HAYRIDE TRICK-OR-TREATING 2014

Toasting the start of the evening with another of my birthday shareables.

Princess Sophia Lauren and Dinosaur Houston.

Ironman Coltin and Elsa Cora were the most excited to get the hayride rolling. As soon as we mentioned loading up they bolted out the door, up the hill, and into the trailer.

Shark Will and Robin James joined the other "big kids".

Sunset = glowsticks and glowing balloons passed around.

The whole gang (minus Houston because he obviously couldn't keep up with these runners): Cora, Emma (another Princess Sophia), Lauren, Will, James, and Coltin.

I took multiple pictures of Coltin tonight because he was completely out of character and actually happily SMILING for my camera. Must have had a sugar high ;-)

Some houses gave out prizes instead of candy. The eyeballs were a big hit.

Our upgraded ride for the evening. Stirlin got a bigger trailer and went all out decorating it with spiderwebs and lights and glowing jack-o-lanterns at the tail end. (And he used a bigger ATV to haul it too.) Thank you Stirlin! We felt very fancy (and comfortable) out there, and it was so easy to spot our ride among all the other hayride trailers!

Post trick-or-treating warm up with hot chocolate.

James prefers "warm chocolate"...

We did eventually put the kids in their jammies and go home, but not until 9:30pm. They always love playing at the Hancocks house, and us adults got to talking and weren't watching the time... No worries, holidays are meant for bedtime rule breaking!

AMCA HARVEST FESTIVAL 2014

Not wanting to wear tights and a leotard to work on Halloween, I opted for a less revealing costume and dressed up as a Lincoln High School track coach (after finding my old warmup jacket at the bottom of our Halloween bin). I wanted to dress up as my dad, since he was everyone's favorite assistant track (and cross country) coach, hence the BACON socks (for "Coach Bacon", of course). To really pull it off though I would have needed jeans instead of running shorts (but then you wouldn't have been able to see my BACON socks, duh), a stopwatch (my dad was famous for standing at the corner of the track and reminding you just how many laps you had left and yelling your splits at you), and a Lincoln Trojans cap (instead of a visor). I may have to revist this costume another year...

Ms. Tina and her kindergarten class lining up to head out to the festival (after trick-or-treating the classrooms). Jay and I walked in to chaos as the kids made loops around the school getting candy from each teacher!

Ms. Kati's K4 class anxiously waiting to head outside.

There were little carnival type games all over the backyard/playground. Here James was doing some sort of peg board ball drop and Cora was launching tennis balls at duct taped toilet paper rolls.

Ms. Tina (as Alice in Wonderland, the new movie version) is everyone's favorite teacher!

Duck fishing (I think they got to pick the number of treats that was written on the bottom of the duck?)

Harrison was a cute little Olaf!

Ring toss! (And a good view of the playground "equipment" that AMCA has... one old plastic toddler play house on the left, a metal pyramid climbing structure in the back, and the old half broken swingset on the right... We raised $800 in the dollar fundraiser, with James and Cora bringing in over 20% of those dollars! We have since had another catalog fundraiser, and will likely have more every month or two through the rest of the year. With any luck, the school will be able to order real playground equipment this summer, just in time for our kiddos to move to public school...)

Dropping pennies into a cup, inside an aquarium.

I did the sack race with Cora. Neither of us won...

Ms. Amy, our director, as Dorothy.

Cora with Ms. Kati, who is sadly leaving us in January for a new job. They're going to have a hard time replacing her!

Olaf and Elsa!

HAUNTED HALLWAYS 2014

EL hosted a Haunted Hallways decorating contest again this year. Only 4 teams participated, but we still thought it would be a good idea to bring the kids by the afternoon before Halloween (we had to meet up to exchange kiddos for soccer practice anyway) and let them check it out. We weren't the only ones with that idea, since we bumped into Coltin and Emma roaming the halls as well. It was a quick tour, but the kids loved it as usual.

 

The pirate themed hallway was by far the best, complete with a wooden plank and treasure chest.

The front hall had a spooky dance party floor, so the kids broke it down!

Initial thoughts on our branch contribution of a creepy clown hallway = scary. Didn't stop them from running back and forth through it screaming over and over until we kicked them out though.

2014 JACK-O-LANTERNS

James did all the work himself (except the initial, large knife top cut), including gut scoopage, facial design via marker, and carving. Cora got started solo, but quickly became frustrated with the seeds and goop and begged mama to help, so I obliged. She drew her own smiling jack-o-lantern face with heart eyes, but wanted daddy's help making it look better (and bigger). She did a few tiny saw cuts, but happily washed her hands and went to play with Cannon while daddy finished up. I spent most of my time washing pumpkin seeds and prepping them to bake!

 (James wanted his jack-o-lantern to be a monster with 3 eyes and lots of teeth. He accidently cut a few teeth off though... I love how unique they both are!)

HALLOWEEN DANCE

Riverpointe allowed the kids to come to class in costume this week.

 

Not surprisingly, Cora's class had FOUR Elsa's:

The instructors and staff dressed as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:

And since we know a couple of girls in this class (Hazel is the little American Indian and Haley is the sole Elsa in this group) and they look adorable too...

P.S. Daddy put Elsa's hair into a braid for her. She was VERY pleased and proud. And I didn't even know he knew how to braid... I should get him to braid my hair sometime! I can't do my own!

BIRTHDAY BACON

Admist all that was going on, Robyn still sent me a birthday card and gifts this year (and Halloween packages for the kids - she sends them things all the time and they always know they're getting something special when mail arrives from Auntie Robyn). She is always spot-on and beyond thoughtful and creative, but I really don't understand how she did it this year. It brought me to tears. She and Stephen always make me feel important and loved, and if you are blessed to know them, you know what I'm talking about. To call them 'friend' is just not nearly enough.

One of the gifts was a trio of delicious shareable bottles all the way from Oregon, so I saved one for a quiet evening with Jay and we paired it with the (incredible!) bacon peanut butter cup (pretty sure it was candied bacon in there - oh so good!) that Christina gave me as part of her birthday gift.

 

The point of this blog post is not to sell Rogue's Bacon Maple Ale (though I would absolutely drink it again - probably too sweet for most beer lovers, but I like sweet) or chocolate covered bacon. Just a pause to reflect on how lucky I am to have such good friends in my life.

NEWEST MEMBER OF THE BIKER GANG

Now they have to work to keep up with ME!

DATE RUN

Christina and Al graciously granted us a date run this morning (instead of a date night) and took some cute photos of the kiddos throughout the morning...

We keep meaning to ask... did Buster behave and walk nicely without a leash, or do we just not see the leash?

This cat goes with her everywhere (whether he likes it or not)

Meanwhile, Jay ran his first-ever 14-miler, his last long run before taper. It was a little longer than I'd originally planned to go this weekend, but I was happy to do the miles with him. Turns out Christina and I talk WAY more together when we run than Jay and I do though. He had to ask me to stop talking at one point... It's cool. He's just used to running solo... and my peppiness can occasionally be annoying during hard/long workouts, I admit.

 

We spied a baby copperhead in the gutter near the end of our run and Jay kindly moved it back into the woods, hoping to prevent other runners from accidentally stepping on it and getting bitten (he didn't see it until the last second himself, just as I did a few weekends ago finishing a 20-miler when I came across an adult copperhead in practically the same spot).

He's wearing his kilt at the Soldier Half in 2 weeks, so today was dress rehearsal.