Christmas Traditions

This time of the year is definitely one of my favorite times of the year!

It starts getting cold outside, which I love!

The holiday seasons are well under way and there is Christmas cheer everywhere you turn!

This is also the time of year where tradition is going strong! I am very much in to traditions and some of my favorite ones happen during the Christmas season!!

One of my absolute favorite ones is putting up the christmas tree and watching the kids have so much fun decorating it!

Nate and I get in on the decorating too!

 Christmas music is always playing in the background and everyone drinks hot chocolate or apple cider!!

The stockings get hung and the kids put on santa hats and everyone gets a little crazy and wild but we all have fun!

Another tradition we started years ago was taking turns placing the star or angel on the tree. The boys always forget who's turn it is each year so we go back and look at all the pictures to see who's turn it is this year. 

Caleb had that privilege this year! And he is finally tall enough to reach up to the top on his own.

He wasn't very excited when we told him we are thinking about getting a taller tree next year! :-)

Business and Halloween

Life gets crazy sometimes.

Before my post yesterday it had been a few weeks since I posted.

It's gotten busy around here, and I'm afraid it's only going to get busier the next few months as the holidays approach.

Last week was spent doing laundry, cleaning and preparing for a yard sale we are having this weekend.

As I posted yesterday I realized it is well over 2 weeks past Halloween and I still haven't posted any Halloween pics of the kiddos.

So here it is...

 

 

Hope everyone had a safe and fun Halloween!!

Carving Pumpkins

Every halloween as many families do, our family has a tradition of carving pumpkins!

Caleb was excited because this was his first year of carving his own pumpkin without dad's help.

The Knous family came over to carve pumpkins with us this year.

Logan had fun helping carve his, Jaxson is still a little young and didn't care much about the pumpkins yet.

Derek did much better this year about getting the "pumpkin guts" out of his pumpkin. In years past he has not liked this part at all!

In our family dad is the one who has the final say on the designs and he does all the carving for the younger kids.

My job is generally the picture taker and sometimes I help get the pumpkin guts out.

As you can see the kids got bored and were trying to make a pumpkin pie although there was nothing traditional about this pumpkin pie! :)

When Derek got bored he had fun playing with all the seeds and guts.

One of my favorite parts is seeing the pumpkin all lit up with a candle inside. You can really see the design that way.

All the boys lined up with their pumpkins!

Derek's was kind of a scary face this year. When dad gave him the option of a happy face or a scary face, of course he picked the scary face.

Levi went for a Storm Trooper from Star Wars.

Caleb did a nice happy face for his first solo attempt!

Pumpkin Farm Fun ~ Part 4!

The CAROUSEL,  PETTING ZOO and CORN on the COB!!

The Carousel was new this year at the farm.

It was just small one, but all the boys liked it. I think Caleb and Levi just had fun messing around the whole time!

Derek liked the Carousel best out of all the boys. What is it about Carousels that kids like so much?

Next we went to the petting zoo.

Derek was a little nervous around the animals at first but he eventually warmed up!

Caleb had fun watching this little guy sniffing this man's legs!

Next, corn on the cob!!!!!

YUM!!

The corn on the cob was SO good.

It came to you warm and you got to spray butter on it and sprinkle salt on it.

And boy was it yummy!!!

We didn't get corn on the cob last year, I don't know how we didn't! We were definitely missing out! There's just something about fresh corn on the cob!!

Part 5 and final post (I promise!) of the Pumpkin Farm coming soon. :)

Pumpkin Farm Fun ~ Part 2!

The CORN Maze

This is always a fun one, they do a great job with the maze and it was even slightly different from last year! (Or maybe I just forgot!)

Ready, set, here we go!

There are lots of twists and turns and dead ends in the maze!

Sometimes you just don't know which way to go! :~)

But you keep trying and if you go the wrong way you just have to turn around and backtrack!

There's a funny scarecrow along the way.

And a wolf hiding among the corn stalks. If you aren't paying attention this guy can sneak up on you! The people ahead of us screamed so we already knew something was up before we got to this little guy!

There are lots of signs to help you on the way...

But if you don't take their advice...

You just end up going the wrong way!!

The boys have said that the corn maze is one of their favorite things to do at the pumpkin farm!

Of course they say the same thing when we do the hayride, or  the train ride or when we find our pumpkins in the pumpkin patch!! :~)

Part 3 will be on the way soon!