A Furry Funeral

Saying goodbye to Courtney's hamster (a.k.a. "Biscuit") who passed away right before Halloween.  His final resting place is under the deck stairs. 

Courtney wanted to have biscuits to eat in honor of her fallen pet, so we headed to Bojangle's, added a box of chicken, and called it dinner.  Somehow our first two pets have ended up with food names, and there was discussion about what the next one should be named - pizza, ice cream, chocolate...

Halloween Cupcakes

Made a tray of these for Jordan to take to a Halloween party!

Trick or Treat!

Alyssa as an 80's punk rocker

Courtney as an artist/painter

Alyssa with one of her BFFs

With Melanie & Cohen (who's so excited he's blurry), ready to head out trick-or-treating! 

October Traditions - Family Halloween Party

Every year we head to Melanie and Ben's house for our annual Halloween party.

The mysterious Count always leaves the ingredients to make a batch of Squished Witches

Everyone has to take a turn stirring while saying his or her name backwards.  (Even Cohen and Karli took a turn.)

Exhausted parents Craig and Joanna

Melanie always makes awesome treats - check out these super cute cake pops!

Then it's time to carve pumpkins...

The kids & their pumpkins

October Traditions - Carving Pumpkins

(Jason doesn't usually dress up to carve pumpkins; he had just walked in from meetings after church.)

Jordan's pumpkin involved lots of scoring to give it a nice 3D effect.

Alyssa's is the bat at the top; Courtney's is the Kirby; and Jordan's is the giant eye.

October Traditions - The Pumpkin Patch

We discovered this farm when Courtney was in preschool and have been coming back every year since.

We've taken a picture in this same spot every year.

(This was also the only picture of Jordan I was allowed to post.)

Back to Blogging with Back to School

Not sure what happened to the summer, but suddenly it was time to go back to school. (I don't think any of us were ready.) It's a big year with Jordan (9th grade) starting high school and seminary, and Alyssa (6th grade) starting middle school. Even Courtney (4th grade) ended up at a new elementary school since we moved this summer.