PHeather's PHamily

Halloween this year was a great success!!! And everyone wore store-bought costumes so I didn't have to make anything! Woohoo! Jackson wanted to be Darth Vader from the beginning... Emmett knew he wanted to be someone from Star Wars but couldn't decide at first (then finally settled on Luke Skywalker so he could have a light saber)... Reid originally wanted to be a construction worker but then wanted to be Darth Vader like Jackson... I knew J would not like that so I "gently persuaded" Reid to be Yoda instead so he could also have a light saber (and be totally adorable in that headpiece)... Poor Davis did not get a say... I decided on Chewbacca for him without his consent. But he made the perfect mini Chewbacca... especially with his caveman grunts that kind of sounded like the noises Chewie makes! Perfect! They were SO excited about their costumes!

(**sidenote: J and E know almost everything there is to know about the Star Wars series, but only through Legos and Lego Star Wars books that they have. We've asked several times if they want to watch the movie with Daddy, but we always get a quick and emphatic, "No thanks!!" or "No, that's okay!!" I guess the Lego version seems safer than watching real life-size space creatures battle it out. They are obsessed, though.)

Backing up to last weekend for a second... We went to a trunk-or-treat at a friend's church and the boys were ecstatic to get to wear their costumes out of the house before Halloween. They had a lot of fun.

There was a chili cookoff with mac and cheese for the kiddos, so we ate first before treating.

Then the next day we went and got our pumpkins. No, this is not Home Depot! We went to an amazing farm with carnival rides and ponies and haystacks and a duck pond and tractor rides to pick out our pumpkins! Seriously, though... I searched for a fun pumpkin patch in our area and could find nothing close by so we did just go to Home Depot. The boys were still happy, though! (Can't believe I forgot to take Davis's pacifier out for these pictures. :( He barely even needs it anymore.)

Then later that afternoon we carved...

And scooped...

Note to self... Next year if the pumpkins are going to stay outside, carve the night before Halloween. Five days later this is what we were left with... Mold and fruit flies. So gross! They still looked okay at night with candles in them, though.

Then it was finally Halloween night! We were all so excited! I have always loved Halloween (the costume and trick-or-treating part at least... not the scary chainsaw/zombie haunted houses part) and it is so fun to get to relive it all through the kiddos!

Chewbacca was ready...

Yoda was ready...

Luke Skywalker was ready...

And you know Darth Vader was ready!!

And Mommy and Daddy had some wine loaded up in the stroller so we were ready, too! The weather was perfect! Cool and breezy.

HOORAY!!! It's Halloween!!!

Before trick-or-treating we walked down to one of our neighbor's houses where everyone met up for a little cookout. It was fun to visit with friends and get to meet some people we didn't know.

Everyone was loving Chewie... He was strutting around and making his caveman noises and was seriously so funny and cute.

We have some good friends that we do Classical Conversations (homeschool) with that also live in our neighborhood... They have a little boy right in between J and E's age and they all have so much fun together.

One of the dads brought his big truck and some of the kiddos loaded up in that to go to some of the houses. Our boys only rode for a minute and then they wanted to walk. There were a ton of kids and it was actually faster and easier to walk (especially for the little ones).

I'm not sure who this boozing Pink Lady is, but I like her! How did I not meet her? I need to track her down! Lol!

Everyone went in kind of a big clump from house to house, which was fun for the boys, but they were also sad when they got home that no one else came to the house to give candy to. We were all done at the same time. :)

Chewie got a little grumpy being in the stroller once everyone starting running up to houses, but we couldn't really let him run around because it was dark and there were kids everywhere! So I took him home and we held down the fort until everyone got back.

Post-trick-or-treating happiness!!

And ring pops!! It was a great night! And a great October all-around!

Several weeks ago we went and visited our great-grandparents over in Destin again. The boys have started calling them "Nana Juilene and Papa Chuck" and I love it. :) We just love visiting with them. The boys adore them and we always have such a great time chatting and laughing with them. They had a dock built a while back and we all had a fun time hanging out on the dock fishing, swimming, and just watching the water.

That's a bait bag for holding bait for their crab trap. The boys loved pulling it up, checking it out, and putting it back down in the water.

We used leftover McDonald's as bait and the little fish seemed to love it... The boys didn't catch anything big, but they were catching little ones left and right and were loving it!

Here's Davis grunting and pointing at the car he dropped in the water. (**sidenote: We call Davis our little neanderthal because he grunts and points at EVERYTHING nowadays just like you would imagine a caveman would do. It is hilarious. Like here he was pointing and yelling "AAHHH-NA-NA-NHH-AH-DAD-DA-DA-HAH" or something like that which clearly means to him, "Hey look, guys! I dropped my car in the water and now it's floating away!") Lol!! Papa Chuck was able to fish it out for him. :)

It was kind of hot that day, so after a while the boys wanted to swim. Papa Chuck put this ladder down in the water so the boys could climb out and jump in again and again.