Trunk or Treat

Our ward has a Trunk or Treat every year.

Darcy dressed up as a Lalaloopsy. But wouldn't wear the wig.

Brinkley wanted to be a girl Dracula (Draclia, as she says it).

I'll be honest, my pictures of this event are terrible. But we had a great time. I was most impressed with Brinkley eating a donut on a string. Go Brinks!
Darcy was a little shy to do much, but she did like the pumpkin walk and got most of her candy from that one event. Go Darce!

Sadly, this year I didn't get and really great pictures of my kids all decked out in their costumes OR trick or treating. Sad. I'm slipping. Maybe next Halloween I'll be officially out of my funk.
;)

Pumpkin Walk

Remember how we went to Beaver Lake for a walk?

While we were there we bought advance tickets for a big event they do. 

A pumpkin walk of sorts! 

They have people carve hundreds of pumpkins. Hundreds. 

Then they line their trails with all of them. So, you're walking in the DARK on a TRAIL 

(crowded and slow moving with people)  

lit up by pumpkins! 

It is so cool. 

Sans the people part. 

Wow, I'm getting old. And extremely introverted apparently. 

This shall indeed become a McBride-family-Halloween-while-we're-in-NY-tradition. 

I should find out how to enter a pumpkin into the contest. Maybe I could win next year. 

Or not.

There were some pretty cool ones there. 

Then they have a food tent. Which has more than food. There's also face painting and chairs. 

Blessed chairs.

After we had cocoa and a caramel apple (which the kids ate the caramel off of) we headed back outside to see a kid magician. He was AWESOME! Just kiddin. He was okay. Less than awesome.

Speaking of less than awesome... here's some pictures. 

It was dark and I don't know how to do that with my camera. I should learn. 

My favorite was the I heart NY pumpkin because that's how I feel. 

Tims

AHHHHH!  I love fall and Halloween and all things involved with it. 

We went to this fabulous little pumpkin patch called Tims. 

It was wonderful. 

They had all kinds of pumpkins. Orange pumpkins, white pumpkins, green pumpkins, big pumpkins, tiny pumpkins and pumpkins with wonky colors and shapes.

They had animals, a hay maze, a shop with cider and donuts, a scary witch scene, a random rocking horse, cats roaming around and a fun play area for the kids. We spent a good 3 or 4 hours here. My kids loved it. 

I did feel bad though. We were playing in the play area with this cute little girl and then she got stung by a bee. Poor thing.

Random Halloween Event

There is this monthly magazine that is put out at the YMCA that tells you all sorts of activities going on in the area that month. 

I scour this thing

I circle all the events I'm interested in and then put them on the calendar. So diligent.

Of all the 20 things I find that would be a BLAST to do, we usually end up doing 1... or 2. 

Whatever. 

Still, I have good intentions to take my kids out and about.

And this Halloween... we actually did one! 

The description of the activity made it sound so promising. Bounce houses, games, food, a haunted house... all for free!!!

And it was true. It had all that stuff. And it was free. Just on a smaller scale than I was expecting. The kids had fun, I think. And that's all that matters. They won candy at some games and got to slide one the bounce house. One. Singular. They said the haunted house might be too scary, so we passed on that. 

After we did all 4 activities, we decided to go... to Dunkin' Donuts.

Now, that is a great way to end a Halloween fun-filled night!

Beaver Lake with Mari

I have this fabulous, spontaneous friend name Mari. 

She does fun stuff and invites me. 

I appreciate it. Cause otherwise I'd be perfectly content to sit in my house and read all day. 

I need occasional reminders that I do, in fact, love to be outside and that my kids kinda need the exercise and fresh air. 

I guess.

We headed over to Beaver Lakes on a fine fall day. 

The leaves were crunchy and we just let the kids roam around at their own pace. 

We made our way to the visitor center where we made a mess of the kids room and disturbed all the old senior citizens who were quietly and peacefully bird watching. 

 Eeks.

In our defense, they are the ones who thought it would be a good idea to put a ramp inside a place where kids go. It's just begging to be ran up and down over and over and over.

Kids will be kids. Whadya do?

Callisters!

The Callisters came to visit us in New York! They packed up all their stuff and their 3 kids and drove 6 or 8 hours from Pittsburgh to see little old us McBrides. That, my friends, is love.

I wanted to show them a good time. So I shoved all 5 of them in one small room. 

On an air mattress. 

With all the toys.

I am the best hostess. 

They could only stay a couple days. Boo. But we had a good time.

We went to Abbots, of course, to the fall festival there. It was crowded. Not like my usual visit to the good farm. So, I was a little bummed - hopefully they didn't mind too much. At least the kids got ice cream. Then everyone is happy.

It was like we had never left. Brinkley and Isaac were back to being besties. Hugging and pretending and such. Love them two cuties. We need the Callisters to move in next door to us. Too bad our neighbor is a hoarder. I don't think her house would be fixable. 

That was really rude.

 Oh, and Darcy called Sophie 'soapy.' 

Don't wanna forget that little detail.

Anyway. We stayed up late watching some lame old school version of Les Miserables on Netflix and I thoroughly enjoyed cuddling with Jess on the couch and listening to good old Bryce's contagious laugh. Not to mention the Callister's famous adjectives to describe things. 

Bryce was not a big fat greasy piece of hog meat. Thank heavens for that.

And Jess: I still think you are funny. I always will. 

Don't forget to add my tally's on the wall for making you laugh too. Humorous Hayley. Ha.

Love you guys. Miss you guys. Thanks for coming! 

Come again! 

And I'll try to make it to the burgh before you leave it behind to move on.