The Last Halloween Post

How many Halloween/Fall posts does one blog need?! These are our pictures from Halloween night. Above are all our pumpkins (John carved the vampire pumpkin in his research lab for a pumpkin carving contest between two different laboratories - John's won the contest!). Below Tori is all ready to go out Trick or Treating.

Above - Tori and friend, Cooper, ringing doorbells.

Below - James, Dad and Tori out getting candy.

James did surprisingly well for his first Halloween. I'm not sure how much he liked the lobster costume, but he did fall asleep about half-way through Trick or Treating. When we were all done James was thrilled to get home and take off his costume. It was pretty cold outside so I was thankful for the toasty-warm lobster get-up.

Below - Tori after Dad helped her organize her candy and James just hanging out and watching the show.

Carving Pumpkins and More Halloween Parties

Above Tori is helping James hold the tiny little pumpkin she picked out for him at the pumpkin patch. I love the way they smile at each other, just too cute! Below are the finished pumpkins - The haunted mansion was picked out by Tori and carved by John, the pumpkin with ears was actually carved earlier at a lab Halloween party by John and Tori and then the little pumpkin was drawn by Tori and I helped her actually carve her drawing.

Below are a few pictures of Tori at her preschool Halloween party. She is on the floor pretending to be a real mermaid because apparently her friends kept telling her that she couldn't walk if she was a mermaid.



Above they are doing the Halloween hokie-pokie.

This picture is from the ENT Halloween party. It was fun to see a bunch of the other residents and their kids all dressed up.

Pumpkin Fun

We had a lot of fun this Halloween. Above Tori is helping me frost ghost, bat and pumpkin sugar cookies (She is such a great help in the kitchen - she loves to help me cook anything, especially desserts. The nice thing is that she has gotten so big that now she actually really is a help in the kitchen.).

Here are a few pictures of us picking our pumpkins. Tori loves to do this and insists on carrying her pumpkin all around.

I loved their little faces in the pumpkins!

Medical Partners Halloween Party

Medical Partners had another fun Halloween party this year. I just really enjoy having another excuse to get the kids all dressed up in their costumes. Above is our little mermaid enjoying pizza and below is James as a lobster (the same costume Tori wore her 1st Halloween).

Above: Claire, Megan, Tori, Hannah, and Anne.
Below: Megan, Anne and Tori

Halloween Dance Lessons

Tori's dance class in their costumes:

At Tori's dance lesson during the week of Halloween they got to wear their costumes and they performed a dance to the "5 Little Pumpkins" song that they had been working on. It was fun to see how much better Tori has gotten just over the past few months - I thought she did a really cute job in this video. Tori is actually going to be Ariel for Halloween, but that costume isn't the easiest to dance in so we let her pick another dress-up to wear for dance. I also included a few pictures of Tori in her cute new dance stuff that she got for her birthday below.

4 Months Old

4 Months

weight: 16 lbs. 1 oz.

height: 26.5 in.

Fall is already getting too cold, hence the warm fuzzy outfit to walk Tori to preschool.

I had to put in the cute picture of them in their Halloween outfits.

4 months means we get to start cereal. Our little boy is growing up way too fast. He was a cute little eater. He really seemed to like it, even though his tongue kept pushing everything back out. I liked all the noises he was making in the second video because I couldn't get the spoon into his mouth fast enough.

Apple Picking

Apple picking at Wilson's Orchard - one of my favorite things to do in fall in Iowa! It was a beautiful evening and we all loved picking and tasting the apples.

Even James tried to get in on the tasting action.

The best part is always the homemade apple turnovers fresh from the oven eaten outside on a crisp fall evening. (I'm making myself hungry just writing this post.)

More Fun in Utah

While in Utah, my sister and mom also came to visit to see James get blessed. It was so nice to get to see them, just way too short.

Of course we had to stock up on all our favorites from Costco since the only one in Iowa is in Des Moines (2 hours away). Tori, Tess and Jane were having a ton of fun in the cart - especially when John was pushing them all over and keeping them distracted for us.

A bunch of the cousins went to Gardener's Village one evening and Tori loved seeing all of the different witches they had on display.

Below James is enjoying himself at Gardener's Village. He's so good and sweet in his car seat when we go out and do fun things that a lot of times I forget to get pictures of him - so I'm trying to be better.

Tori helping Grandma fill her bird feeders - she thought this was very fun, though afterwards she was a little bugged that the birds didn't come and eat the food right away.

We also went to Thanksgiving Point while in Utah. They give each person a ticket to use to either have a pony ride or a wagon ride. Well, Tori loved the pony rides so much that we just let her use our tickets to get 3 pony rides (You can see the 3 different pictures on 3 different ponies.).

I guess she comes by her love of animals naturally. She was so cute on the ponies, it me made want to hop back on a horse again. Below is James' idea of fun while his sister rides ponies.

Our last night in Utah, John and his siblings all went to a BYU football game and had a blast. Tori also had fun spending her last night with Katie, Tess and Jane (below all coloring together).