October 2019

For some reason, Octobers are always busy. I seem to take a lot more photos in the month of October than I do in other months. This past October was no different.

Once we got into the groove of doing full-time school for Aubrey and taking care of a new baby, we started to venture out more. One of the first things we (me, Carter, and Clara) did was visit Daddy at work to show Clara off to some interested students. They loved her, but Carter also had his fair share of female admirers. He is pretty cute, I must say. But for his part, he was all about the toy cars he found on one of the shelves. Forget about older girls!

Clara was sleepy. I dressed her in my favorite outfit for the occasion. D'awww.

October is also the month that the preschool does a field trip to the police station. I didn't go when Aubrey went her first year, so I was glad I could go with Carter. We walked from the preschool to the station (just under a half mile), and the weather was perfect. Clara even took a nap in the stroller on the way.

I love this photo, because Carter is cupping his hand around his ear to listen for cars, just as Ms. Kathleen was telling them to do.

When we got there, the officers showed us around and explained what they do. When the officer in this picture asked a question, Carter (in red, on the left) answered... and then kept on rambling. Apparently he's that kid! Aubrey was so not that kid, haha. Truth be told, I like it and think it's cute.

And here's the whole group!

We also got to attend our first elementary school parent/teacher conference in October. When it was over, we walked around the school so Aubrey could give us a tour. She particularly enjoyed showing us the art displays all around the school.

Here she is pointing to the art piece she made.

While Aubrey was at school, Carter became a frequent library visitor. He loves story time! He also loves the helicopter and prop plane toys they have there. He would play forever and never want to leave! I love that you can see his mouth formed to make the plane sound efffects.

But sometimes it was Carter who went to school while Aubrey stayed home. She had this weird few weeks in which she and her classmates kept getting unexplained fevers and having to stay home for 24 hours. It was annoying. But it led to some fun girl time!

For the first time since we moved here, we decided not to spend our October break visiting Karen and Colt's family in Utah. We stayed put. We tried to fill the week with fun (and, with one or two exceptions, free) activities. One of the few we paid for was swimming at the Rec Center. It's definitely worth it to spend the money once every few months during the winter.

The older kids had fun splashing.

And Clara had a nice nap, as usual.

Our second October break activity was visiting the Firefighters Museum in Denver. We got free tickets through the library. Even though it grosses me out, we let the kids try on the costumes. They do make pretty adorable firefighters.

Aubrey was all about sliding down the pole. She always loves doing that at the park. I still don't think I've ever done it in my life! I was such a scaredy cat kid.

Carter, however, struggled with the pole sliding, as you can see in the background of this photo:

But hey, the point of this photo is that Aubrey looks cute with her little head sticking through there, right? Right.

The rest of the week we went to the zoo, visited Nana and Papa, baked cookies, and played games. Aubrey wrote this cool "journal" entry about what we did. It was so cute!

We also dusted off the ol' kite and flew it at the park one day.

And we got free tickets to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. This is the only photo we took while we there, sadly. The kids were supposed to be pretending to do tricks on the bike. I guess Carter was just levitating upside down while Aubrey did a flip...

Anyway, I should have taken more photos of those fun things we did! Arg. I did, thankfully, take this awesome shot of the kids after church on Sunday. It's one of my favorite photos of my three lovies.

This is another favorite, which we also took at some point in October, haha.

And, last but not least, I got this awesome shot of Carter and Clara. I don't know how I managed to get them both to smile at once!

With all the photos I was taking, my kids got inspired to put me in front of the camera occasionally. Most of the photos are blurry and show me from very unflattering angles. But since I knew this one was happening, it's not bad. There I am.

I worried that as time went on, the novelty of Clara would wear off and her superstar status would disappear. I was wrong. Both kids have continued to adore her and love on her.

Happy Mommy heart!

Anyway, our fun-filled October continued with our annual visit to The Patch in Elizabeth. Man, I love this place! We have decided to go there every Fall for as long as they're open to the public. This time we got to have Nana and Papa with us, too!

The corn kernel "pool" remained a favorite attraction among both the kids and adults in our party. It's weirdly soothing!

Aubrey went so far as to take a shower in it.

But, of course, the highlight of the place is the giant slide. Aubrey went first.

And this time Carter was able to go by himself! 

Clara was festively dressed, but other than that she was a non-participant.

Nana and Papa were kind enough to pay for the kids to take pony rides again. Carter, in particular, was a natural! He seemed very comfortable.

Aubrey, though a bit wobbly, was also great!

Each kid also had to get a photo on the giant tractor. Carter's love for vehicles being what it is, he thought it was totally awesome.

From there we entered the corn maze, which was much taller and better than last year's. Here we are about to enter!

I tried to take a cool artsy photo of a farm with the corn stalks in front of it, but it didn't work out so great. Oh well, look how blue the sky is!

As we went through the maze, Carter felt the need to touch every stalk.

And Aubrey was always running ahead of everyone. I had a difficult time getting in front of her so I could take this photo! Also, she looks kind of creepy.

After the maze, we did the tractor ride up the hill and back down again. For some reason, we split into two groups. Here's a shot of me, Clara, Carter, and Nana. Daddy, Papa, and Aubrey were in the other trailer.

We couldn't leave the farm without doing the whole photo shoot...

It'll be fun to compare all of these height measurement photos in a few years!

While we were there we even got a full-family photo, which we haven't gotten many of since Clara was born.

And here's the whole gang! We had a lot of fun, as usual. I love this Fall tradition we've started!

Even though the holiday is at the very end of the month, October is basically Halloween month. For us, the festivities really began with Carter's preschool Halloween party. He's the towhead in the middle dressed like Spiderman. It was a free costume! (I win.)

One of the highlights of the Halloween party is the limbo. Carter was the first kid to think of crawling on his hands and knees. After he did it, the other kids all followed.

We ended the party with some "trick-or-treating" down the preschool's hallway. Even with no candy, Carter was a happy boy. Love that smile...

Then it was Aubrey's turn. Her school did a costume parade around the outside of the building. She was a butterfly, which involved limited preparation on my part, thankfully. When I sent her to school, she also had an antennae headband. It didn't last though, unsurprisingly.

The day before Halloween, we carved our pumpkins. Carter's is traditional, and Aubrey's is a three-eyed monster. (The paper on top of its head says "Happy Halloween.") They were going for scary faces in the photos, but Carter kind of missed the memo, haha.

As seems to be the way here in Colorado, it snowed the day before Halloween. The ground was icy, and it was chilly. So we put layers on under the kids' costumes and went around the neighborhood. It's what you do here! It definitely wasn't as busy as previous years, but that wasn't a bad thing.

Nana and Papa came down and brought pizza for all of us (which has become a Halloween tradition), and they watched Clara and passed out candy so Daniel and I could take the older kids out.

I had to get a photo of the kids at at least one house. And on a side note, as I look at this photo now, I realize that this is the old gentleman I recently got acquainted with as he sat outside in his chair and I stood in the street watching Aubrey and Carter play. His name is Everett. He lives alone in that house, as his wife died a couple of years ago, and he told me all about her, his job, their kids, and more. He is very nice to talk to and once told me he was keeping an eye on the kids for me when they went outside and all the way down the street without me knowing for a few minutes, haha.

Anyway, that was our action-packed October! The holiday season always follows. I guess we'll see if I took as many photos during those two months as I did in October! I'm not so sure it's possible...