Halloween ~ 2009

On Halloween-Eve, we started the holiday festivities with a trip to Weaver's Orchard to finally get pumpkins! Sadly, the weather was horrible the past few weekends causing us to squeeze in some pumpkin picking right before Weaver's closed on Friday evening. This year we did not enjoy a fun hayride to the pumpkin patch or the cool activities that the Orchard has for the children on Saturdays. Instead we raced to beat the sun setting for the evening with choosing what we thought were the perfect pumpkins*.
Here's our weekend in pictures...

What on earth are they staring at?

Oh...just a scary goat on the rooftop!

(yes, that is a real goat on top of the barn roof!)

Kara loved helping Daddy choose the perfect pumpkin*. She inspected them all.

Ryan insisted on picking them up. This one appears to be a little on the heavy side...

....and walking around with them. Any guesses on the phrase of the night?

Kara measuring up against the "medium" hay stacks....they win. :)

Look what we found! GO PENN STATE!

I asked Chris if he could just build one of these in our house?

FYI--We still do NOT know where our bee infestation is coming from. Poor Kara has been stung THREE times in the past two weeks. Thank God she is not allergic like her mama!

After paying for our perfectly picked pumpkins*, some yummy apple cider and a box of homemade sticky buns (Chris added them to the cart at the last minute), we headed home for movie night with Ryan. We watched Monsters vs. Aliens. We give it two thumbs up!

*not so perfect...see below.

This Halloween I wanted to carve a pumpkin. Believe it or not, we have not carved a pumpkin since Ryan was born. I think we just thought Ryan was too young to understand or even help...so why bother, right? Well, this year I decided we must carve a pumpkin.

I found the perfect template online...

Isn't it adorable?! (now we really can't wait for our Disney trip in Nov. 2010!)

Ryan was ready to help while sporting this super silly t-shirt that Grandma High sent to him!

Let the carving begin!

Chris had a cheering section...

"Go Daddy!"

"Carve that Pumpkin!"

We were having a great time cheering for Daddy, but then he lifted the freshly carved lid and we found this...

hmmmm. I know it's been a few years since our last experience with pumpkin "guts" but we are pretty positive that they shouldn't be in liquid form!!!!

Chris took the pumpkin over to the kitchen sink and tried to clean the pumpkin out as best he could...but he accidentally created a small hole on the bottom.

Thus causing this to happen...

The cheering stopped and the gagging started. Yuck!

But we weren't going to let a semi-rotted pumpkin stop us!


Do you see Mickey?


Getting closer...


carving the finishing touches...


And may I present...


The High Family 2009 Halloween Pumpkin!


Once the pumpkin was completed, it was time to take pictures of the kids in their costumes.

Kara the Ladybug

Does this costume look familiar?? Yep, it's the same one she wore last year!!! Click here to see our 2008 Halloween pictures.

Ryan the Bee

LOVE BUGS

Once there was a break in the rain (yep, it rained AGAIN...what a rainy October!), I strapped Kara into the stroller and took the kids around the block. They got A LOT of candy for only doing a block.

This year Candi brought over Kianah and Ava (two out of her four girls) to keep us company and Trick-or-Treat. Ava and Kara were born only three weeks apart but as you can see, differ greatly in height and weight. Watch out Ava, Kara is starting to catch up though. :)

The Ladybug with her Flower!

Happy Halloween!

The Toy Fairy

The MOST ANNOYING thing about being a stay-at-home mom is this....

(please note-these photos were taken on a mild day)

I clean and they mess.

I organize and they "reorganize".

I tell them to clean up and they look at me like I'm an alien from another planet.

Sadly, Ryan gets the brunt of clean up duty because Kara is still too young to understand that her toys need to be put away after she throws them around the room plays with them. This is something we are working on with her. Ryan is also at an age where he likes to "ignore" and "complain" A LOT when asked to do something. It is very trying on his mother's patience...aka MY patience.

One day I decided enough was enough. I had heard about "The Toy Fairy" from a few friends and decided that she was worth a try. I sat Ryan down and explained to him that the Toy Fairy had called and she informed me that she planned to make a visit to our house to collect all toys left out during nap time that day. At first he just stared at me...again, like I was some alien from another planet. I wasn't sure if he was going to take me seriously or laugh in my face.

I mean, this child is one smart cookie.

Then he asked why she called our house? I told him that she knew that he was giving his mommy a hard time when it came to cleaning up his toys and at times, completely ignoring her requests to clean up. He then said, "OK, I will clean up." and went into the playroom. A few minutes later he ran into the kitchen and said, "hey mom, don't worry about the Toy Fairy. I locked all the doors so she can't get in!" (I told you he was a smart cookie, right?)

I then had to explain to him that it doesn't matter if the doors were locked or not. The Toy Fairy is able to get in because she has special fairy powers.

Ok, so at this point I am ready to throw in the towel because the "little white lie" is becoming way too much work to keep up!

After a little more whining and a desperate attempt at telling me that it didn't matter because Santa was coming soon anyway (seriously where does this child come up with this stuff?), the toy room was left unclean while I scooted both kiddies up for their afternoon nap.

If there is one thing I've learned in the short years as a mom, it's the fact that I have to follow through with everything and always be consistent. So when I told Ryan that the Toy Fairy was going to take ALL toys that were left on the floor...then so be it, the Toy Fairy did just that!

I didn't get a before shot of the crazy mess...here is what was left after the Toy Fairy stopped by. She decided to leave the puzzles and games behind so Ryan had something to clean up when he woke up from his nap. Wasn't that nice of her?

After nap, Ryan came running into the toy room to find that his toys were missing. Curious how he reacted? Well you are in luck, I was able to catch in photographs his many emotions....

Angry Ryan

Sad Ryan


Confused Ryan

Guess what he did next? CLEANED UP the remaining mess!

Holy Canoli, it worked. (yay!)

Soooo I continued my "little white lie" and told Ryan that the Toy Fairy told me that she would return then next day (after nap). She explained that if Ryan listened to his mommy and cleaned up, she would be more than happy to return his toys!

To my amazement, the following day Ryan cleaned up all his toys with only being told once! When he woke up from his nap, he found this waiting for him....


The note says,

"Dear Ryan,
As promised, here are your toys back.
Please continue to clean up your toys every day or I will return. Good Job today! :)
Love,
The Toy Fairy"

Ryan was SO EXCITED to find this bag of goodies! It seriously felt like Christmas in our house as he held up his toys and exclaimed how much he missed each toy.


Happy Ryan



So what did we learn?
The Toy Fairy does exist and she will return...just ask Ryan. ;)