Halloween weekend

We had a family night on the Thursday before Halloween and carved pumpkins and watched The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. Keira loved getting her hands dirty and pulling out the pumpkin guts...but Liam wouldn't touch them. All he wanted to do was put the "lid" back on the pumpkin when we were done.
We started out Halloween day by going to Hollyfest, which is our town's annual festival. It just happened to fall on Halloween this year. We spent most of the day there playing on the moon bounces, making crafts, playing on the playground, enjoying treats and visiting with friends.

Liam and Keira painting luminaries (looks like Liam might be a lefty like Mommy!)

After Hollyfest, we headed home for (wishful thinking) naps and quiet time, before the evening festivities began. Some of the kids' friends (and cousin Maggie and Adam) came over for pizza dinner and then we all headed out for trick or treating. This year the kids picked out what they want to be for Halloween, and Keira was a turtle and Liam was Tigger.












Keira understood Halloween last year, but this is the first year Liam got it, and they both had a great time. We trick or treated for a couple of hours, and then headed home. We ended the night going to our neighbor's house for a (30th) birthday celebration.

Conner (pumpkin), Tucker (Army man), Liam and Keira trick or treating

On Sunday the kids' friend Cameron had his 3rd birthday party at the New Hope Valley Railway station. To start the party, we took an hour long train ride with the steam engine. We were on the caboose for the first half of the ride, and then the train stopped to move the engine to the back of the train, so we were in the front of the train on the way home. It was cool to get an up-close view of the engine hooking up to our train car. After we returned, they had the birthday party on the stationary caboose at the station. The railway also has a Santa train in December, so since the kids had so much fun, we are planning on doing that one too.

Keira and Issac get a front-row view of the steam engine hooking up to our car at the half-way pointKeira, Liam and Chris checking out the scenery from the upper seats

Liam is a big boy!!

It's official...Liam is potty trained! He's been potty trained for a few weeks, but I didn't want to jinx it by putting it in writing just yet. :) We started out with naked potty training over a weekend, and we weren't sure he was going to get it at first. But the following Wednesday night, something clicked...and he's been doing fantastic ever since! We even went to the zoo that Thursday (armed with 5 pairs of pants/undies just in case!), and he only had one accident. For the past month, he's had relatively few accidents, and is now asking to go potty (before it was more us making sure he went every hour or so). We were worried about training him because we heard boys were hard, but he was very easy and caught on quickly. We're so proud of him...and he's proud of himself!

State Fair

Friday, October 23rd we went to the Raleigh State Fair. This was our 2nd year going, and we again had a great time. The animals are always the highlight of the fair for the kids...we visited the rabbit barn, the main building where the cows/calves were (unfortunately the line was ridiculously long, or we would have milked a cow!), and the kids favorite place, the poultry tent.... which is where they can hold the baby chicks and ducks (Keira is shown holding a baby duck below).
We also went to the petting/feeding zoo, which the kids just LOVE. They fed the goats, camels and other animals carrots. After feeding the animals (and washing hands!), we grabbed dinner and walked around to the rides. The fried foods are always big at the fair, and Chris and I decided to try fried cookie dough and chocolate covered bacon...which were both really good! The kids had fun on the rides (below with Chris on the whirly worm), and it was overall a fun time at the fair!

Light the Night Walk

On Thursday, October 22nd we participated in the Light The Night Walk, which is The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's evening walk and fundraising event. We walked in honor of my friend Emily Shimpach who is living with CML (a type of leukemia). Emily is a friend of mine from Wisconsin, so we (of course) wore Badger red! Emily's daughter Ava is 2 days older than Keira...and Emily found out she had CML when she was pregnant with her 2nd daughter Jenna. Luckily Jenna was born healthy and recently celebrated her 1st birthday. We walked with the hope that a cure will be found and Emily can celebrate many more birthdays with her family! A huge THANK YOU to everyone who donated to our team!!