Halloween with Bo Peep & Buzz Lightyear

Happy Halloween!  I hope you have a wonderful day!

The kids picked out their costumes months ago after we saw Toy Story 4 in the theaters.  They didn't change their mind once and they were so excited to be Bo Peep and Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story 4.  Many people expected Olive's costume to match the traditional Little Bo Peep, but she had to explain to them that Toy Story 4 Bo Peep was much more sassy with a cape.  Fletcher wanted a jet pack and Olive wanted the cape, staff, etc.  I found their costumes on Disney's website.  They came with all the accessories for a really reasonable price.  The quality is amazing!  I'm sure they'll have tons of fun dressing up in the coming months.

We have had a jam packed week.  We are helping run Olive's class party today and trick or treating.  We also have snow in the forecast for later today.  Brrrrr! 

See you back here on Monday!

Our country club hosted a really fun event on Sunday - trick or treat the golf course - and the weather was perfect.  The kids debuted their costumes and had the best time.  It was fun to see friends while getting to enjoy the lovely Fall weather.

Fletcher took his role as Buzz very seriously.

To infinity and beyond!!

We loaded up in a golf cart and trick-or-treated all around the golf course.  It got dark fast so I was glad Kevin was really familiar with the cart paths.

Fletcher's science class was pumpkin themed this week.  We made fizzy pumpkins, played with pumpkin play-doh, scooped seeds out of pumpkins and got to catapult pumpkin chunks.  He was in heaven.  He also had a lot of fun hammering golf tees into the pumpkin.

At the end of class the kids have to share their favorite part or something they learned.  Fletcher was explaining what happened when he put two chunks of pumpkin in the catapult at the same time.

Happy Halloween!!

Apples, Leaves & Ladybugs

After church on Sunday we decided that we had to spend as much time outside as possible.  The weather was GORGEOUS!  I made a quick lunch and we headed on a little road trip to the apple orchard.

We arrived at our favorite apple orchard, hopped on a tractor and headed out to pick apples.

What a view!

We picked Pink Lady apples first.

Then we took the tractor to the other side of the orchard for Braeburn Apples.

The kids and I checked out the pumpkins while Kevin went to pay for our apples.  There were lady bugs everywhere!  We just stood there and they landed all over us.  The kids thought it was hilarious.

This felt like it might have been our last warm day of Fall!  Glad we could spend it outside.  Now I need to get busy and make an apple pie or some homemade apple sauce.

Little Brother or Little Sister???

We are excited to announce that Baby #3 is a BOY!!

What a fun surprise!

Olive was hoping for a sister.

Fletcher was hoping for a brother.  He kept telling people he was going to kick a girl out of the house.

I was confused.

Kevin was leaning towards a boy.

Everything about this third pregnancy has been different.  I couldn't line up much of anything with my other two pregnancies.  With both Olive and Fletcher, I knew their genders before the doctors told me.  This time, if I had to guess, I would have said girl.  I was wrong - ha!

We did blood work at one of my appointments and they casually said, "You can call the office in a couple of weeks to find out the gender and then a little later the genetic testing results will be in."  I'd never done gender blood work with Olive or Fletcher.  I wasn't monitoring it all that closely, but Kevin was.  He kept bugging me to call in and check to see if the results were in.  He was dying to know.  I think I wanted to have a similar experience as with O & F and find out at our ultrasound appointment.  Kevin won out and I called to find out the gender.

The sweet office lady said my results were in and "You are having a BOY!"

I wish I'd have video footage of my reaction because I was SO surprised.  I guess that's been the theme of this pregnancy so far... sweet surprise!  I said something about being so surprised and that we were excited.  We really had no preferences for our bonus baby.

I had to tell a little white lie to Kevin on the day I called.  He texted midday to see if the results were in and I said they were not.  I hurried and baked up a surprise for him when he got home.  We weren't telling the kids just yet.  I made his favorite homemade cinnamon rolls and drizzled one with blue icing.  He was surprised that I knew and loved finding out this way.

We had our gender ultrasound appointment last Friday.  Kevin rearranged his morning so he could come along.  As luck would have it, the doctor was running way behind, the baby did not cooperate for the ultrasound and my doctor was confident in the blood results.  A little anticlimactic :)  Off to buy the boy stuff to announce it's a boy to the kids!

We waited until we were all home together to share the news.  We went outside to do some confetti canons for the kids.  They were really excited.

Olive was a tiny bit sad she didn't see pink confetti.  Then she spent the rest of the weekend making birthday cards for little brother, making me a list of all the things she'd be able to help me with for the baby and said she'd love to share a room with the baby.  She's already a great big sister, but it'll be fun to see her with a tiny baby again.

Fletcher wasn't quite sure what all the blue was about so we had to explain that blue = little brother.  He kept cheering OH YEAH!!!

Everyone was excited and talking about names, baby boy details and all the things little boy.  It was fun to come up with a sweet surprise for the kids.  We facetimed and called family over the weekend to tell them.

These confetti canons were so cool!  There was tons of confetti and they were just $4.99 for two at Hobby Lobby.  You buy the gender you need.  You can also use the 40% off coupon.  We would highly recommend them.  

You'll have to leave your favorite boy names in the comments because boy names are hard for me!  What boy name would go well with Olive & Fletcher??

Halloween Charcuterie Board

Happy Halloween week!!

I put together a really fun Halloween Charcuterie Board dinner over the weekend.  Holiday boards are my favorite.  I didn't buy very many specialty ingredients for this board - just lots of our favorite things + a few fun Halloween elements. 

It was cold and rainy all day on Saturday so we baked our favorite pumpkin cookies, did some Halloween crafts and ate Halloween themed food.  Thankfully, Sunday was much nicer and we were able to get out and about.

The whole family loved the Halloween meal and I loved that I made it a few days before Halloween.  The actual night of Halloween is always nuts and we end up eating something super quick.  Don't feel like you have to wait until the actual holiday to make festive food.  Make it whenever it works best for you!

My friend Heather did some cute cheese cut outs on a Halloween board she made.  I used her idea for inspiration and got out my mini cookie cutters.  I did cheese witch hats and pumpkins.  My kids LOVED the shaped cheese.  I wish I would have done more for them!  You'll probably see cheese cut outs in their lunches this week.

I added all the orange things I could - cheese, Goldfish, carrots, peaches, apricots, Cheetos and candy.  We called the olives eyeballs and made up silly Halloween names for the other foods - ghost cheese, witch broom stick pretzels, peach ears, boo-berries, etc.

I usually don't put dessert on my boards, but this was really fun.  We just set the rule that we had to eat dinner first and dessert last.  Everyone at dinner and then got the okay to start dessert.  We did dessert just like we do our boards - eat one item at a time and try to change up the type of food you eat every time.

I had time in the afternoon to put the board together.  I rearranged the fridge a tiny bit so I could assemble the board and store it.  This worked out great!  I was able to just pull the board out when it was dinner time instead of rushing around with hungry little people surrounding me.  I'll probably try to do this again in the future for Charcuterie board dinners.

My Mom gifted us these skeleton salad tongs!  The kids thought they were HILARIOUS.  We scooped up items from the board to add to our Halloween plates.  They laughed about them all throughout our dinner.  I think they came from Dollar Tree and they were surprisingly durable.  We used our Pottery Barn Kids Halloween plates.  I think I have 2-3 sets of them that I've collected over the years.  They're wonderful!

These are my kid's #1 favorite cookie.  Here's the recipe for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies.  They're so good!  I make them a lot in the Fall, but my family loves them so much that I've been known to make them year round.  They're my go to cookie to take to Thanksgiving with my pies.

We also watched Hocus Pocus for the FIRST TIME.  None of us had ever seen it.  And it was fine.  Kind of silly.  Not that scary.  But I'd probably be just fine if I never saw it again.  I know it has a major fan following, but I'm just so so about it.  Have you seen Hocus Pocus?

It's going to be a busy, fun week at our house!