Halloween (and others)

I know I'm a little late getting the pictures up, but better late than never, right? Besides, right now I actually have a few minutes of peace since the kids are all outside riding their bikes. How they can, I don't know. We had a terrific storm last night which blew just about everything off the trees. The back lawn is so covered with leaves and pine needles you can't tell that it's actually supposed to be green. On the bright side though, when I went to the high school track to do my jogging this morning, the track was littered with worms that had come out from all the rain last night. The kids loved looking at, and picking up all the worms. Ah, the joys of childhood!

Anyhow, here are some pictures. First is the Halloween party we went to in Central Point. (Kelly, you may know David and Lisa Judd? They would have been in your old stake. We were at their house.) The kids had lots of fun picking out and then carving their pumpkins. Or more accurately, telling Mom and Dad what they wanted on their pumpkins and then running off to play, leaving Mom and Dad to do the dirty work!

Jackie with her pumpkin. Not quite sure what to do with it yet.

John decided he wanted a ghost pumpkin. And of course with a ghost pumpkin you have to carve a ghost on it! I saved a bunch of the seeds and will try to plant them next year. Maybe in the side yard where they won't bother anyone.

Good smile out of Justin. He picked the biggest pumpkin.

Here are the kids in their costumes for Halloween. We just went to the fall festival at the Church this year. That was (in my opinion) plenty of candy and treats for the kids. John says next year he want to go to houses on "actual Halloween". We'll see. Maybe we'll take them and the the Great Pumpkin will come and take most of their candy. :)

In case you're wondering, that is how Jackie smiles for pictures now, with her face all scrunched up.

And finally, Justin riding his bike the day I took the training wheels off. he hasn't even been riding a two wheeler for very long. He had to wait until I got John a new bike which was the end of June, but he had to wait until August to ride his bike. I just got so busy with Girls Camp I didn't have time to deal with it. So when I finally pull his bike out and try to put the training wheels back on, it turns out I am missing one of the nuts to hold them on. I had to go to the hardware store 3 times and bought 6 different sizes of nuts, and never did find one the exact right size. I guess that's what you get for buying things made in China right? I put one on that I figured was close enough, and it did hold the wheel on, but it would move backwards after a while and end up being about 6 inches off the ground. So on Wed when he pulls out his bike and starts riding, I look at his wheels and realize neither one is touching and I can't hear them as he's riding around. Not even when he turns. So I told him I was going to take them off, and I did. He was fine with it. I gave him a push and away he went. Today I didn't even need to push him, just told him to go outside and ride his bike and he did. I love having big kids!

Oh and as a final note, we signed John up for basketball on Wed. Practice doesn't start until Jan. but he's already pretty excited. We're looking forward to going and watching his games.