I love fall!!!!! The glorious colors, the mild weather, the exciting traditions...I love it all! This month of October is a busy one for us. First, we have two birthdays to celebrate. Maggie turned 12 this month and Casey turned 40!
First off, we'll start with Casey. He always shares a birthday with Maggie and since I spend so much time making her cake, I rarely make one for him. This year, I made him his own personal chocolate peanut butter cake. The cake itself was chocolate and the icing is peanut butter. I say it was his own cake but in reality, this one got scarfed down faster than Maggie's cake. I think it's the choco/peanut butter combination!
The Boorens of course celebrated with us as we had a casual family dinner at Grandma Walburger's house followed by presents and cake. Whenever one of the adults (that live here) have a birthday, she invites both families over for dinner. Tonight we had taco salads.
Aunt Charlotte was really good at photo-bombing.
Speaking of Aunt Charlotte, she made Casey an overnight bag that looks like a face! It is so awesome and Casey spent some time making the kids laugh by talking with it. He also got a ducks hat knitted by Grandma...it's in the picture with the cake.
So next up is Maggie. 12 is a big birthday in our house as she officially enters the Young Women's program in our church. Because it was an important birthday, we offered to let her have a party with friends. Instead of having a big party, she chose to have her two best buddies accompany her to Potter's Quarter to do some pottery. They spent two hours painting and giggling.
Maggie is really the artist in the family. I am certain she takes after both of her grandmas. They are both incredible artists...especially Grandma Walburger who does gorgeous oil paintings. (I did a lot of art when I was younger but since I've become a mom, I have used any artist skills I have on making cakes and not much else Perhaps when my kids are gone, I will have more time for art.). Anyway, Maggie loves all things art..painting, sketching, sculpting. So, I made her an "artist" cake.
She actually did a big part of it. The girls usually don't help me with the cakes as I make them while they are at school but I happened to make this cake on a Sunday night so Maggie was there to participate.
Maggie got a beginner's sketching set for her birthday along with a bunch of glass animal figurines which for some reason, she is obsessed with!
Once they birthdays were done, we could focus on our fall traditions. One of them is going to the corn maze at Lone Pine Farms.
We met Casey there after school and after taking a ton of pictures in the face cut outs there, we entered the immense maze.
I have no idea how they create a corn maze. It was really fun as we followed clues that helped us know whether to turn right or left. We chose two clue cards. One was TV shows and the other was scriptures. (The scripture one was actually made by an LDS group). How sad was it that Casey and I knew more answers to the TV show clue card than the scripture one? There is a future talk in that I think.
Maggie kept calling it the "a-mazing maize maze." Catchy huh? That may be headline for the corn maze scrapbook page.
Here are some more shots of the maze. Charlotte opted to stay home and work on homework.
Of course, the second tradition is Halloween. But, we don't do Halloween like most families. Casey, being the sound and video guy, has to make our house the most memorable on the block.
Both windows have a video of the "Nightmare Before Christmas" playing. Casey has a rear projetor that he shoots from inside the house at the screen he places in front of the window. Then, he piped sound outside so that anyone walking by could hear and watch the movie. Everyone kept asking, "how did they do that?" The older girls were left behind while we took the little kids trick or treating. Here is what they did:
Maggie handed out candy. She made that candy corn hat herself in preparation for Halloween night.
Charlotte and Jillian handed out bags of fresh popcorn. By 7:45, we had handed out over 200 bags of popcorn. Charlotte is dressed as a missionary and I am guessing Jillian is an odd looking BYU fan?
Our neighborhood is "The " place to trick or treat. We had between 250 and 300 trick or treaters (At least, we gave out that much candy. I gave Maggie strict instructions to give only one piece to each kid. Otherwise we would have been out of candy in the first 45 minutes). The streets were packed wall to wall with cars (everyone that trick or treats here comes from other neighborhoods) and the sidewalks were clogged with kids. Every house had 10 to 15 kids in front of it. Because we know it's a big event, most houses go all out. One of our favorites was the Wizard of Oz house.
Allison, Lydia, and cousins Drew and Joel had a blast trick or treating. Allison, Drew and I hit every single house in our neighborhood. What a great night and what a great October!
Here is week 43
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