We Love Fall!!!

A lot has been going on around here since I last posted.  Since fall is my favorite time of year, I've tried to do lots of fun fall activities and we've definitely been busy having fun!

Jonah's school went to Pumpkinland on a field trip so we took the whole family along for the ride.  We went through the corn maze and we were all happy that the babies heads were still attached despite all the jostling in the stroller.  The kids played and we got some little pumpkins to paint before we left.

I saw some great ideas for painting pumpkins on Pinterest here so I HAD to try it.  I cut my stencil out of regular computer paper (it only lasted through the one painting job but that's all I needed) and used a pearl white paint underneath and black and gold metallic for the stencil.  I love how it turned out!  Sophie smothered her pumpkin with pink and purple while Jonah opted for the more manly colors like blue and green and black.  Jon, being the perfectionist that he is, had to "erase" his design several times before being satisfied with the Gumba Head and Babomb (Mario characters).

Gardner Village in West Jordan is such a fun place to go and even more fun during Halloween!  This place was so crowded with people dressed as witches and enjoying the fun activities they had.  I was completely exhausted by the end of that outing and realized I may have bitten off more than I could chew with taking all four kids without Jon.  Luckily, I have a very helpful mother-in-law who helped tremendously!

Waiting for the hay ride to the witch's village.

I HAD to throw in pictures of the girlies.  Eloise is above and Pearl is below.  They were SO good during our outing.

I bought a caramel apple at the candy store at Gardner Village and decided we needed to make it a tradition to make them at home each fall.  I had the hardest time finding the sticks to put in the apples but my resourceful and brilliant husband came up with a plan that worked just as well.  He used the skinny, bamboo skewers and broke them in half and doubled them up before shoving them into the core.  The kids went with the classic plain caramel but Jon and I got a little creative and added mini chocolate chips and toffee bits to ours.  They were heavenly!

And to continue with the dessert making, I seized the opportunity to make dessert for Sunday dinner because I was craving my Paula Deen's pumpkin cheesecake which you can find the recipe for here.  I watched her make it last year on her show and was drooling by the end.  It IS as good as it sounds.  I never need a plain pumpkin pie again.  The kids liked it too!

We've been in costume alllll month long!

Jonah had a Halloween parade at school last week and wore his Sonic costume proudly.  They paraded around the room, sang some spooky songs, and had a party in their classrooms.  He is obsessed with Sonic the Hedgehog.

Jon's plans to run the Halloween Half Marathon last Saturday were dashed to pieces when his training came to an end due to foot problems.  He decided it was best to stop training and let it rest and let me run it instead.  It was so much fun to be with my mom and sister and I was pretty pleased with my time (1:54) considering I hadn't trained for it and had twins 3.5 months ago!  I'm so very sore today, though.

Happy Halloween!