Trunk or Treat

Every year, the city park and local businesses put on a trunk or treat a few days before Halloween as a friendly way to advertise and get people in to their stores. This was our first year going to it, but it will definitely be a yearly tradition now!

We started out our "treating" in the park:

It was chilly, so we bundled up the girls well:

Grace and Bethany loved seeing all of the stores' mascots!

 

 

Eat n Park Smiley Face



State Farm Insurance Bear

 And of course Elmo!

They also had a little area set up with games for the kids to play and earn prizes.

Watching big sister play the games:

We got frozen before we were able to hit up all the stores, but still had a great time...

...and got a good stash of treats too (including coupons for free chicken nuggets, tacos, kids meals, and bowling)!

 

The girls knew just what to do once we got home and started looking through their bounty. :)

Checking everything out before they decided which treat they were going to eat that night:

 

It was such a fun family night out!

Pumpkin Paintin'

We had gone to a Harvest Festival last year where Grace had painted a pumpkin and she has been so excited about doing it again since!

Today, the long awaited event finally arrived!

 

The girls, all ready for painting time:

Bethany excited for her first time painting a pumpkin:

Ready, set, paint!

Bethany kept turning her pumpkin to paint the different sides :)

Painting a nice blue rim around the stem:

Bethany loves to just paint with water too :)

Bethany sporting her spider tattoo from the trunk or treat we went to last night.

Love her concentration :)

"Halloween!"

Skills--painting with one hand behind her back. ;)

 Grace's pumpkin face:

Grace gave me some rare real smiles on camera and they were all too cute not to share:

 Love that pretty Grace girl!

The finished products:

 

 It was so fun to watch them do their Halloween craft. We all look forward to doing it again next year! 

Farm Fall Fest

One of the things we've always looked forward to about the fall is hitting up a local farm festival. Saturday was the last day of the fall festival at one of our favorite spots--White House Fruit Farm--so we put on our jackets and headed out to the farm!
Lesson learned: if you try to take your kids to an event like this when they still have some lingering sickness (in this case, coughing and tiredness), it probably won't produce the cute family and staged pictures (and super happy attitude) you were hoping for. I still managed a couple pics of the kiddos though.
After picking up some of the farms famous doughnuts (pumpkin and apple cider--yum!) and looking at the pumpkins and craft barn, we headed over to the fall festival section.

The girls enjoyed the petting zoo, even though the animals were a little too closed off to actually pet. They had some different breeds of farm animals than I had ever seen before there, and I got to pet a pot bellied pig and some soft bunnies, so I enjoyed it too. :)

Bethany loved the donkey, and here was jumping up and down. :)

They also had a little playhouse set up with slides and swings which was fun. Unfortunately it was a little too cold to spend a lot of time in it, so I didn't get any other pictures than this of the girls playing on it.

The highlight of the event for everyone was the pony rides. The girls had never gone on a pony ride and I was so excited for them to finally get to! Grace enjoyed it, holding on to dad for extra support.

And Bethany liked it as long as the pony's pace was slow. :) She did a great job holding on by herself and just rolling with the pony's motions too.

Giving the pony some after-ride pats:

All things considered, we had a fun time. We might have to make a trip out to our old favorite spot for fall fun--Patterson Farms--next year though (and pick a weekend the girls aren't sick). :)