Halloween

We finally made it to the actual day!  One last day of dressing up and taking pictures:) 

Leah loved posing with the Minnie Mouse doll:)                                                                     

We all went to Mike and Beth’s house for a delicious dinner . . . . 3 different kinds of soup, salads, bread, desserts, etc.  Then we all got ready to go out for trick-or-treating!  The kids were so excited.  Oh, and isn’t Mike and Beth’s porch so festive?? 

Ok, now make your best scary face!

Then we hit up the houses for candy!

I love James’ face in this one.  He was going strong all night long and just loving it!!! 

Then back to my parents’ house to dump out, sort, trade, and admire the loot . . . .

It was a great Halloween!  We loved spending it here in California.  It’s just so fun for the kids to be able to trick-or-treat with their cousins.  But I have to admit, it’s always kind of a relief when Halloween is over . . . . now we just have to deal with candy wrappers all over the place for the next few weeks:)

Trunk or Treat

We were a little sad we missed our ward’s Halloween party again this year, but at least we could go to the Saratoga Ward’s Trunk-or-Treat with my family instead!

I had originally planned for Annie and Leah to be cute little witches this year.  I bought witch dresses at Target last year after Halloween when all their costumes were like 80% off. So now we just had to accessorize them.  We bought brooms, striped tights, and hats.  As we started getting them ready about 1/2 hour before the party started, I was quickly realizing that these witch costumes were a total fail.  The dresses were way too big (I had planned to cut them shorter, just hadn’t done it yet), the tights were HUGE and were sagging on their skinny little legs, and the hats were just not going to work.  Not at all the cute little witch costumes I had envisioned.  We weren’t really sure what to do, all I knew was that they couldn’t show up in these ridiculous costumes.  I searched my parents’ house for something they could wear, and not really finding anything great, I called my aunt Julie (who lives around the corner) and asked if my 9 year old cousin, Elyse, had any old costumes my girls could borrow.  She said, “Yeah, come take a look.”  And so I sent Dan over while I finished getting ready for the party.  He came back with the most adorable perfectly fitting costumes for my girls . . . . I couldn’t believe how great they were!  A cute Minnie Mouse dress for Leah and Snow White for Annie.  The girls were thrilled.  And so with 5 minutes until the party started we threw on the costumes and were ready to go!  Thanks for saving us, Julie!!

 

I’ll give Dan the credit for James’ costume.  We were all at Gymboree one day about a month ago, and while I was rummaging through the girls clothes, Dan (probably out of complete boredom) tried on this werewolf costume on James.  James came walking up to me, and I thought he looked so adorable in it!

In the bottom left picture, he’s doing his werewolf howl.  “James, what does a werewolf say?”  and he’ll let out a high pitched howl.  It’s pretty cute:)  And the best part is that he actually left on the headpiece amazingly well.  He hardly ever tried to take it off, which is usually the pain about costumes like this. 

Tried to get a cousin picture again . . . . Don’t worry, they’re not really ostracizing Grant, he just really didn’t want to be in the picture for some reason (I think it had something to do with James:)

Ryan lost it soon after, and so just these guys were left . . . .    

The girls were scared of this guy!  He tries to grab you when you reach down for a piece of candy!  James wouldn’t even get near him.

Apple Hill

We’ve heard all about Apple Hill since we moved here to Reno.  It’s a fall tradition for many families to make the 2 1/2 hour drive through the Sierra Nevada Mountains into El Dorado County, California and visit their favorites of the 55 farms that make up Apple Hill.  We thought it would be the perfect time to check it out on our way down to my parents’ house.  It tacked on 2 more hours to our drive, but it was a great day to go.  Annie had the day off of school (for Nevada Day), but all the Californians were still in school, so it wasn’t too crowded.  And the weather was beautiful. 

We started off at a place called Rainbow Orchards.  We had heard about their apple cider donuts, and WOW, they were good. 

The kids climbed apple trees and hay bales, and then we were off to the next farm.

So, we really weren’t sure where to go next.  We just drove along the beautiful windy mountain road until we found a farm that looked fun.  We passed a lot of good ones, I’m sure, but finally decided to stop at Apple Ridge Farms.  They had a large wooded parking lot and it seemed like lots of people were there, so it must be a good one, right?

Annie fits right in with this line up of jack-o-lanterns with her perfectly toothless grin!

Finally, we ended up at High Hill Ranch, where Apple Hill all began.  We spent a little time walking around, ordered an apple cider shake to share, and then hit the road to drive the remainder of the way down to Saratoga.