Anna and Kate had decided earlier in the month that they wanted to be ghosts. No problem. Ghost costumes are easy :) (Kate's the first picture, soaking wet after trick-or-treating; Anna's in the second picture, a week or so ago when it wasn't raining.)
For Ethan we pulled out the baby pumpkin outfit, even if it was a little small for him. (He's not actually walking, but can stand for long periods of time more and more now.)
Maybe next year we'll do a bit more for the holiday, but it's just never been a big deal for us. We hardly get any trick-or-treaters at our house and our kids only visit about 10 houses anyway. They certainly get enough candy at those few houses to provide us all with dessert for several weeks, though!
Saturday was a nice day at home when no one had to go anywhere. We treasure those days. Probably the best part was going to explore the field with the girls in the afternoon while Ethan was napping. The four of us had a lot of fun :) Kate and Anna have names for the various "islands" and they've collected all sorts of things ... corn cobs (full and empty), cool rocks, cockleburrs, deer bones, etc. On Saturday afternoon they developed a way to grind the corn that they had gleaned. Probably not every kid's idea of a good time, but our kids certainly enjoyed it.
Sunday after church we headed as a family up to the Wisconsin Dells for a trip to the Kalahari Resort. The McFarland Girl Scouts (have I mentioned that Anna's in Girl Scouts?) had reserved a bunch of rooms and had a package that was too good to refuse. We decided that it would be best if we all went up for Sunday afternoon, but then I would bring the two younger ones back home that evening while Matt and Anna stayed overnight. (Anna didn't have school on Monday, but Kate did.) Although the check-in process was less than ideal, we think this plan worked out best for all.
The kids had a great time at the waterpark. Anna was pretty adventureous in terms of what kinds of waterslides she would do on her own, but was still aware of her limitations.
Kate wasn't quite as brave as Anna, but still tried all sorts of new slides.
Ethan amazed us all. It took him a little while to warm up to things, but by the end we had to keep an eye on him so he didn't crawl into water that was too deep for himself. His two favorite activities were crawling through a tunnel and climbing up a few steps, then sliding down one of the little slides headfirst into the water :)
Kate, Ethan, and I had a fun time on Sunday night and Monday, with Kate getting to call a lot of the shots. It's too bad that I had lost my voice with my cold, otherwise I'm sure we would have stayed up late reading loads of books together.
Matt and Anna had a great time, too, with Anna getting to call a lot of the shots for the two of them. Matt said it was freeing to see how fast things could go when it was just he and Anna (instead of all three kids) and Anna commented to Matt how she liked getting to do whatever she wanted to do :)
When the two of them got home Monday afternoon, Anna chatted with me a bit and then curled up in bed and fell asleep. We had to wake her up when Kate got home from school and Anna was a bit of a bear for awhile.
Somehow I was thinking that with this trip we had dodged the bullet in terms of the time change, but alas, we didn't. The girls were both up around 5:15 this morning. At least now I know it will only last for a few days before everyone's body's adjust ...
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