Grandma and Grandpa Crossley came into town at the beginning of the month. The Hiltons came up for General Conference and we had a great weekend filled with delicious meals, snacks and uplifting messages from the leadership of our church. Grandpa Crossley worked hard while he was here, clearing out a patch of trees and cleaning out our garage and shop. The boys even jumped in to help. Chet especially enjoyed demolishing the old picnic table that had been down there. We were really careful about poison ivy the first day, but Austin went out in shorts and a t-shirt the next day. He ended up being covered in a rash but he handled it really well. I wish we would have taken before and after pictures because the trees look so much better. Now we're just planning for Grandpa to come and clear out the rest of the property...
The next week Grandma Crossley went with the kids and I to a farm with our Homeschool group. The kids had fun doing the typical farm things:
Eliza went down the slide once with me and then insisted on going down by herself. She did it a lot and had so much fun.
This goat was the favorite. Eliza loved snuggling it and feeding it grass.
We got to go on a tractor ride and learn some cool facts about corn and every child got to pick their own corn cob. Eliza had so much fun plucking the corn off her cob. It was so enjoyable for her that she even snuck Austin's and pulled all his corn off. He had been saving it and slowly removing the corn each day. Let's just say they're were tears.
After two wonderful weeks, Grandma and Grandpa Crossley headed down to Kirksville to help the Hiltons with their new baby. We were sad to see them go. It was so wonderful spending time with them.
Maybe Tanner and I are just getting old but we were really dreading pumpkin carving this year. We put it off until the Thursday before Halloween. Tanner helped take the tops off the pumpkins and we both helped scrape them out a little but the oldest three did the rest by themselves. It was awesome and they were so proud of their creations.
Eliza was excited to paint her own "little pumpkin" but once she was done with that she decided she wanted to help carve too. Chet was nice enough to let her stab his pumpkin a little.
We've been carving pumpkins for quite a few years, and yet we always seem to forget to put a tarp down. Every year I vow that we won't forget to do that again. And yet here we are...
Austin was just hacking away at his pumpkin and when I asked him what he was doing for his design he said he didn't know yet. After cutting out a pretty good hole, he decided it was a rocket ship and then carved an alien face on the other side, complete with pipe cleaner antennas. He needed antennas for the picture too.
Chet carved a spider and web
And Mariah carved a cat
Austin's "rocket ship" is on the far left. I also carved a pumpkin at youth activities on Wednesday so it's on the right.
The kids picked their own costumes this year and were so excited about them. Tanner has been reading the Harry Potter books to them so Chet was determined to be Harry Potter again. Mariah was Hermoine and they were able to persuade Austin to be Hagrid. Eliza went as Hagrid's puppy Fang because she is pretty determined and I felt like our odds of getting her in a costume were greater if it was something she liked to pretend to be anyway.
Because of Covid, I didn't know whether we would be able to trick or treat so I wanted to plan some fun things for the day. The kids got to decorate wands:
As Tessa said, "you can never have too many sprinkles".
I made butterbeer, Cornish Pasties, and Treacle Tart and Tanner picked up some Pumpkin Eggnog that we dubbed Pumpkin Juice. The treacle tart called for golden syrup and because I couldn't find it at any stores around here I decided to make it myself. After three fails and starting to feel very grumpy I finally got a batch to work. So now we know that Treacle Tart tastes a lot like lemon bars, with a slightly different texture. And we think we prefer lemon bars.
During the meal the kids got a special visitor:
"Dobby" even pulled a sock from a book. I probably got the biggest kick out of it but I think the kids thought it was funny too. Can't wait until they're teenagers and we can reenact it. They'll just love it then.
The first time I saw this picture I wondered how Tanner got Eliza to pose like that, until I zoomed in and realized she was crying and trying to get away. She was not feeling it at the moment.
Tanner even whipped out a pink umbrella for Austin at the last minute. He kept that wig and beard on the whole night. I was impressed with his dedication to the costume.
Eliza perked right up after she started getting some candy. We went to one neighborhood in town and the kids got enough candy to be happy. Then we went home and watched the first Harry Potter and ate popcorn and way too much candy.
I'm glad they had fun but I am so excited to be moving on to my favorite holidays of the year!
