October Fall/Halloween Activities

Fall is by far one of our favorite seasons around here. My husband and I have always loved fall and all that it brings- cooler weather, football season, warmer clothes, crisp air, soups, and the oven cooking amazing smelling desserts. Payton loves winter the most and Riley is still deciding on his favorite season, but I can tell you that both kids love so much about each season and what it brings.

We live in a small community and we are so fortunate that it offers a ton of kids activities year round. Halloween/fall events are no exception. We couldn't make it to everything this year (bummer to have missed the pumpkin patch) but we also added in our own little events with friends. Here's what we have been up to this month:

Pumpking Decorating

Our local YMCA had a pumpkin decorating event that we went to. The kids had a blast and Payton was dead set on picking out the biggest pumpkin available. I was thankful my husband could attend because carrying her pumpkin would have been a bit challenging for me with my own growing belly.

I think the kids could have spent all day there. Payton keeps asking when we will be going back. I'm afraid she has quite the wait.

More Pumpkin Decorating

A friend gifted us pumpkins and acorn squash from her garden. Normally, I would process them but this year we decided to go a different route. Since Payton and Riley loved decorating pumpkins so much we asked the kids if they wanted to host a decorating party for their friends. Of course, they wanted to.

I was very brave and we had 9 kids in our house decorating pumpkins with all the glue and glitter their hearts desired.

Payton loves to plan for events. She will spend 30 minutes putting together a show, only to have the show itself last for 2 minutes. I knew party planning would be right up her alley. She loved helping me clean and prepare for the party and she insisted on baking treats for everyone.

We made spooky cupcakes and the kids helped every step of the way.

Pizza Night Fridays

It isn't a new thing for us to have pizza night and watch a movie as a family on Fridays but we got out of this routine over the summer craziness. We spent this month getting back into the habit. Both kids loved picking out Halloween themed movies (almost always Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin) to watch while we ate our pizza. This is a huge deal at our house since we don't watch a whole lot of tv and it's a true rarity to watch a movie while eating supper.

I love this picture and didn't realize until I was writing this post that Payton was giving us the naughty finger. 😒 I promise she didn't do that on purpose but does seem to use that finger a ton. We're working on that with her. It's slow progress.

In any case, we love to make homemade pizzas as a family. I make the crust in our bread machine and made the pizza sauce over the summer. From there we mix it up a lot, sometimes with one big pizza and sometimes with a bunch of individual pizzas. We also change regularly what kind of pizza we make.

Now that the kids are getting a bit older, I am hoping to slowly change our routine a bit to include family game night. Both kids are really getting into board games (like candyland, operation, gone fishing, and hungry hippos) and I think they would really enjoy this addition to one of our favorite nights.

Trunk or Treat

Picking costumes this year has been a bit of a challenge with a 4 year old that constantly changes her mind. She started off wanting to be a doctor and then switched to a fairy. She changed her mind again and wanted to be a butterfly. When we showed Riley his pirate costume (he's so go with the flow we knew we could pick whatever), she insisted she had to be a pirate as well. So, our two pirates came to be.

We try to keep our costs as inexpensive as possible so having an indecisive 4 year old was a bit challenging this year. When she ended with pirate, I actually took my pirate costume from a few years ago and just clipped it/adjusted it to fit her. It worked out really well and I am thankful most costumes are made to be fairly easy to adjust.

Our downtown businesses sponsor a trunk or treat each year and it is truly magical. There are hay rack rides, cookies, apple cider, coloring activities, trick or treating events, bounce houses, and children's games. Our family looks forward to it each year and, as our kids get older, it just gets better and better.

Snow

The day of Halloween, we got our first snow of the season. The kids really wanted to build a snowman but had to settle for catching snowflakes.

There is really something so magical about watching life through your children's eyes.

Trick or Treat

We wrapped up October with a fun night of trick or treating.

The kids really wanted Daddy to dress up with them and were so impressed when he did. Despite Payton not wanting to cooperate during pictures, I assure you she was having so much fun.  It was so cold out so we didn't go out for long but that's the beauty of having young children. They don't know the difference.

It was a busy but great month for us and we can't wait for the holiday season!

Happy Halloween! We hope you all had an amazing month and Halloween as well!