Halloween Festivities Galore!

Whew!  I love October, but it is also such a super busy month that sometimes I struggle to keep up! 

 

Jonathan is away traveling on business (which really is the typical this year) and the kids and I have been bouncing from one activity to the next!  Between birthday parties and Halloween, we are having a blast and staying extra busy!

 

 

Friday night was the annual Rock Springs Elementary Fall Festival.  This year our Girl Scout trooped sponsored a trunk and passed out candy.  The girls were each supposed to take 30 minute shifts, but Katelynn couldn't seem to get enough of it.  She stayed the entire time at the trunk even when I took the boys around to play in the bounce houses.

 

 Katelynn running our trunk games while Autumn passed out the candy. 

 Later in the night, Katelynn and Ryan (and sometimes Justin) sold hair ties and rainbow loom bracelets to support the Family Committee of the PTO.

 And Katelynn and Emily selling too!

 

 

 

The next night Katelynn had a birthday party to attend so I took the boys up for round two of trunk or treating at Denver United Methodist Church.

 

And one last celebration before actual trick or treating... Ryan's school Halloween parade, trick or treating, and party!  Here he is with his class on the rounds for trick or treating.

Happy 8th Birthday, Katelynn!

EIGHT YEARS?  Really?  This (not-so) little girl is growing up so fast.  I just can't handle it.  What happened to my tiny little newborn baby girl that gave me the title of mommy?  It has been an amazing, challenging, exciting, and FAST eight years!!

 
This year Katelynn wanted a horse birthday party.  We really lucked out with some nice weather.  It literally started raining and storming minutes after her party ended!  We had about 15 kids total for her party, and they had a blast.  They got to ride the horses, brush them, give them snacks, tour the barn, and paint horseshoes. 

 

Katelynn requested a simple cake this year with just a horse on it.  So... she got simple but I still made sure to give myself some struggles as I made my own frosting and cake this year!  Normally I always use Wilton frosting, but I am trying to convert our family to avoid processed foods and dyes so I naturally colored the brown and pink frosting.  It turned out pretty good for my first time but the heat really melted the frosting a lot and it looked awful by the time it was time to eat it.  Good thing it still tasted good.. and I got a good picture beforehand.

 

The birthday girl got to pick which horse she wanted to ride.  She chose to ride Black Beauty.

 Make a wish, big girl!

 

I would say it was another successful party!  Now lets hope it takes a long time to get to age 9.  This is going all too fast!

Run for the ROCK!

Since I have slacked on blogging since before our move to Denver, I haven't gotten to brag nearly enough about how awesome our new elementary school is.  Obviously, I did lots of research and my goal with moving was to get the kids in a great school, and thankfully we succeeded.  We have such a great community that supports our school.  Our main fundraiser each year is the school fun run and boy is it a big deal!  The weather was perfect today for the 2014 Run for the Rock fun run!

This was Katelynn's second year participating and Justin's first.  The classes pick themes and make banners that they run through.  Justin's class was "Gates Gators" and Katelynn's class was "Bisson's Bobcats".  And since I'm such a crafty nerd, we made Ryan a very special shirt to cheer on his brother and sister.

(The sign was courtesy of another mom in Justin's class.)