October Happenings

October has quickly become one of my favorite months. Even though it is STILL so hot here for most of October, the evenings are usually nice, it's the beginning of a slew of holidays, and the fact that I've made it through the summer makes me happy. Haha! Plus, it's my favorite person's birthday, so there's that too.

Started off the month by taking a couple cute pics of Kate and Joshua -

As soon as our neighbors start putting out their Halloween decorations, we start taking nightly walks to go see them. It's one of my favorite October traditions. Everyone loves it. The kids often asked to take pictures with the decorations. Ha!

Michael's birthday was on a Saturday this year. We started off the day with a few presents, though his helpers opened all of them for him. :-)

And then we were off to the Arizona State Fair! It is so overpriced and ghetto, but I've learned that going on a Saturday morning is the best route since it's cheap admission and not super crowded. I've also learned about the free activities and how to even get on a couple rides for free. Even still, we end up feeling robbed just for buying a few things to eat. :-) Worth it though! I love greasy fair food! Anyway, Kathy was in town so she came with us this year. It was fun to have Grandma join in the fun! We started off at the petting zoo - a favorite for the kids.

Well, maybe not Josh's favorite. Haha! He warmed up to it eventually!

The kids rode a few rides....

 And we bought some food, including a turkey leg and a funnel cake. YUM.

This year they had a special dinosaur exhibit. The kids loved it - especially Matthew.

Michael requested chocolate chip cookies as his "birthday cake." Love him! He works so hard for our family and makes such an effort to have a great relationship with me and each of the kids. I am glad we had a reason to celebrate him all day.

A week or so later we went to Vertuccio Farms, our local pumpkin patch. We went last year with Matthew's preschool and I definitely wanted to go again. It was SO FUN. They have so many fun things to do and it was pretty reasonably priced because we went on a day that was discounted. I was surprised that it wasn't even that crowded that day!

One morning towards the end of the month Matthew colored a bunch of flowers, cut them out, and handed them to me in a bundle and asked if we could go on a date. He's the cutest! As soon as Michael got home that evening me and Matthew went to Cafe Rio for dinner and then out for donuts. Lots of good food and the best company. One-on-one dates with my kids have always been one of my favorite things.

And as Halloween drew closer, we carved a pumpkin. I've come to realize that I'm pretty excited about my kids one day being able to carve pumpkins by themselves. Haha! It's maybe not my favorite thing to do, (and I'm so bad at carving a face!) but totally worth it to see how excited they get about it.

Yay October!