The Mother of All Posts

Oh...the uber-post you are in for...

Hope you enjoy!

Ezra's 4th Birthday

Ezra turned a big 4 years on the 23rd. He was so excited and is officially "big" now. If you know Ez, you know that up until this last birthday, he refused to allow us to call him a big boy because, according to him, his hands were "still so little." Apparently they grew overnight because now he's constantly reminding us of how big he is. Oh, and yes, Olive Garden was as fabulous as Ezra claimed it was going to be. It had "lots of good food and spaghetti."

If you're wondering why there's a random picture of Georgia in all these, it's because her grandma sent her the quilt she made for her bed and so Georgia was lucky enough to have had a present to open too.

Thanks MiMi and Grandad!

In this picture, Ezra is in the midst of a scavenger hunt...lest you think I'm an uber-mom, I'm tellin' you now that I was just too lazy to attempt to wrap a big and funny-shaped present.

Thanks Grandma & Grandpa for the "funny mouse movie." Incidentally, in this picture, I actually look like a mouse.

Like the Lego cake? It took me waaay too long to make, but I thought it turned out cute.

13 Nights of Halloween Festivities

Dirt & Worms

yes, you are seeing a picture of my fridge. The worms were a surprise dessert, so I didn't want the kids to see them while I took pictures

The results of said dirt and worms:

The Pumpkin Patch

We went to a fabulous local (free) pumpkin patch called Schaakes Pumpkin Patch. This place is FABULOUS. They have free hay rides down to the pumpkins. A cute little hay bale maze (which, incidentally, is verrry easy for kids to intentionally lose their parents in), and lots of other fun things to see and do. If you're ever in the area, it's a fall must-see.

They're just so darn excited to be there

On the tower of hay bales:

Yes, I know Ezra's making an odd face in this picture. Basically he must have seen someone pose all cutesy for a photo sometime, because that's what he's attempting. He's putting his finger in his "dimple" and puckering his lips. How funny is that?

In the maze:

They had a fun little slide in the entrance and exit of the maze

I loved this little set-up here. This way, when you come back the next year, you can see how much they've grown (thanks for the idea, Heather!):

(this was my only semi-successful one with Scarlett. I was attempting to take the picture by myself while Spence was buying our pumpkins)

We got to ride down the the pumpkins in this. How lucky were we?

Scarlett, in particular, enjoyed it

Down in the pumpkins:

(there was actually a lot more Halloween festivities...but I'm realizing how huge this post is going to be, so I just posted a few of my favorites)

Scarlett's 1st Birthday

Our little Scarli is all grown up and now a big one year old! We've been so lucky to have her in our lives! Although, as Georgia and Ezra remind me often, she still is a baby.

Our dinner of Candy Corn pizza

Thanks Auntie Lib & Fam!

Scarlett adores clothes of all kind. It was so much fun to watch her open her clothing gifts (which are typically every child's least-favorite gift), her eyes would light up and she would immediately drape them all over her body.

Thanks Mimi and Grandad!

Another scavenger hunt picture

I made a pear pie instead of a cake because I was pretty much all frosted-out from all the Halloween goodies and Ezra's cake. If you look real close you can see a flower within a flower cut-out on top of the pie.


Halloween!!!

Daddy started the morning off right with Jack-O-Lantern pancakes

We started out with a bang at Trunk or Treat:

Superhero Ezra

Fairy Princess Scarlett (minus the wings) with her Soviet Russian father
(Spencer and I were a little worried we were going to get lynched for dressing up as communists and handing out bread, but luckily people thought it was as funny as we did.
ps-spencer's hip isn't that weird in real life, he had a raw potato in his pocket that he'd occasionally take bites from)

Firecracker Georgia
(oh, how true...)

That evening...

A bad picture of Scarlett WITH her wings

My attempt at a picture of all three kids on our porch. Yeah, it turned out sooo great :P

The Morning After:

Spencer kept on making fun of us for organizing the candy. I'm the girl who likes to organize her DVDs by genre...of course I'd have to get in on this.

If you look really close in this picture you can see the method to our madness. Ezra was organizing candy by skittles, sweet tarts/smarties, and "small candies with ties." I was logically organizing by fun-sized chocolate, bite-sized chocolate, gummy candy, suckers, etc.

Georgia was organizing candy by Everything I Want To Eat.

Wow, are you as exhausted as I am? I'm uber-impressed if you actually stuck with it long enough to be reading this. Hope your Halloween season was as much fun as ours was! Now on to Thanksgiving...it's almost time to bust out the Christmas music. yay! yay! (this is the one on my must-have list, this year :) Have a fabulous day!