Halloween

Here's our two trick-or-treaters all dressed up for Halloween.  Given the gorgeous weather (sunny and 60's), it worked out perfectly for them to be able to wear their Woody and Buzz Lightyear costumes.  After making the rounds, we spent the rest of the night at a party with several families with kids around the same ages.  The kids raced around while the adults relaxed and everyone had a fantastic Halloween!

Ansel loved decorating a pumpkin with crayons and stickers.

Here's my little superman showing it off.

The kids helped Daddy carve pumpkins for about 5 minutes before they decided that was better work for Daddy while they played.

But they were really excited about the final results!

Here's Woody dressed up and waiting for Buzz to wake up from his nap so they can make the candy rounds.

While she waited, Amita handed out candy to all the neighborhood kids that stopped by.

We got in the Halloween spirit and made some festive snacks to bring to a friend's party.  Deviled eggs (half spooky eyeballs, half spiders).

And cheese and pretzel broomsticks.

Stay-cation

Aaron and I had a stay-cation for our anniversary this year.  The kids spent a week having fun with my parents while we spent a week sleeping in, talking uninterrupted, and eating out without a babysitter required!

We were able to do some hiking, see the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra with my great uncle, and relax.  It was a fabulous time!!

Here we are at Rib Mountain.  The fall weather was a little more brisk than we anticipated, but that kept us moving at a pretty fast pace to stay warm!

Aaron next to the Rib Mountain state park sign.

We also took advantage of our kid-free time to do some chores around the house, including working on some landscaping.  The first step was to power wash a literal ton of stone and brick so that we can use those in projects next year.

Safety Net

Our volunteer fire department in Richfield puts on several events throughout the year and we do what we can to attend most of them.  The fire safety night was a rainy, blustery night, but the weather didn't dampen our spirits at all.  We even got to warm up inside with demonstrations, snacks, drinks, and all sorts of give-aways!  And we got to meet up with several neighborhood families as well.

Ansel was excited to spray the fire hose!  Now he walks around the house with other toys pretending to spray people and making a funny spraying sound!

Amita got to see the firemen twice.  Once at school and again at fire safety night.

It was fun to check out the inside of the ambulance and fire trucks...

... but the thing we enjoyed most was how much warmer they were than outside!