Neighborhood Holiday Parade

Today we marched in our neighborhood's Holiday Parade. Aidan marched with his Karate place and Nick marched with his Cub Scout Pack. I walked with Aidan so I got more pictures of him. He kicked and punched the whole way yelling Hi-ya! He loved it! Nick said he had a good time too. We were towards the beginning of the parade so we were able to see some of the floats and bands and of course Santa on the fire truck at the very end.

Hidden Pond Nature Center

Yesterday we met some of our best friends from Alabama up near their house in Springfield, VA. We don't get to see them much anymore since all the kids are in school but since everyone had the day off we decided to take advantage. We met at this awesome park by their house called Hidden Pond and paid the $6 to go to the Nature class. The kids learned about what animals do to get ready for winter and then went on a nature hike out on the trails. They made little habitats to help the creatures outside. Then they came back inside and colored pictures and got snacks. Then we played on the playground for a while and wore them out. Then we decided to venture to McDonald's for lunch. It was wonderful to see everyone again and it really helped break up a long 5 day weekend.

Raking Leaves

Well I attempted to rake up the leaves in the front yard today all by myself. Unfortunately, the kids had other plans. For every pile I raked up they were destroying another one which I would just have to rake again. The little boy next door was so adorable I couldn't possibly be mad at him for destroying the same pile over and over and over again. He was just so happy it was contagious. Plus it kept all the kids outside playing for over 3 hours today so I consider that the biggest success of all. I only got 5 bags raked up so according to my calculations from last year that just leaves about 70 more bags to go.

Happy Halloween

 Apricot bugs

 Fruit Kebob swords

 Cupcakes the kids made during our Hurricane days

 The candy give away bucket which was the perfect amount this year. 

 Before they got dressed with our giant pumpkin

 Our jack-o-lantern pizza

 Pikachu the Pokemon and Soldier Aidan

 Nick wanted to make sure Daddy saw his tail

 The two soldiers. Can you tell who we miss this year?

 The boys with best friend and neighbor Caroline who is the main character in Brave.

 The pumpkins finally put back outside after the Hurricane.

 The little neighbor boy who was Thomas the Tank Engine.

 All the neighbor kids.

 Trick or Treating

The pumpkins all lit up!

Happy Halloween. We had a great night. Nick was the Pokemon Pikachu and Aidan was an Air Force soldier. Aidan begged me to dress up with him so I was a soldier too. Can you tell we miss Jeremy? We live in the best neighborhood to be a kid. So many people decorated their houses and everyone was out just hanging out in the streets having block parties. Our neighbors again put on this awesome FBI crime scene display where he laid in the body bag and scared kids all night. It was awesome. We had a huge potluck with the neighbors in our little pipestem and just hung out. I took the kids down most of the whole block and when Aidan got tired Mr. Chris took the big kids the rest of the way so we could come back. They got so much candy it is ridiculous. Nick has two full pumpkins of candy and they each had at least 10 full size candy bars. I will let them devour for a few days and then we are going to donate it somewhere because no one needs that much candy. Hope everyone had as much fun as we did.