A-Mazing October

I LOVE October!  It is my absolute favorite month of the entire year.  There are a lot of reasons for it...the awesome weather, the turning of the leaves (seriously...so beautiful here in Oregon), the harvest theme, General Conference and the celebration of the birth of two of my favorite people. 

So to start, let's talk Activity Days.  (For those that don't know, Activity days is a twice a month meeting for girls aged 8 to 11 designed to teach them life skills and about the Gospel.  I was asked by my church leaders to run this meeting.)  I am learning to love this calling more and more with each activity.  I love how excited Allison gets that her mom is planning her activities.  I love these girls and I love having them in my home every other Thursday.  Our second activity of the school year was a prep for General Conference.  We played a trivia game where we got to know the First Presidency members and the apostles and then we assembled these fun "Conference Kits" for use during General Conference.  They included crossword puzzles, Bingo, snacks, crayons and more.  Allison and Lydia loved using their kits during the Sunday session of Conference.

The second Activity Days of October was held right before Halloween so we decided to have a craft night. We made these bracelets and we decorated fun spooky cookies.  The girls had a great time!  (Thank  you Pinterest for the cookie ideas!) 

The Hay Maze has become an annual tradition for our family.  It is at Lone Pine Farms and we look forward to our annual Family Home Evening every year.

This year the teenagers decided they could do the maze on their own.  We stumbled across them a few times but they made it out of the maze way before we did.  Smart girls!

Casey and Lydia pose for a picture in an upright coffin that is hidden deep in the maze.

At night, the Lone Pine people transform it into a haunted maze.  We were glad that we didn't experience the maze of horror but we got a pretty good idea of what the haunted maze consists of as we passed the props along the way.

Our beautiful Lydia.

Maggie and Lydia stayed pretty close to us inside the maze.

Did I mention that we have two special birthdays in October?  Maggie turned 13 this year and Casey turned 41.  We had a joint party as we usually do.

I made them a double decker chocolate cake.  Casey's layer (the top) had peanut butter filling.

Their favorite gifts came not from me but from our incredible extended family!  The Boorens (specifically Jared) gave them each a "cutting" of their favorite things.  Maggie got a dragon and Casesy got Disney.  Uncle Jared spends hours and  hours cutting these designs out of a simple piece of paper.  He then mounts the paper in between two pieces of glass.  They are stunning.

Grandma Walburger made Maggie this dragon T-shirt which Maggie proudly wore to school the next day.  Maggie loves dragons if  you couldn't tell!

I did get her some cool stuff too.  She got a drawing book, some colored pencils and a Dragon encyclopedia.  Casey got a ton of 3d movies and a milk shake maker.  

I will update Halloween soon but until then, here are the last few weeks of our life as I have tried to catch up with our project 365.