October loveliness

It wasn't until the end of October that it finally felt like fall. We had pretty good weather throughout the start of the month, but the rain definitely came by the end. It's amazing how one day you can walk on a street with trees of brilliant colors, and then the next day they can all be on the ground and the tree is totally bare.

We started off the month by going to the pumpkin patch with friends. We went for the classic hay ride, played at the kids play area for a while, and hung out with some pretty gnarly animals.

The next day we went as a family to the pumpkin patch (different farm) and had a great time. The kids loved the play barn.. Colter was totally obsessed with a ride on front loader and Maddie loved the horse swing. We took the hay ride out to the corn maze which was once again super fun, and then we picked out some great pumpkins. It's so fun to walk into the pumpkin patch and be able to pick out literally any pumpkin. There were so many to choose from!

That night I hosted a party for the October family birthdays (Kelsey, Mark, Jessie & James). Each person got to pick one of the dishes of the night, so we ended up with queso dip, guac, and pumpkin enchiladas and then Ben made a super yummy chocolate nutella strawberry cake. Yum

I watched 4 of my sister's kids one day while she went to the dentist. It was slightly insane with the amount of needs every 2 seconds, but we survived. It made me so amazed at my sister and how she handles 5 kids every day. We had fun collecting leaves on the deck and throwing them all over.

We finally got Colter's garbage can for his halloween costume made up. It turned out so great. The night we finished it, he wheeled it down to Jack & Avery's house and the kids had a blast running all around the street pulling the can and putting rocks in it.

We checked out the leaves at the arboretum after stopping at a new bakery. We love going to the arboretum every year during the fall. There's something really nostalgic for me to see the different places we take pictures at every year, and remember how little the kids were then and how quickly time has passed.

This was a super crazy month for baby showers. First up was Jayna's shower. Lindsey and I hosted it at Calico Cupboard up in Mount Vernon and it was so delightful. We had a private meeting room (for free) and the food was so tasty. Jayna has since had her little man, Dylan, weighing in at a whopping 10 lbs!

One lovely thing about Ben working for a bank is his bank holidays. On Columbus day, we went on a lovely walk in a nature preserve in the Everett area. My sister made me an awesome list of adventure drives for my birthday and this was one of them. It was a beautiful boardwalk with water and incredible trees. After our walk we stopped to watch planes at Paine Field.

We still love to go our adventure walk usually once a week. The kids still love the different construction sites, the car wash, samples at whole foods, and riding the car at babies r us.

My sister and Mark went out of town for the weekend, so I watched Harper and Saisha for the day. We went for a walk to McDonalds and played a lot at our house. I love watching the cousins together. So much love.

I've eyed the red leaves at a certain parking lot every year during fall time. This year I made Ben pull over and we all got out to enjoy the leaves. I might have looked slightly crazy recommending a timer pic off the hood of our car in the middle of the parking lot.

We went to the zoo for the pumpkin bash. We didn't go on a day when the hippos were apart of the program, so it wasn't as exciting. The weather was beautiful and a stop at the park on the way out was just what we needed.

I watched my friend Jessica's kids one afternoon and they were super into the juicer. Avery juiced an entire bag of oranges and the kids had a orange juice tea party.

Colter has been going to a social skills play group once a week and it's been fun to hang out with Maddie alone during that time. Her little pig tails melt my heart.

We've been amping up our visits to the library now that the weather is turning. One day on our way to the car we found an incredible place to throw leaves. I wanted to rush them into the car and move on to the next moment but I didn't this time. I'm so glad we stayed. It was so fun.

Ben and I both caught some icky colds. One day I wasn't feeling great so Ben took the kids to Edmonds for a treat and some rainy train watching. Such a good daddy.

Jessica and I hosted a neighborhood halloween party. Colter was not excited about his costume that night, but both kids still had a great time. Both kids experienced their first pinata. Maddie was not a fan of the loud hitting, but they both took whacks at it. I would like to announce that I was the one who broke it open.. haha

My mom watched our two kiddos over at the Heavilands so Ben and I could go out on a date. We ate dinner at the Hills and did some epic people watching at Richmond Beach during sunset. There was a group of kids going to homecoming and getting their pictures taken. It was so hard to imagine being at the stage in life. We came back to find Maddie like this. haha

We visited Ben at work downtown and got some amazing chocolates from Fran's.

We carved pumpkins with the kiddos. They were into for about .5 seconds like past years, and good old dad ended up finishing the rest. This year we had a silly guy and a train.

We went to the children's museum on halloween and it turned out to be a great time to go! It wasn't crowded at all and there was a free halloween party going on. They had lots of fun science experiments, bowling, crafts, and treats. I'm going to try to go again in the future!

There's some highlights from our month!