Fall and Family Part Two

So...after our gigantanormous bubble blowing spectacular, we moved on to pumpkin carving. I will never view pumpkin carving as I once did courtesy of my dear friend Janine. Janine and Josh don't just carve pumpkins (you know...triangle eyes, and haphazard toothless mouth) and I did not realize that until they invited Tim and I to join them years ago and I was like "oooooooohhhh...it's like that". Since that revelation, my A game has never been left behind where pumpkin carving is concerned. All I have to say to my sister now is I'm sorry and your welcome because she will now never view it the same either. Let the festivities begin! 

 The super fun and easy part - gutting the pumpkin! 

 Yes, I dressed us all in orange on purpose (I'm festive like that) and clearly Tim didn't get the memo. 

 Here's where the men get separated from the boys ala pumpkin carving style! First up - Sleeping Beauty...better known as Aurora for those of us who've seen the movie approximately 792 times and counting. 

 Next in line was Minnie Mouse. No triangle eyes for this families pumpkins - ha! 

 What's funny is that the pumpkin carving starts off as a family affair but rapidly becomes an adult thing (gee, I wonder why?!). These two - always up to something found ways to amuse themselves and those ways may or may not have ended up with someone throwing a rock at the other's face. Nice. 

 My sweet bebe boy was worn out from all the bubble blowing fun and was down for a nap, but this sweet little pea had lots of dimply smiles for her Grandaddy.

 Voila! Team Taylors pumpkins = happy little girls. I will say that Tim's far exceeded mine in design execution...it does every year. Go Daddy!

 This picture is so cute I can hardly take it. We had brought over a Curious George stencil for the Team Wall pumpkin but there was a little "accident" and let's just say George ended up as a giant hole in the side of the pumpkin :(. Team Wall pumpkin #2 was traditional and then Melissa tried to salvage George and did an amazing job but I'm sad I don't have pictures. Anyways, these three love their finished products!

 After pumpkin carving and hot dog lunch we made some home made pumpkin ice cream and it was LEGIT - the kids agreed. 

 After our family fun fall day, we 5 headed to Windy Hill Orchard in York, SC to pick up apples....lots and lots of apples for applesauce making the following Monday. When we got out of the car, the smell of freshly made Apple Cider doughnuts smacked me in the face and I knew we HAD to have some. Kennedy opted to try a candy apple for the first time! 

 Those doughnuts were seriously one of the most delicious things I've had in a while and Grey agreed! 

 There was a live bluegrass band playing and there were free roaming chickens running everywhere - you can see one middle right of the pic and the kids thought that was hilarious! 

 We agreed that it would be a fun place to spend an afternoon but we were on a mission: pick up the apples and head home...it'd been a long day! 

Before bedtime, we had to do our do our inaugural pumpkin lighting. 

 Ta-Da! How awesome is that? 

 I kind of messed up on mine, but you can still tell it's Minnie (that's my story and I'm stickin' to it). This child - you cannot get a decent picture and I just quit trying. If this is the face she makes for her picture, well - it's just what the picture's going to look like. 

 I could practically cut and paste my last sentence from above. ~sigh~. 

It was an awesome day - we had SO much fun!

Fall and Family

My sister and I recently received a visit from our Dad and Kathy (aka Grandaddy and Gigi). Although we are in the same general area, we live about 25 minutes driving distance from one another so we wanted to plan a get together while Dad and Kathy were here so we could all be in one place at once. Enter the Fall Festival at Casa de Wall. We pulled out all the fall festival stops beginning with home made Pumpkin Scones for breakfast - yum! There was lots of snuggling and playing during after breakfast:

 All boy - LOVES playing with Declan's boy toys. 

 After playing around for a bit and getting all cleaned up we took the party outside for some fun.

 Melissa had seen this idea for creating home made Massive bubbles and she really wanted to do it so she got busy and made it happen. After some mop string, tomato stakes and a little engineering (go boys!) we had the perfect bubble maker. Melissa had made the special bubble solution the night prior and all I know is it required the use of something called guar gum that she purchased at whole foods. 

 Tim was our official bubble blower and the kids were most intrigued about this whole process: 

 Voila! BIG BUBBLES!!!!

 At times I'm not sure who was enjoying the incredible display more: the adults or the children! 

 So much fun! Watch bubble, run, pop, repeat!

 Gigi finally had the brilliant idea to coral the kids until the bubble was good and released so they wouldn't just pop it right away. 

 Once it looked safe to go - it was game on.

 Full steam ahead - who will get there first?

 Then the shower of bubble solution would occur after popping! They were loving it!

 I suppose Kennedy thought she could maybe eat it or pop it with her teeth? Not sure what was happening here but it's funny either way. 

 The babies just took it all in: 

After the bubble blowing we moved onto pumpkin carving, but I'll save that for the next post. It was such a fun filled family day!