Jaggar's Fall Festival

Jaggar had a fall festival at his school on Halloween, and the parents were invited to come.  I was more than happy to do so.  It began at 10, and I had a meeting at 9, so I just walked over after that.  I remember doing these things with Sage for many of her preschool years, but this was Jaggar's first one so it was cool.  Costner got to share in the day, too.

This first pic wasn't the actual fall fest day, but they had dress up days before Halloween.  This was "farmer day."

The first stop for Jaggar's class at the fall fest was the pumpkin patch.  Jaggar immediately went to that huge pumpkin pictured, rolled it, and found a huge worm underneath.  He was SO excited about that and was more than ready to take it with him before I stopped him.  He also wanted that pumpkin, which I'm pretty sure I couldn't have even lifted.

He did sit down for a second for me to take his picture.

Jaggar and Paisley

Then Gracin wanted in on a pic.

Next stop was the gym where they had many different stations.  All Jaggar saw were the inflatables, as any boy would.  The first table was the cookie decorating table.  Icing and many different sprinkles lined the table.  Jaggar had to have very specific sprinkles for his.  I ate the cookie.  :)  Only because he didn't want it when he was done.

Candice came in with her kids, including Mia, who is just two weeks younger than Bleu.  Although, she has been blowing him away with milestones:  talking, standing, walking...weight :) for their lives thus far, we got her on one thing:  hair.  We have WAY more hair and teeth too, now that I think of it.

It was SO cute watching them check each other out.

I think she's such a cutie.

Kent with Paisley and Hadley

While they were waiting to go to the arts and crafts table, Jaggar got to jump.  He had a blast.

He got to decorate a pumpkin picture at the art table.  We wrote his name in glitter, and all he wanted to do was dump more and more glitter out.

Ms Mirian, his teacher, helping him.  He's so cute.

Look who found a container of crayons under the table and dumped them out.

Nichole put Cosnter into the jumpy too.

My boy and me

Kisha painting Jaggar's face at the face painting table.  He chose a pumpkin.

Finished product

His favorite:  the big slide.  He said he was on "the boys' side." 

Then we got to eat lunch with them in the classroom.  This boy ate anyone and everyone's unfinished food.  As usual, he was the first and last one eating.  Pizza, fruit, chips:  he ate it all.  Look at him sitting there like a big boy.

At the very end, Jaggar got to go back out to the pumpkin patch and choose a small pumpkin.  Of course, he wanted that huge one, but we settled for this.

Baby Bleu checking it out.

We had a wonderful day with Jaggar, and he's still talking about this day. He wants to do it again.

It's Fall

Do you know what my favorite thing about fall's beginning is?  Pumpkin Spice at Starbucks.  I love all things pumpkin:  kids' clothing, pumpkin candles, pumpkin air fresheners, pumpkin desserts...I even had a pumpkin donut from Dunkin Donuts the other day.  But my favorite thing is a Pumpkin Spice frappuccino.  So I shared my love with Sage.  She thought that it was the greatest thing in the world.  And it is.  To keep my work of losing the rest of my baby weight in tact (I did it finally!), my friend Heather suggested a  new found love this season:  iced, nonfat, pumpkin spice lattes.  Not as indulgent, but still good.  So do yourself a favor and try one.

Pumpkin Carving

Well, we finally got our pumpkins carved just 3 days before Halloween.  With it being in the high 80s consistently until Saturday, it's probably best that we waited.  Or just hadn't made the time to do it is more accurate.  I still remember being a child and looking forward to carving our pumpkin.  I think my kids enjoy it even more.  Jaggar is really old enough to enjoy everything now and remember it.  He is still talking about the polar bear at the zoo from fall break.  I couldn't wait to see his face when we opened the pumpkins.

Ready to see what's inside.  (Yes, my kitchen did get a major makeover...which I plan to cover in a post of its own...eventually.)

 Look at those faces.  That's a green light to make a pure mess.  They love it.

 I still love the smell of the inside of a pumpkin.

 We separated the seeds for baking as I always do.  Sage was particularly excited because this is a "free" snack for her.  But BOTH kids just loved them.  They did turn out really good this year, minus burning a good 2 inches of my thumb on the oven wrack. 

 Cute

 Sage was making a funny face, she said.  It is definitely pretend disgust for her because she practically bathes up to her shoulders in pumpkin guts.

 This is my white pumpkin!  Neither child had any interest in it when we picked them, but I loved it.  It's so different.

But it's still totally orange inside.

We clean; Travis carves.  We have a pumpkin carving "kit" that I bought at Hobby Lobby years ago.  I really just got it for the tools that it came with, but Travis thought that we had to do some of the stencils.  I told him that it didn't matter to me, and he could do a typical jack-o-lantern face on the white one.  We always do the silly one in the middle, which was Jaggar's.  He was happy with anything.  But Sage...she chose this crazy haunted house thing that was really difficult.  At the last minute, she decided she didn't want that.  So with some googling and studying, Travis decided on Hello Kitty for her.  I think he did a really good job on it.  Sage was very pleased.

Full Moon Farm

On their last weekend for this season, I took the kids to Full Moon Farm yesterday.  I can't tell you how much I wished that I'd taken them on ANY prior weekend.  The weather went from being hot to being winter.  And that's coming from someone who likes cool weather.  But the sun never came out yesterday.  I was stupid enough to mention it to Sage without looking at the weather, so I pretty much sealed the deal before the day even arrived.  The problem wasn't so much the temperature as it was that the sun never came out.  So it made the day feel that much colder along with the wind.  The kids were cold, but they didn't let it stop them from having fun.  We did last about 2  1/2 hours until the sun was going completely down, so it was good.  Next year, I won't make the mistake of letting fall creep in on us before we make our visit here.

There are lots of cute photo opps here, and this is one of my faves.

 Sage then realized that was a seat behind her.  Thankfully, Jaggar never realized it.

 Playing in the corn box

 Going through the corn maze

 I wished I'd had them turn around in this because it's such an awesome picture, but oh well.

 This was their favorite part:  riding the pumpkin express.  Though it looks like a carrot to me.  It went really fast, and I could see them laughing while their heads were being whipped back.

 Down the roller slide

 Jaggar preferred the huge inflatable slide, but it was hard to get a picture on that.  I could take a picture now of the burns on his face where he flung himself and flipped face first down it, causing "rug burns" on his head and under his eye.  But that was totally his fault, and I expect nothing less from him.  PS:  Yes, I did put a Christmas background up.  I hate Halloween this year.  I can't wait for it to be over.  Sooo, I'm moving on in every way that I can.