Drive by Trunk or Treat

The church down the street from our house offered a drive through trick-or-treat option on Friday, October 30th and the kids were excited to go. They quickly changed into their costumes after dinner, we drove to the church and were back home within 10 minutes. The kids LOVED it! Very fast, efficient, and Covid friendly.

Abby decided to join in too at the last minute, after I had already snapped these pictures!

 

Pumpkin Carving

We finally got around to carving pumpkins and Thursday, October 29th. I have to admit that this is not one of my favorite holiday traditions but the kids love it so we do it for them every year!

Hudson was very interested in those "pumpkin guts!"

The worst part is always getting all those seeds and stringy things out from the inside of the pumpkin. I also made them all come up with the design of their pumpkins beforehand so we didn't spend half the night looking on the computer for ideas!

Our final products turned out pretty great!

 

Falling Leaves

The leaves are starting to fall off the tree in our front yard. Nolan loves to rake them into piles and Hudson loves to jump in them. It's a win-win situation for us all!

 

New Family Pictures

I really, really wanted to get new family pictures done this year. It had been FIVE years since our last pictures were taken and everyone had changed so much and of course we added little Hudson since then too. After four rescheduled appointments due to weather and scheduling conflicts, we finally got them done on Saturday, November 14th.

We are so thrilled with how they turned out!!

 

Summer's Farm

My sisters all came to Maryland as we commemorated the 5th anniversary of my mom's passing. While they were here, we took all the kids to Summer's Farm in Frederick for some fall fun. It was a bit overcast, but not having large crowds made it so nice!

All the kids loved these giant slides...

And the giant trampoline!

We also spent time on the playground obstacle course, completed a corn maze, ziplined, and finished off with some cattle-roping.

Such a fun way to spend time with family!

 

First "Real" day of Kindergarten

Washington County Public Schools moved into phase 3 of their school reopening plan on October 12th which means all kindergartners had the option to return to in-school learning. 

Maylie was SOOOO excited to be going to school "for real" this time! Her original kindergartner teacher is staying with all the virtual learners so she gets to have Mrs. Hill who we love and have been hoping at least one of our kids would get!

We got some special masks for school since they must be worn all day now, but she doesn't seem to mind them one bit!

I admittedly got a little teary-eyed when she got on the bus that morning, but I couldn't stay sad for long because she was so ready to go and so very excited about it all. Here's to a great, albeit different kind of school year!

 

Maylie turns 6!

I can't believe that our baby girl is 6 years old!! She was so excited about her birthday weekend and we had a great time celebrating with her. 

Since her birthday fell on Saturday this year, she got to open up her presents that morning which gave her lots of time to play with everything during the day. She loved her new doll, clothes, LEGO set, unicorns, and craft kits.

Plus she also got some birthday cash to spend all on her own!

After watching conference, we picked up dinner from Panera and then had some neighbors over for cake and ice cream afterwards.

Abby had fun making her "mermaid" cake this year!

Sure do love this sweet girl of ours. She is a joy to be around and loves to give hugs and cuddle with all of us. She loves being a part of the neighborhood "bike and scooter brigade" and makes friends easily wherever she goes. She is our little social butterfly and just makes life more fun. 

Happy birthday Maylie girl!