The Month of Halloween

Halloween is a big deal with our family - we love the traditional activities, the costumes, the candy, and everything else that comes with the holiday.  The entire month of October has morphed into one big lead up to the big day!

Halloween begins with picking pumpkins.  I have a bit of an obsession with pumpkins, both inside of the house and out.  We now pick two wagonloads of pumpkins, and I would go for more but the rest of the family vetoes it.  We always get a few traditional looking pumpkins, but then for the rest, the uglier and weirder the better.

My favorite Springfield event - Jack Spectacular at the Carillon.  This year had 2015 carved pumpkins (we unfortunately did not get to carve any pumpkins this year for the event), spooky carillon music, a carillon light show, and Pease's Candy.  I love looking at the creative carvings that the community creates!

We participated in our church's Trunk or Treat event before Halloween.  It was extremely windy and cold that night, but it seems that all had a good time.

Fun times at Ethan's school fall party.  Here his team is creating a jack o lantern face out of cups, before then crashing it down.

Carving pumpkins!  One day Ethan will get over his disgust of the pumpkin guts and will scoop out his own pumpkin.  Until then, it is my job.

Olivia carving her pumpkin.

The kids' pumpkins - Olivia's is a winky emoji face and Ethan's is a one eyed monster sticking out his tongue.

Olivia's Hoogland theater class did a Halloween Carnival this year instead of a Christmas program.  It was beyond successful - a little too successful!  At one point it was so crowded you couldn't move in the theater. Olivia's age group did two performances, plus Olivia was pulled out to become a toilet paper mummy.

For the Hoogland Carnival, we parked our car across from the Governor's Mansion.  When we returned to our car, we noticed that the Mansion was open for trick or treaters.  We had never trick or treated there before, and since the kids were in costume, we decided to do it.  Seems like something we should do at least once since we live in Springfield!  The grounds were nicely decorated, the local zoo brought several Halloween themed animals, and the kids received a lot of candy.

While trick or treating at the Mansion, we noticed a lot of camera flashes going off and realized that Governor Rauner was present and posing for pictures with people.  While we did not vote for him, he is the governor of the state, so we did request a photo with him (instructing the kids to not repeat anything to him about what we say at home about him!!).

Pumpkin pizza for Halloween dinner, as usual.

Ready for trick or treat!  Ethan is a scary jester and Olivia is a werewolf.

Both kids got quite the haul of candy.  They came back halfway into trick or treating to empty their bags and then go back out again.  This will definitely last them until the Christmas candy starts coming out!

And we ended Halloween with our traditional eating of the candy while watching It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.

Fall Fun

Our Fall was a season of sports, apples, a vacation, and other fun times.

Ethan continues to play soccer on his YMCA team The Sharks.  He loves to play defense - typically fullback.

Ethan also played fall baseball for his team the Cardinals (awesome name for a team!).  He does not have one set position yet, and definitely prefers hitting over fielding at this point.  

After a Cardinals baseball game, we spent some time at the Cardinals Hall of Fame.  We all took turns posing with various bats used by a Cardinals player.

And Ethan was thrilled to try on authentic World Series Championship rings.  The man guarding them was nervous that Ethan would drop the rings, but he did not.  However, the man immediately behind us in line did drop the rings!

Olivia was picked to be the FMS student of the month by her science teacher.  Joe and I are so proud of her!  We celebrated at the school with a breakfast and presentation.

Joe and I escaped to NYC for about five days for a medical conference.  We enjoyed family, food, shopping, going to a Picasso sculpture exhibit at MoMA, and seeing the musical Hamilton (words cannot describe how fantastic it is!).

The family went to the first Cardinals playoff game against the Cubs.  We were able to see the Clydesdales, official introduction of the teams, and a Cardinals win (thank goodness since we were surrounded by Cubs fans and didn't want to hear them cheering on a win!).

A fall tradition...apple picking at Broom's Orchard.  The kids love actually being able to pick the apples, eat as many as they want, climb the trees (technically not allowed, but...), and buy a huge amount of their cider.

After Broom's we enjoyed ice cream at the Whirl a Whip.  Our first time there - so many flavors to pick from!

Happy birthday to me!  Cake for breakfast!  Isn't it pretty much the same as donuts for breakfast?