Oct. 28, 2010 - pumpkins and kickboxing

Checking out the new pumpkin patch

Last year

She's grown so much! (although its hard to tell just how much, she wouldn't stand up against the ruler, she was more cooperative last year)

Awe, the top pumpkin is so cute!

Running around the hayrack

Playing in the train with her friends Tyler and Lia

Hmm, which way do I go?

I think she wanted the pig to move

"So many pumpkins, which do I choose?" The farm was nestled in the hills, beautiful surroundings

Riley loved pushing the wheelbarrow with the help of her friends

Our 6th Anniversary dinner: grilled salmon, bread, and sauteed watercress and red pepper. Riley's meal was not served on china

Rolling out the cookie dough. Riley had her own little bakers mat (which used to be Mommy's; Grandma Cathy saved it all these years and passed it down!) but preferred to use the table. Most of it ended up stuck to her pants.

When I wasn't looking she dumped her water into the flour and made her own sticky dough right on the table.

"Yes! My own bowl of icing!" Riley quickly mastered the words, "sugar" and "icing"

Spreading powdered sugar icing on our cookies

Putting on the final touches

She mastered the tube icing

The final product

Daddy teaches Riley UFC techniques with Mommy's kickboxing gloves

Winner by TKO!!!

The Halloween preparations are underway! Friday we met our playgroup friends at Joan's farm and pumpkin patch. The farm had a fun little play town, a small maze for little kids (we avoided the large corn maze, I'm directionally challenged), animals, songs, and of course pumpkins. What fun!

We also decorated Halloween cookies, an annual tradition ever since Aunt Donna sent us Frankenstein, pumpkin, bat and cat cookie cutters. It was a full day project. In the morning we made the dough, let it sit in the fridge, then rolled it out and cut the shapes. Riley enjoyed sprinkling the different color sugars on some of the cookies; sugar AND colors, what could be better? After her nap we spread powdered sugar icing on some of the cookies and decorated others with gel icing. Riley quickly added "sugar" and "icing" to her vocabulary. She did a fantastic job and loved making a mess probably more than the finished product.

Chad and I celebrated our 6th anniversary on Saturday. We've been traveling so much it really snuck up on us so we didn't make any special plans. We spent the weekend together, did some shopping (we bought ourselves a new camera so hopefully the blog pictures will be even better) and enjoyed a nice dinner at home. What a wonderful, relaxing weekend together, a perfect 6th anniversary.