Pumpkins

Kate used two techniques to decorate her pumpkin this year.  She painted one side and stuck Potato Head pumpkin kit pieces into the other side.

We also did some pumpkin carving.

Collin carved this howling wolf.  He wasn't happy with it at first, but when he saw it lit up, he thought it looked pretty cool.

Reagan chose a classic Jack O'Lantern; it came out great.

Pumpkin Ghost Bowling

I gave Kate six empty water bottles and a bunch of packing peanuts so that she could work on fine motor skills by turning the bottles into ghosts.

The remaining packing peanuts became snow and we made a HUGE mess having a "snowball" fight. Kate even made "snow" angels.

After we cleaned up that mess, we drew eyes and mouths on our ghosts and broke out the pumpkin ball for a little Halloween bowling.

Masks and Pumpkins

The boys (including Tom) painted masks with black light reactive paint last week.  They came out great!

While they painted the masks, Reagan painted her pumpkin.  She was inspired by Tom's design on his mask.

Kate was in bed during this painting session, but when she woke up in the morning and saw Reagan's pumpkin, she wanted to paint hers right away.

Pumpkin Soup

Kate and I are in love with the book Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper.  How did I not know about this book or this author?  Anyway, we adore everything about the book, everything.

Don't you just love the gymnastics leotard with the rain boots?!!

Every time we read it, Kate mixes up a pumpkin full of pumpkin soup.  She did this 100% on her own, without any prompting from me.

Today I decided to look on Pinterest for a recipe for pumpkin soup, and I found one that looked good; it's vegan too, so I was very happy.  I had all of the ingredients, so we went right to work.

The soup is delicious, but cooking with Kate is lots of fun and a million times better than a great bowl of soup!

A Hayride to the Pumpkin Patch

 Reagan, Kate, Karlie and I went to Araujo Farms for their horsedrawn hayride on Monday.  The girls and I enjoyed our time there.

 Kate loved the hay; she tried to get as deep into the hay as possible.

I didn't take pictures of the girls with their pumpkins, but Reagan picked a pumpkin that weighed 13 pounds (Karlie did too), and Kate picked a pumpkin that weighed 4 pounds.  They wanted HUGE pumpkins, so I implemented a rule that they had to be able to carry their own pumpkins.

It was a beautiful day for a hayride, and we had fun together!

Pumpkin Drop

On Sunday, we went to a Pumpkin Drop.  The pumpkins had been hollowed, filled with small bags of candy, and placed into a net.  The nets were lifted by cranes and then the net was opened resulting in the pumpkins smashing to the ground.  One of the nets didn't release properly, but eventually all of the pumpkins were dropped and the kids were able to search through gross bits of smashed pumpkins to find the bags of candy.

Collin was trying to be funny by making that weird face????  We had James and Karlie with us for the event.

Here is a video of the pumpkins smashing to the ground:

Once all of the pumpkins were safely released, the kids were allowed into the area to start searching for candy!

The little bags were covered in dirt and pumpkin guts, but that did not deter the kids; they all got quite a bit of candy!

Autumn Crafts (and a few random things)

Kate made a few autumn crafts and a treat for everyone to enjoy.

I painted Kate's hand and forearm brown and then placed it on white paper to make a tree.

Then I painted her hand red, orange, and yellow (separately of course) to complete her autumn handprint tree.

 She added some fallen leaves with different paint brushes and her fingers.

 While it dried, we read a few books about autumn leaves.

Kate helped me make these applesauce puffs.  Everyone enjoyed them.

Look at Kate's sleeve in the above picture, right in the paint!

She enjoyed making this pumpkin.  It's fun to do crafts with her that I remember doing with Collin and Reagan!

Kate sorted acorns into three piles, nuts without caps, nuts with caps, and caps only.

We have been going to the Barrington Library for story hour on Thursday mornings.  Kate enjoys the story hour (this week the theme was squirrels!!), but she loves visiting the guinea pig there; his name is Rudy.  I love the way she has her hands in the above picture, so sweet.

Three is such a fun age.  Kate is funny and silly and loving, and for now, she still thinks I am the best person in the world.  Kate is such a joy to be with, and she loves learning.  She is always asking for homework or projects, and we really enjoy doing them together.