a boy. his sister.

H-A-Double L-O-W-Double E-N

Both kids classes had Halloween celebrations on Halloween this year... because Mondays aren't wild enough apparently :)

Kate's class had a costume parade at 9:00 and their Halloween centers (parent and teacher-lead centers) in the middle of their school day. Brett's class had their parent-lead centers in the middle of their school day and their costume parade at 2:00, followed by early dismissal. Thankfully only the Kindergarten and 1st grade has a costume parade and not the entire school!

The Ocean Friends, all 18 of them!

The cutest witch ever

Kate with 2 of her school friends and their decorated pumpkins

The little sisters of TFS playing "ring around the rosie"

Brett's class, parading in

He kept "transforming" in line... I'm sure his classmates just loved him, or maybe they just didn't care :)

Brett's class - missing a teacher and one student, I think

One of my latest Pinterest finds, cute (easy peasy lemon squeezy) witch hats for our neighborhood Halloween party

Kid craft at the Kiz house

Woody and Jesse (aka Mr. & Mrs. Kiz) - they like Halloween almost as much as the funny Halloween episode of Modern Family

Todd made me add freckles so that I looked more like Jesse and less like a country bumpkin... we got to the party and there was the "real" Jesse! Surprise!

The Optimus Prime transformed into Brett temporarily

The Cute Witch is back!

The kids ask Todd to take them trick-or-treating every year. This year, in the morning, before I saw the weather forecast, the kids asked me to take them and I said ok. Yeah... about that...

Sleeping Beauty

Post trick-or-treating - ready to hand out candy with Dad (really they were told to get ready for bed! It was a school night, after all!)

Yoda

Yoda again :)

R2D2 - Brett told me that it was "the best R2D2 ever"... I love that kid!

The {rainy} Season

This has to be the rainiest soccer season ever on record! There was so much rain and hurricanes and extreme cold - what a wild season. I guess it was fitting that the day of their last game was cold (34 degrees) and pouring cats and dogs. Needless to say, they cancelled the games and moved the picnic indoors!

Kate receiving her medal from "coach" (aka, dad)

Kate and her BFF, Liliana... love these 2 together! I wish they were in the same class again this year!

The 2011 Monkeys

One last "GO MONKEYS, ooh, ooh, ooh, ee, ee, ah, ah, ah"

2009-2011 Dolphins - most of these kids have played together for 3 seasons now!

Brett thought that coach forgot his medal... psych!

The last "GO DOLPHINS" of the season!

A picture with coach

Hill Ridge Farm

There is a place called Hill Ridge Farm about 30 minutes north of Raleigh that I've always heard people talk about and I've always heard the ads on the radio, and I've always thought "that would be really cool to take the kids", but we've never been. First, the kids were too little, then our fall weekends were occupied with soccer, and it has just always been easy to put it off "until next year." Well, this year our friend's youngest son had his birthday party at Hill Ridge Farm, so we (read: I) had a great excuse to go!

Anyway, the kids LOVED it! It was cold (in the low 40's) and had poured most of the morning, so there were big puddles everywhere, but the sun was shining, so it felt warmer than it actually was outside. I think the weather deterred a lot of people, so it was mostly just the party goers on what would normally be a busy day on the farm (the Saturday before Halloween).

Brett LOVED the maze and wanted to go again and again and again... yes, I do think we have a future engineer on our hands!

And Kate LOVED feeding the goats... especially she figured out that we could lift her up to look into the tubes to actually see the goats eating the food that she gave them.