October
Fall!
It seems to be trendy to be obsessed with fall: the changing colors, the crisp air, the pumpkin spice, the scarves and boots. I’ll admit, I love it all too. Although, autumn in Southern California is usually just another hot day. There were days this October that reached over 100 degrees, so scarves and boots were out of the question. Nevertheless, we had our fair share of fall festivities.
We were able to visit the Irvine Park Pumpkin Patch with my mom. The girls played carnival games, decorated sugar cookies, got their faces painted, and picked out pumpkins. Maddy wanted to go into the bounce house, but all she wanted to do when she entered was sit in the middle. She likes to let other kids do the hard work of bouncing. What a diva! Haha. We also went on the tractor ride around the park (a fun alternative to the regular train ride offered at that park).
One of our favorite family activities is reading holiday books. We have a stack of Halloween books that only come out in September and October, and my kids devour these books (I think I got this genius idea from Everyday Reading). Within a week, they have them memorized and they read them over and over again throughout the month. Our favorites this year were Creepy Carrots, Spooky Pookie, Room on the Broom, The Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything.
And of course we participated in all the expected Halloween activities. My kids loved painting pumpkins. Then (genius idea from Busy Toddler), they wash them and can paint them over and over again throughout the month.
We picked out our Halloween costumes. This year we chose and under-the-sea theme: Grace was a mermaid, Madelyn was a lobster, Harper was a baby lobster (thanks to the dog costume we found at Target), Andrew was a shark, and I was a scuba diver. The. the kids went trick-or-treating around our neighborhood. It was a fun night.
