pumpkin fun

craft weekend at the gilmore house! we started friday night by making some halloween treats. a tradition of ours is always to dip pretzels in white almond bark and sprinkle. it's easy and the kids love to eat them, too. bright and early saturday morning we painted our brick pumpkins. this was a new craft i wanted to try. the girls thought painting was pretty cool. (considering mom doesn't let them do it very often :) those pumpkins were finished up on sunday. finally, sunday night the whole family was able to enjoy carving our two big pumpkins. we had to have one funny face (goofy gus, mom did it) and one scary face (scary sam, dad did it). hmmm, dad had a couple of issues, but over all they turned out great!

proud girls and their pumpkins
"hmmm, do i really have to reach in here?"

chaya checking to see if she got all the gunk out

waiting for paint to dry is soooo hard!

the girls painting their brick pumpkins

first days

okay, so i'm a little (fine, a lot) behind on updating the family blog. the beginning of school for our family is a pretty big thing, because we ALL go back to work. needless to say it has been a bit of an adjustment having all three in school. hopefully, we are finally getting into a pattern and i'll have more time to do fun things like update my blog more often. :)

kenya, 9, fourth grade
gibson, 6, kindergarten

getting of the bus at mom's school on the first day.

she rides the bus to her school from daycare in the morning.

chaya, 4, preschool three days a week

adventurers

so serene... this is one of many views the girls and i have had on our adventures this fall. this scene is from the lowry nature center which is part of carver park. we've been here a couple of times, but on this occasion we did some hiking and a crafty leaf print project.

the girls found some toads with pond scum, slugs, and some worms to feed the painted turtle. my opinion is cool, but don't expect me to hold anything slimy!
we had the guide all to ourselves, talk about a personal tour! after the leaf printing project, the girls and i had a picnic and took another short hike. as you can see the date on my camera is incorrect and i don't have pictures of the girls during their crafting because i ran out of battery power. urg. oh well, it was still a terrific day!

another adventure led us to fort snelling state park. we did some serious hiking and found some awesome sights.

the girls in front of the fort

this tree was ginormous! drew thought we looked silly, but I had to get a picture to show the size of this thing! nature is so awesome! a few other fun things we saw included a pole that showed flooding of the mississippi over the years, animal tracks, and vine like branches that we actually swung on.

chaya looking just too cute to pass up a photo moment. this was the walking bridge to an "island" that only allowed hiking (no bikes).

this is actually a paper hive that we saw on another trip to the lowry nature center. they have a fun habitat playground and great paths for hiking or biking.

another destination was the gale woods farm. this is an actual working farm that visitors can participate in hands on activities and there are tons of trails for hiking. on this trip we "horsed" around on the farm for about four hours. we played, looked at animals, had a picnic, and did A LOT of hiking.

one of my favorite pictures. chaya was talking to this calf so sweetly, it was absolutely adorable!

we came across this tree that looked like it had a nose, so kenya used her walking stick to pick it's nose. we all got a good chuckle!

the girls on one of many paths with their new walking sticks

sweet looking fungi

the girls holding their numerous acorns that we picked up along the way

many trips were made to the minnetonka three rivers park for swimming, picnics, and playground fun. this trip included cousin mairin.