October 2014 – Andelin Adventures

Halloween

I got all the kids dressed in their costumes, and we drove to Kyle’s work for trick or treating!

This year they marked all the desks of people that had candy to pass out with a balloon, which made it easy to see at a glance where to go. 🙂

When we been to every desk that had treats, we decided to make a quick visit to Granny’s. I needed some more mint leaves to finish with the apples that I have been working on and I didn’t know when we would next be able to get some. Granny was happy to see us, and liked all of the kid’s costumes.

We ended up being at Granny’s house longer than planned, but we really weren’t surprised about that. Then we had to swing back by Kyle’s work to pick up our candy basket, Kyle’s computer bag, and the car. I sat in the van with the kids while Kyle ran up to get his stuff. Since trick or treated had ended in the office he came out with a surprise.

I took the kids home, and had trick or treaters before I even finished unloading the van. Kyle took a bit longer to get home because he had to stop off and pick up the pizza dinner. After he got home we tried to make the kids eat some pizza, but it seems like Halloween is the ONLY day of the year that they just won’t eat it! They are just too excited to get out and start trick or treating to want to eat. But after getting them to eat some, Kyle took them out while I stayed home to pass out candy. We live in a neighborhood, where there are so many kids that I never get to work on cleaning anything in between groups of trick or treaters, aside from maybe the entry way. I can never get from the door to out of the entry way, before there is another group knocking!

Kyle brought the kids back to the house for a break, after awhile. I got a picture of them all on the porch with their pumpkins since we hadn’t been able to do that earlier.

Then leaving the little ones with me, Kyle took the bigger kids out to do just a bit more of the neighborhood.

Does that look like a sugar high face or what? Kyle and the other kids finally got home, and we called it a night. 🙂

Debby & Jeff Move Away

Since Jeff has finished his training for the army, he has received orders to transfer to Fort Hood, Texas. So he has been home on leave to pack up his family and take them with.

Debby and Jeff spent today cleaning up their condo, and after we put the kids to bed they swung by to return our vacuums. They had borrowed ours so the movers could put theirs on the truck, but I didn’t actually get the vacuums to them until the movers were done packing up their stuff. My camera already made a trip to California without me, I did NOT want my vacuums taking a trip to Texas! 😛

Debby and Jeff had planned on leaving earlier in the week, but the movers postponed packing up their condo a couple of times, but they finally came, and got everything loaded up. Debby and Jeff postponed their departure so they could clean up the condo, and now it’s all done. They had a management company come in to take pictures so they can advertize that it’s for rent, and now they are ready to head East. 🙁

They will actually be spending the night with a friend tonight, and they plan on hitting the road first thing in the morning. But I didn’t let them go away without sending them with a case of jam, and a huge chunk of fudge and some other things. 🙂 Now I’m back to not having any of my family live anywhere nearby.

Carving Pumpkins

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day, and we decided that if we were going to do anything to the pumpkins it was tonight or never!

Lydia wanted to make a Minnie Mouse pumpkin, of course. I LOVE these decorations that you just poke into the pumpkin. Kyle and I can use a skewer to poke the holes and then even the little kids can just push the pieces into the holes and feel like THEY made their pumpkin.

Chloe made a pumpkin princess:

Tyra picked out a blue pumpkin and thought it would be fun to use the pieces to make it a witch.

Adam couldn’t decided between the Mickey Mouse pieces or the Yoda pieces. He played with all of the pieces, but eventually decided on Yoda.

Ethan, Jeremy and Dinah all wanted to actually carve their pumpkins, which means they had to gut them out.

I had bought some carving kits on clearance last year, and Dinah wanted to use one of the patterns that came with the Hello Kitty set. I am very glad that I bought the kits on clearance. They seemed easier to use than the big Cutco knives and kitchen spoons for cutting into and scraping out the pumpkin. BUT they are cheap quality. Kyle was using one of the carving kit knives to help the kids carve their pumpkins and I guess he was going too fast or something but the blade just snapped right off! We ended up having two of the carving kit knives snap before we were done with carving for the night. So we will be looking for more of these kits on clearance, because they work well, but I would never pay full price for them because they break way too easily!