)

(Mark didn't dress up he just wanted to be in the picture.)

Halloween is always a blast with all the usual...costumes, pumpkin carving, trick-or-treating, haunted houses (we have a neighbor, a couple of blocks away, that does a huge one every year), and too much candy. I was very impressed with Riley Jayne this year; she insisted on walking the entire trick-or-treating route, which was not just long but included hills. Towards the end of the evening, she did start to lag behind a little but never complained. By the time we were done, she was too tired to even survey her haul of candy!

My little Tinkerbell the trooper! :)