Boo!

Happy Halloween!! We carved pumpkins this week. Here they are before:
During:


"You want me to put my hand where?!? You must be joking, right?":
"Yep. Just as gross as I thought it would be:"
And the finished products:
This is Becca's second attempt. She got about half-way done with the first one and decided it was too hard. Guess who had to finish that one for her!?:
Tia's kitty. We decided that next time they can just carve a face. No more fancy patterns for them. Matt had to try to salvage what was left of this pumpkin to make that kitty:
Carve a face like Tess did:
Mine is on the right. Liv's is in the center and the one I had to finish for Becca is on the left:
All the finished pumpkins. I remember the good ole days when we only had to carve one pumpkin...
The entire ortho clinic at Marquette dresses up every year for Halloween. The girls and I stopped by to check out Matt and his classmates dressed up as the Flinstones:

And of course to show off the girl's costumes too: **Tia said I was dressed up like a "lazy mom"

Each one gets their own closeup. Here's Becca the Phantom:Tia the "Jeweled Ninja" (That's what she told anyone who asked):
The cutest clown ever:
And a tasty lookin peanut:
Becca and Tia (and Liv):
Tess and Liv:

And all four:
That's it. Hope you had a good Halloween! There will be no post next week because I will be lying on a beach somewhere in the Carribean...

My cousin Sarah went to India this year and we got a package of bangles and bindis from her this week. The girls were thrilled:



We went apple picking this weekend. It was really fun. We have gone every year that we have lived in WI. It was a perfect fall day for it too:

We discovered that Liv can eat an entire apple all the way to the core:
Becca and Tia know exactly how to pose for these pics:

After apple picking we headed over to the pumpkins. "Can I have this beautiful pumpkin flower instead?":
Look at this one:
Now, to the real pumpkins:
Liv was helping choose:
With all of our beautiful pumpkins. Notice Tess kept the pumpkin flower!:
See ya Liv. She was ready to get back in the van with the apples:
Look at my little fashionista:
This is how they play with their toys. Throw every one out and then use the bucket as a boat:
That's it til Halloween pics. Have a good week.

Becca wanted me to take a picture of the "army" of ladybugs that took over for a couple days this week. This picture doesn't really do it justice, while I was out there getting this picture they were flying into my head and into the camera. They completely covered our front glass door, but when I took a picture of that it just looked like a lumpy door, you couldn't see the bugs. The worst thing about these ladybugs is that I was just trying to convince Tess that ladybugs are nice when these showed up, and these bite!

We went for a fall hike this weekend in the state park up the road. It was very warm (Near 80 degrees) and we wanted to take advantage of the weather. Turns out we weren't the only ones, the line to get in the park and the crowds on the trails was unlike anything we'd seen at a state park before. We enjoyed ourselves, and the changing leaves were quite beautiful...


This is how Tess survived the two hour hike. Liv is getting too heavy for me to wear her in a pack so Matt had to have Liv and I thought Tess could walk. Becca carried her for a few minutes and then I got stuck with her. She actually fell asleep while I was carrying her "piggy-back" and clinging on like a little monkey.
Here Becca and Jean (one of Matt's classmates) climbed to the top of the tower and I stayed at the bottom to take pictures of them. (Had nothing to do with me being deathly afraid of wobbly heights. HaHa!)
This was a tree that had fallen over. Becca thought it was an "enormous stick" and had to try to pick it up:
These tiny snakes were out in force. They were very fast darting along the path. Almost gave us a heart attack the first couple times we saw them:
Tess is VERY heavy. Matt had to take a turn after a while:


Tess is helping to clean up the breakfast mess after the big girls left for school:
Playing at home:
We made our own candied apples like the ones they have in our grocery store:
Becca was so excited she was going to go to school and tell everyone the "recipe":
Tess kept biting hers before we got it carameled. For future reference, the juice from the apple makes the caramel not stick very well:
That's it...have a good week!