Learn, Live, and LOVE it!: Catching Up-- Halloween and Fall with my Kiddos

I realized recently that I feel less incentive to blog during warm, pleasant weather when I'm afforded plenty of opportunities to socialize in real time. Lame explanation, but I have none other to offer for why my last posts have been so sparsely placed. I know that puts my blog readers at a significant disadvantage because so very few of you actually live where I live. As chilly weather descends and I see the loneliness of winter looming, I find myself face palming for not cultivating these online relationships more intentionally. I am sorry for being so exclusive and leaving ya'll out... can I make amends with an amazingly lengthy catchall post? Because nothing says "I value our friendship" better than a plethora of photos, right? ha ha! Here they come!

Gwen was a mermaid for Halloween and Caroline was a fish. They both helped with the making of their costumes, but Gwen's help was ACTUALLY helpful. :) She did the shells on her top and her barrette while Caroline helped glue her eyeballs onto barrettes.

Emmett was a shark! Well, sort of. Actually, he napped during the trunk or treat at church, refused to wear it for actual trick or treating, and barely managed to smile for this photo when we wanted to show Grandma his cuteness. So he was a shark for all of 3 minutes. :) Not a big deal since he was wearing a recycled costume of Gwen's from a couple years ago. At least I didn't spend lots of time on a costume for him this year!

Caroline loves to pose... when I say "smile like a fish" this is what I get! lol

This wasn't our trunk, but if we were more awesome it should have been! We were parked right next door to them, so their awesomeness sort of rubbed off on our trunk lameness (read: complete and total absence of decoration unless you count the stroller). The ocean theme was awesome and the girls thought is basically was meant for them!

Carving pumpkins was interesting. Gwen was excited at first, but there were many tears (literally, agony and weeping) when she realized she was going to have to touch more than one handful of slimy seeds before we'd help her do the actual carving. Life is tough. But she LOVED that spider barrette we made together and wore it to school every day for 2 weeks!

Emmett was very interested in the pumpkins. He was all over everything and every slime he could find!

The finished products!

There was a narrow window when the leaves were gorgeous on the trees AND on the ground (still colorful rather than drab brown) and it wasn't raining and I desperately wanted to capture it... Not sure these pics are exactly what I had in mind, but it was a fun outing anyway. :)

Emmett just wanted to play with this cute little pumpkin.

See, isn't it gorgeous? I love fall around here!

Gwen was happy too, can you tell?

The pictures sure got silly... but do you see how their heads are cut off? Here's the story. Our camera broke a few weeks ago (thank you, Emmett) and I have been taking pics with the itouch since my old school phone takes grainy pics. Well, this was my first time to take the itouch pics OUTSIDE and I didn't realize that I wouldn't be able to see the screen in the sunlight! I had NO idea what I was taking pics of (hence the terrible compositions and chopped off heads, lol! In fact, there were about 30 pics where I had the screen shot reversed and was taking selfies instead of pics of the kids!

Accidental selfie with the porta-potty. Glamorous. :) But that is the scarf I made and the jacket I got at Volunteers of America for a dollar. Sigh of contentment. :)

At the time of these pics (the last couple days of October) Emmett was getting closer and closer to walking! Most of the time he wanted a hand to hold...