Happy Halloween!
Oliver (Jedi knight from Star Wars)
Eli (chunky monkey)
We went trick-or-treating with Ollie and Eli's friends, Tyler and Aubrey Stuckey, and their mom, Melody. Tyler was also a Star Wars character, so Oliver and Tyler looked great together!
I just wanted to SQUEEZE Eli while he was wearing his costume! He was so squishy!
Eli loves giving hugs these days, but Aubrey wasn't quite ready for this one!
The princess and the monkey
This is Oliver waiting for the costume parade to start at his school. (He was slightly annoyed that his mom was taking pictures of him!) Oh, if you can't tell, Oliver decided to be a Jedi from the Star Wars movies...not exactly what I would have picked for him, but oh well! He loved it!
Oliver and his friend passing time by playing a game of "Rock, Paper, Scissors."
Oliver and some of his classmates enjoying their HUGE selection of Halloween treats at the party. (The others mothers and I went a little overboard on the amount of treats that were prepared for the kids. The kids didn't seem to mind!)
Oliver and I decided that we should carve a few of the pumpkins from the pumpkin patch. Oliver actually ended up doing most of the carving, and even most of the cleaning out the pumpkins! Sometimes it still stuns me how old he is getting. He is very capable of doing quite a lot by himself, and that's just the way he likes it! Mr. Independent. Anyway, here are a few pictures from our afternoon of carving!
Oliver and his first completed pumpkin. He used a pattern on this one, so on the next one he decided to go free-style!
Working...
And this is what he came up with! ( I thought the teeth were pretty cool!)
Oliver's completed jack-o-lanterns!
This year, our "regular" pumpkin patch wasn't open, so I found another one that was close to Hesston. My mom was watching Addie and Ty, so they met us there and we had SO much fun! This pumpkin patch definitely gave our old one a run for it's money!
Oliver and Addie on the hay-rack-ride around the farm
Oliver launching some mini pumpkins...which he LOVED!
Ty, Oliver, and Addie
Oliver stripping corn off of the cobs
Eli playing in a big trough of corn
Oliver holding his first pumpkin that he found! Picking pumpkins from the field turned out to be more like an easter egg hunt...whenever the kids found a pumpkin, any pumpkin, they wanted to pick it and keep it!
Addie, Ty, and Oliver hauling the pumpkin wagon
Eli wasn't too thrilled with the pumpkins...he was actually pretty content just to be outside and watch the kids run around!
Do you think we picked enough pumpkins???
Oliver, Ty, and Addie
Oliver and Addie playing on hay bales
Oliver going down the big slide...head first, of course!
Eli's semi-curly hair was so cute sometimes, but other times it would like a big old mess! I decided it was time for his first haircut. This is what his hair looked like before. (And a special thanks to my fantastic photographer, Oliver!)
I had no idea how the whole thing would go...in the beginning, Eli was NOT thrilled about having some strange lady messing with his hair. Even his favorite crackers were not making him feel better!
Finally, I think he conceded to the fact that he was going to need to sit there and let her cut his hair. 
The finished product! Nice and trimmed up! Hopefully we won't have to do this again for a little while. Right?!?
These photos were taken during a soccer tournament Oliver had last weekend. My camera wasn't cooperating, so I'm not very pleased with these pictures, but at least you get the idea.
The other day I was gathering laundry and walked into the kitchen to find this lovely mess! Eli had opened the doors to the cupboard, pulled down the Cheerio box, opened the Cheerio box, and poured himself a little treat! I've got to keep my eye on this one!
