Happy Halloween!  I am just going to start this month backwards.  We had a great Halloween.  We kept up with all of our old traditions and added some new ones too.  As you can see, Cooper was a Dragon this year.  He was not a huge fan of his costume and usually complained when we put it on him, but on Halloween night. . . we had a hard time getting it off him!  I think he finally realized that if he just put it on and smiled, people would give him candy.

He also had a pretty sweet ride.

Carson was a King this year, and as he noticed all of the other kids, he was pretty disappointed that he wasn't Optimus Prime (he didn't realize that was an option).  We had to bundle him up so he wouldn't get cold and by the end of the night he had taken off his costume and just had his sweats, beanie, and gloves on, and was telling people he was a hip-hop dancer. ( I think I heard him say "whats up?" a couple of times)

Abby was a fairy, of course she was good with everything.  We had to bundle her up too and she didn't mind as long as her hair looked pretty.

We were lucky to have the Finnertys here for Halloween.  My kids loved having more kids to run around with.  Can you guess which kids are theirs (scary, scary, scary, scary, cutesy, cutesy, cutesy).

We did all of the required pumpkin patches, corn mazes, and pumpkin carvings to get ready for the holiday.

 

 

 

 

 

Abby was very thoughtful about her carving, (which of course included the biggest pumpkin with heart eyes)

Carson was very focused.  I saw him sticking his tongue out with pure concentration more than once. ( he made his own version of Dracula)

Cooper just stabbed at it, as we expected.

We also had our annual FHE Halloween party.

Chad and I even dressed up like idiots to party with our friends (he is such a good sport)

We had our usual Clam Chowder and breadsticks on Halloween night, and Chad even went all out and made some "witch's brew" (homemade rootbeer/ dry ice) the kids thought it was "totally awesome".  It was a great Halloween.

Back a couple of weeks. . .  We went on a road trip to Las Vegas.  I know, who goes to Las Vegas for 11 days?  Yep, us.  Chad had a training there for work most of the time (which was paid for, yeah:).  Plus Amy, Justin and Kamryn live there, so we were able to spend time with them too.  We had tons of fun, although it felt a little weird going swimming in October. (here is baby Kamryn and her dad)

 Abby hit the wave pool with Kaitlyn (her and Ethan also made the trip).

 Cooper would just put on his floaties and coast around the lazy river, which was not so lazy, it was actually pretty fast.

 We had a lot of fun swimming and laying around in the room. We also took the kids to Circus Circus, and for a family friendly walk on the strip (um, not so much, we just kept telling them to look up and don't look directly at the little fliers on the ground.)

 Of course we had to take Carson to the Shark Reef.  He is such a sea animal junky its crazy!  The funnest part was that when we checked into our next hotel, a lady came over and handed all three kids a backpack thing with a safari hat and a map and some postcards and crayons.  It was so cute!  The Carson became obsessed with his hat and insisted on wearing it to the reef.  I didn't realize it matched so well, and he ended up looking like a little explorer.  People were commenting the whole time.

 

His newest fascination is with the big Komoto Dragon they had there.

But he LOVED EVERYTHING!  He and Abby were so funny because they had to listen to EVERY single word the information thing was saying.  I kept telling them they didn't have to listen to the whole thing, but they were in a zone.  Let's just say, it made for a long visit.

Despite the picture, Abby loved it too.  She is just focusing.

We  had a lot of fun, I love vacationing with my kids, but 11 days and 5 different hotel rooms is exhausting.

Of course he had to get a Komoto Dragon for the road.