Halloween festivities

So, as I mentioned we had three different events to go to during the Halloween "season". Our first night of Halloween was the trunk-or-treat activity at the church. We found Tyler and Amanda's family first and hurried to grab a group picture with MaryKate, Logan, Evie and Jake.

There was a great turn out- both trunks and kids! Addie found Laynie Hansen, who was dressed as a mermaid. Love the pink hair!

Austin with his buds: Logan Vaclaw and Mack Vaclaw. These guys have grown up together... I think I have a picture of these three together from when they were toddlers!

And these three also!!! It seems like just yesterday that these little girls were a few months old, sitting in their daddy's laps dressed up for Halloween. I can still see the picture in my head right now! How time flies! Addison, Ellie Christiansen, and Evie Vaclaw. :)

Even though she loved her outfit... I think Avery was a little bit jealous of Izzy's banana!! Hahahaha, so funny!

Addie felt a little safer hanging out with Ninja Lucas Vaclaw! :) The kids got a lot of candy this night, and they also had hotdogs. It was a fun evening!

Our next event was with our new neighborhood. Our neighbors block off a road and have a street party. Everyone brings a side dish while the main course is provided by the party planner. This was a great way to get to know more of our neighbors. But there are some we already know, like the Hansens. Burke Hansen has been the best neighbor we could ever ask for!! He has become like Austin's big brother and they hang out ALL the time!! He keeps Austin outside playing football, basketball, kick the can.... whatever they can think of! It's so great to have some boys around for Austin and his house full of sisters. The boys decided to be beat up football players for this day of Halloween! :)

And our little Kate Hubbard that I use to babysit now lives just down the street from us as well! We love our Kate! Ok, so now Avery AND Kate are the cutest witches I've ever seen! :)

My nieces grandparents also live down the street from us, so we get to see them all the time too! Here are the younger girls with Mika...

and Ashton later with Sora!

After the block party everyone goes back to their house so the kids can come around trick-or-treating. We went around with the Hubbards. Kate was a little bit nervous at first... Megan had to coax her to the door.

But it didn't take long for her to be right up ready to ring the doorbell and say "Trick-or-Treat" and also "Thank-you!"

Kate even shared her wagon with AJ when we had to go further in between houses. Another night full of candy!! Holy cow, our house was full of candy!

And then we had our third and final Halloween party. This one was actually on Halloween night. We went over to Amy and Brian Christiansen's house for a cook-out and then trick-or-treating their neighborhood. Lots of great food and great friends!

This was our best attempt at getting all the kids in a picture! Not too bad!! Lots of kids all ready to ring some doorbells!

So off they went.... with parental guidance of course!! Look at that smile on Addie's face!

Ashton was a little bit slower than the rest... but she wanted to go up to each door by herself. And she would run back to me after EVERY house and be so proud of her self for saying "thank you". I was proud of her too!!

After we were done trick-or-treating, we went home to a crowd of people trick-or-treating our neighborhood! So many kids, that Randy ended up taking a chair outside and passed out candy out there. With four kids and three days worth of trick-or-treating, we let them pick out their favorite candy and then passed out the rest to the kids who came to our house! There was plenty for everyone!!!

Happy Halloween!!

Wow! Halloween time again! I know it sounds kind of mean, but I'm never really big on Halloween. I hate spending tons of money on Halloween costumes when they wear it once... but luckily we had three different events to go to so it helped justify some of the costs. Plus we had a borrowed costume and one that didn't cost anything! Yippee!! :) These pictures were taken right before we left for the trunk-or-treat at our church.

My sweet little Ashton bunny!! Can there be a cuter bunny?!?! I don't think so! She actually wanted to be a pig but I couldn't find a cute pig nose and ears, but I loved these bunny ears and tail, and luckily she agreed. And the ballet outfit is now part of her dress up clothes so she wears it all the time!

And then I also had the cutest cat ever... the ONLY cat I love!!! Addie got a black leotard and ballet skirt too that is now in the dress up clothes and is worn all the time. Reusable costumes... the only way to go!!

Here is the no cost costume!!! Austin wins! :) He really wanted a morph costume that was very expensive but we talked him into being a cowboy because we already had everything for it! So handsome!! I LOVE it!!

And have you ever seen a gorgeous witch?!?! Well, now you have!! Such a CUTE costume that Avery borrowed from one of her friends! We had the black skirt and black shirt, and I found the orange and black tights at Walmart, the only thing I had to get extra for her outfit! So sure, its stressful at first trying to figure out what they are going to be and getting them all ready in time... but they always turn out so dang cute that I really can't complain!!

Day two of Camping

As I mentioned, it was COLD the next morning! Yes, Ashton's feet are bare but they were warming quite nicely by the fire. We also had hot chocolate warming by the fire!

Amanda made some yummy pancakes for the kids, and Randy made a yummy skillet breakfast for the adults with potatoes, sausage, egg and cheese. It almost made me forget how cold it was! :)

Still with a smile on their face! Even though it was cold in the morning, it quickly warmed up...

and by the time our other friends arrived, it was sunny and warm. Typical Oklahoma weather... if you don't like it one way just wait a while and it will change! Here is Randy catching up with Russ and Emilie Vaclaw who came the next day with their kids. Clint and Tami Hansen and family also joined us that day for some camping fun.

Austin and Mack Vaclaw collecting the pellets that Randy was shooting at them????

Oh yes, I really said that! Randy bought a air-soft gun and the kids would run around while he shot at them. Surprisingly the kids had fun with it and would go around picking up the pellets to help him reload his gun!

Amanda had a great idea to bring playdoh for the little kids to play with. My kids loved it, especially since I don't allow it in my house! Here they could do whatever they wanted with it! The girls were excited that their friend Lucas was there to join in the fun.

And Avery and MaryKate were glad that Izzy was there to join in the fun too! Russ and Em brought their bikes for the kids to ride around on.

I love this picture of the kids playing in the leaves. Such freedom! Camping really was relaxing and super laid-back. Evie Vaclaw, Laynie Hansen, Addison John and Mack Vaclaw. Ashton is in there somewhere too! :)

We also went on a hike down to the rope swing that has been tied to a tree by the river for as long as I can remember! This camping trip brought back lots of memories of when Randy and I were dating and would come out to this park with our friends. We always had a blast!

Of course Oklahoma has been in a drought this year so there wasn't much of a stream for us to cross! In fact, I believe Tami and Mika Hansen (and one of Mika's friends) are sitting where the water is usually running!

It was a nice little hike, and I was super impressed with all the kids that walked it! Right now they are being spectators to the older boys who were being very entertaining.

The camera's were out (at least mine and Clint Hansens)! I think Russ and Randy were sitting there remembering the good ole days when they were the ones climbing that old tree with the rope....

That's right... we were all watching Nate Hansen and his friend climb the tree and try to get the rope swing. We didn't think they would actually jump for it- knowing how cold the water was underneath.

But from the splash in the water, you can tell that they tried and failed! It didn't help that the whole crowd of kids were chanting "jump, jump, jump". Oh well, at least we had a fire to go back to!

Emilie Vaclaw and myself, in all our "no make-up natural self" glory!

Awww.... the John family survived their first of MANY camping trips. That's right, we spent a fortune to get all the camping gear! We have to do this about ten more times to get our moneys worth! But we also had a lot of fun!

We hung out and played games and talked until dark and then decided last minute to not stay another night since everyone was just waking up in the morning and leaving. But we stayed until everyone was getting ready to go to bed. Here is Tami and Clint Hansen hanging out at the fire. So much fun... very relaxing! Everything was great until we got everything packed, got in the car and realized just how bad we stunk and how dirty all our stuff was! I think it took me a week to get everything cleaned up and washed. Yes, we will camp again but it will only be once a year! :)

Adventures in Camping

Randy and I are not real big on camping. In fact, as a family we have never gone camping! We've gone out to camp grounds and cooked hotdogs and smores, but then we always went home. So this year, for Fall Break, we decided to stock up on camping gear (we seriously had NOTHING), and take the kids camping.

We had a group of families that all went camping together, but our first day was just us and our friends Tyler and Amanda Vaclaw and kids. First thing we did was set up our tents.

Next priority, building the fire for hotdogs! I'll have to remember next time that when anyone felt like a snack, it was always hotdogs they were craving! We need to bring more hotdogs next time!

You can't go camping without them! And I packed a lot for lunch... just not for snacks all throughout the day! :) I'm not sure if this was round one or two for Randy, Avery and Austin!

There was a fun rock look-out point right by our campsite that the kids enjoyed playing at. This is almost the whole clan of kids for the first day. Jake is MIA, but we've got my four and the other three of the Vaclaws: Logan, MaryKate and Evie. Such great friends!!

And I had to grab a quick pic of the John kids on their first camping adventure!

This was a smart idea! We didn't want the kids going in and out of our tents, but they really wanted to play in them. Someone brought a kid size tent so they had something to go in and out of! The girls in pink: Ashton, Evie and Addison.

Everyone was helping out! During the day the weather was perfect, but the nights were cold!! We didn't want to have to worry about the fire ever going out! We sent the kids out lots to look for wood. Avery and MaryKate did a great job here!

Camping is great because the kids find their own things to do! Here they are exploring... I caught them right before they jumped the fence!

We also brought a few games... like Ladder Golf.

Here's Jake... working on some soccer skills!

And the big boys, Randy and Tyler, playing a little horse shoes.

It was so much fun camping with our friends! Our kids get along so well together and Randy and I always have some great laughs with Amanda and Tyler. Thanks to Amanda and Randy, we camped in style! Amanda grilled some great steaks for dinner and Randy cooked up some amazing skillet breakfast the next morning!

Like I said, at night is was super cold! We bought a couple of heavy duty sleeping bags and doubled up in some to keep warm. We also bought a tent warmer that helped out a ton! It still made me nervous to have it in the tent so I opened the top vents to keep the air flowing. Amanda ended up taking some of her kids into their minivan to stay warm because they didn't have a warmer in their tent. Maybe not for some people.... but for us, this was an adventure!!!