Preparations

 Pumpkin carving time!

 This year, Cora carved her own.

 We were invited to a Halloween party, and wanted to bring a themed dessert. I had seen this idea for spiders, using mini chocolate doughnuts, pretzel legs, and candy eyes.

The girls had fun helping attach the tiny marshmallow eyes, using melted chocolate.

VUMC Halloween Fun

On Tuesday, our Mom2Mom kids got to dress up and parade through the meeting, and go trick-or-treating through the church offices.

For this occasion, Violet wanted to be Batgirl again, but her black shirt and leggings were dirty. She settled for a different Halloween shirt that said "Batty for Candy," with the Batgirl cape.

On Wednesday evening, Pioneer Clubs hosted its annual Trunk-or-Treat event, one the girls eagerly anticipate each year.

This time, Stace volunteered to work a shift at a game booth. Here, he's helping with a game where the children try to shoot out votive candles with squirt guns.

 Violet was a Zebra-Leopard, wearing a dressup outfit that featured both animal prints. This has certainly been the year of hyphenated costume ideas for our 4-and-a-half-year-old.

Here, she's playing a game where you toss a rope with two balls on each end over the rods.

 Violet also had fun at the cake walk, of course. My mom, on the far left, helped run this activity. For the first year in quite a few, I didn't volunteer myself, and just had fun looked for Cora much of the night.

 Of course, trunk or treat had trunks, too. This trunk featured a Candyland theme; the children drew a color card and then chose a candy from the corresponding bowl.

 Violet decorated this kitty mask at school with spots (though they didn't come out in the photo) in preparation for going as a leopard that evening.

There's Cora! She came too, but being one of the big kids now, spent her night running around with Sophia, Lucas, and a couple of other third-graders, playing a chasing game.

We saw her off and on; I'm not even sure she collected much candy. But, she had a great time.

School Fun

Cora's school participated in "Red Ribbon Week" recently, when schools focus on teaching students to stay drug-free.

My friend Sara was invited on campus to photograph the children for the yearbook, and she shared these top three with me. Here, Cora and friends wear their sweats to show that it's "no sweat" to stay away from drugs.

While on campus, Sara spotted me with Cora in the hallway, while I was helping in Dr. Porter's class by testing students on their sight words.

Here, we're going over the list of third-grade words; it was Cora's first time seeing them, and I was curious how she would do. She did great, only missing a few in each long row, hard words like "curable," "designer," "personable," redefine" and "quotable."

Cora also participated in "sunglasses" day, where the students wore shades to show they "don't see drugs in their future."

 My friend Elaine was able to help out on the day the students got messy, removing the seeds from pumpkins. They later would be counting them. She put this little photo collage together of Cora with her deskmates, Oliver and Vivian.

 For more than a week, Cora hasn't been able to play at school because of her foot. She's played board games at recess with friends, and she's also colored. She brought home several diagrams, like this one of a dolphin, that she made on paper towels.

Stace and I are proud of her, using her break time to find an educational way to have fun.



On Monday, the doctor removed Cora's stitches. Cora was very apprehensive about this, and carried on a bit. But, we got through it, and her foot looks much better.

Real Life Church Halloween Fun

 On Saturday evening, we went to our church's Halloween event, where while in line for trunk-or-treating, we met up with a couple of Cora's school friends. We walked through the trunks with Vivian and Tyler Belle and their moms.

Violet wore her Ninja Batgirl "costume," and enjoyed eating lots of sugar, like this Rice Krispy Treat. Shocking, I know.

Many of the trunk-or-treat spaces were so elaborate and well-done! It was a lot of fun to admire the volunteers' creativity and hard work.

 The theme this year was Route 66, so a lot of the booths were automobile- or vintage Americana-related.

I loved this one, a 1930s newspaper "Newsies" stall!

 At this Monsters University space, the trick-or-treaters could take their photo and create a "Monsters University" student ID card. So cute!

This space was so impressive, a complete garage setup.

The event also featured a BMX stunt demonstration, and a car show. We had a great time!

Fright Fest 2014

 We made our annual visit to our favorite witch Friday night at Magic Mountain's Fright Fest, this time with Colleen, Rigo and Melanie.

My mom was entertaining, as always. It's been a hoot to watch over the years, as she's developed her character. She's received some acclaim this year, with park management and bloggers praising her.

Yes, I'm proud to be the witch's daughter!

She looks even cooler under black light, rather than the camera's bright flash.

 A cast of other fairytale/storybook characters haunt this section of the park, including Snow White and Pinocchio (or their gruesome counterparts).

After going on a couple of rides and walking through all the scare zones, we joined a big crowd on the outdoor dance floor, where a DJ and a lot of monsters led the moves to MJ's Thriller.
Of course, the witch was one of those dancing monsters. My mom can't stay off of a dance floor!

We all had a great time together - thanks, Mom! And, thanks to my dad for babysitting Cora, Violet, Lucas, Liana and Hula, their 11-week-old Rottweiler puppy!

Lombardi Ranch 2014, Part II

Violet's Fall Carnival was the same day as our Mom2Mom trip to Lombardi Ranch. Also, it was scheduled for just an hour before I needed to pick up Cora from school, since she's out at noon on Fridays.

Thankfully, Colleen listened to my dilemma and offered to have Violet stay with her, Liana and Lucas (who happened to have a day off school).

Violet was more than happy with this arrangement. Colleen also graciously shared these photos with me. 

Here are a few people from our group.

Later in the afternoon, we went together to a birthday party at the park for a mutual friend.

Preschool Fall Carnival

 Violet's preschool held its Fall Carnival on Friday, with costumed children playing all sorts of fun games.

Violet tossed balls at stacks of cans, and bean bags into buckets, and rings onto pumpkin stems.

She collected tickets, which she later exchanged for little prizes.

 This year, with Stace and I both in attendance and no toddler to run around after, I was able to help run one of the games.

In "Scarecrow Pick," the children who selected a scarecrow with black painted on the bottom of the stick won tickets.

 Of course, it wasn't that long ago that we attended this very carnival with Cora, and Violet was the toddler running around.

On this occasion, Violet was a Ninja Batgirl (or Minja). She wore black (the same outfit she wore to Cora's Fall Festival), her ninja headband, and batman cape.

I'm holding out hope that her expensive Anna dress gets another wearing (besides her birthday party) but so far she's not interested.

This year Miss Lorrie had this cute photo area set up, with these props.

Snacktime after playtime! It was so nice to have Stace come; we are so blessed to have him working in town.

Lombardi Ranch, 2014

We made our annual family trip to Lombardi Ranch for pumpkin-and-scarecrow fun on Monday.

 This scarecrow display was one of our favorites.

On our way home, we stopped for dinner at Chronic Taco. The last time we ate here, Violet had her first quesadilla, which is now one of her favorite things to eat for lunch.