It's Autumntime

It's Autumntime

It's Autumntime

The leaves are falling down

It's Autumntime

It's Autumntime

It's all around the town.

Yes, it's Fall in the East and we have enjoyed all the pretty colors.  

We've had plenty of leaves in our own yard too.  And The Captain was barefoot in these pictures as he was jumping in leaves since it was 80 degrees outside.  It was also noon when I took these pictures, so forgive the horrible lighting. 

I've started raking them, with some help.  But quickly discovered it is a 5 person job. I may be many things, but I'm not 5 people.  So I'm not sure what will happen to our leaves.  It's supposed to snow this week from the hurricane, but I'm hoping it will warm up thereafter and give me a little more time to winterize things around here.  

Halloween Decorations - Spiders

Our third week of decorating was spider themed.

We hung spider webs on the porch.

and the bushes.

We made this giant spider from plastic bags.  And by we, I mean my friend came over cause I was sick and washed my dishes and made this with The Captain.

Over the weekend, when I wasn't feeling so sick, we made these awesome spider pods with water balloons.

And this spider from some foam balls and pipe cleaners

Pumpkin Festival

As per tradition, we went to the Pumpkin Festival this year.  And just like every year, we had tons of fun . 

There was a kid's hay maze that The Captain really enjoyed.

They had a pumpkin chuckin' launcher with 3 small pumpkins for $1.  The Captain really got into it.

Johnny did too.

Beautiful view.

climbing on the hay.

We actually got lunch there this year and up by the barn they had hay animal rocking horses.

Miss Joy really had a ball.

And we had to get Joy a trick-or-treating buddy.

And of course, we bought some pumpkins.

And just a reminder of last year, so you know she actually is growing a little.

Halloween Decorations - Pumpkins

Our second week of decorations was pumpkins.  

First we made paper pumpkins and hung them from the window.  You can see the pumpkin The Captain made in preschool that we put up as well.

Another paper lantern

We got the pumpkin and the awesome gourd at the Pumpkin Festival (more on that in another post) also the white pumpkin in the next picture.  The mummy is a giant butternut squash I bought at the Farmer's market.  It should soup up nicely after Halloween.

The Captain painted these, though Johnny helped on the big one.  We grew that pumpkin, and I refuse to acknowledge it's slow goopy leaking and deterioration.  I made that pumpkin, darn it, and it WILL last until Halloween.  Also, I'm super impressed my The Captain's developing face drawing skills.  He put teeth and a tongue on his monster.  And hair and glasses.  He insists everything has glasses.  Must be because I wear mine every day.  At least my ego wants me believe that.

Here's the window from the outside.  The Captain did both of them in preschool.

These are our pumpkin cans.  Sorry for the lame picture.  We painted cans and put faces on them and wire handles.  

We put Christmas lights around them and turn them on almost every night.

We did all this two weeks ago, right before/in the beginning of my sickness, so sorry for the late posting.  I am catching up on things.  And since then, we added pumpkin bags full of leaves in front of our ghost tree.

October Wreath

This was one of the wreaths I've been most looking forward too.

Supplies

• Fun fur $12/yd online --you can make due with 1/2 yd, depending on the width, but the website I went through has a 1 yd minimum, which just means you should get your own group together to make them.  And lots of people would mean you could pick lots of colors and split shipping lots of ways.  
• 12 ping pong balls.  $4-- I actually used bigger Styrofoam balls from the dollar store, so I only spent $1
• Paint pen or Sharpie -- if your wreath is exposed to the elements, I'd recommend the paint.
• Hot glue gun
• Plastic shopping bags -- Free!

Total  around $20 with shipping

1) Cut the fur into two identical wreaths.  Mine ended up being huge.  I recommend making the center hole as small as you can and measuring the diameter on your door first.  

2) On the back of one of the wreaths, make 1 1/4" slits for the eyes.  

3) Paint circles on the ping pong balls.

4) Put a ring of hot glue around the eyeball.  Push the eyeball into the slit until the glue sticks to the fur, and the eyeball is exposed the way you like. Repeat for all 12 eyeballs.

5) For the brave, with fur sides in, sew the outer edge of the wreath together, leaving a hole to turn it right side out.  

6) With furry sides out, hot glue the center together.  For the non-sewers, hot glue the outer edge closed leaving a gap to stuff the wreath.

7) Stuff the wreath with plastic grocery bags.  

8) Hot glue the opening closed.  

9) Attach ribbon.  I just pinned mine on.  And hang on door.

My monster Monster Wreath

Halloween Decorations - Ghosts

We are a little out of control when it comes to Halloween at our house.  It is my second favorite holiday, and sooo much fun with a 3 year old.  Finally, it's time to start all those fun crafts I pin on Pinterest. Well, the easy ones anyway.

I put together a calender of crafts on The Captain's Preschool schedule so that we could do something on the days when he wasn't in school.  And I organized the crafts by theme every week.  So our first week we did ghost crafts.  Here's a look at what we did:

Ghost footprints and leaves

The Captain glued on the moons and trees and both children got their feet painted.  Joy was much more cooperative than I thought she'd be.  And we managed to keep things pretty clean.  The leaves we got from a tree in our back yard and spray painted.  

We stuffed garbage bags with the Styrofoam from my anniversary present that the children ripped apart and snowed all over my house.  This time clean up turned into something super fun.   

This is left over from last year, but still cool.

I bought this paper lantern at the dollar store along with a slew of other Halloween stuff.  Did I mention we are out of control?  This lights up, assuming I have batteries somewhere around here. 

Next episode . . . pumpkins!

Touch a Truck

Just like last year, the high school FFA club had a Touch-a-Truck fundraiser.  We were excited. 

Inside a livestock trailer

 But unlike last year, I brought my camera this time.  

Also, Johnny couldn't be there, so I had to keep track of 2 munchkins and take pictures all by myself.  I brought the stroller, that helped a little, but eventually squirmy Joy had to be let loose.  

And stroller pictures are so boring. 

this isn't as boring

 I only lost The Captain once when he left the fire truck to go make friends.  

One day he'll be happy I got him a nice picture of a fire truck.

He wasn't gone too long and other moms are pretty great about looking after somewhat stray children in my experience.  I occasionally return the favor for other people's kids.  Anyway, it was a great day.  

The only thing missing was a school bus, which unfortunately was The Captain's favorite thing last year.  Here's some other pictures: 

Anyone feeling faint? . . . Anyone?

Even big boys need a leg up sometimes.

Beep beep

Those tires must be huge to be bigger than this big boy.

I'm on a boat, y'all.

Commence Operation Baby Scoop

No escape Little One