A Cheerleader is Born

It's not Halloween but Rachel is still in her cheerleading uniform... A new one that is - hers.  She is now cheering for her school basketball team and they had their first game today.   It was loud and a little chaotic at times, and oh so many girls...but overall she did really good for her first time.  

I'm sure she'll get better each week.

Before the game...

Waiting to go out...

Ready for the halftime show.

It's kind of far away, but it was a cute pose with the other girl...

Halloween

Last weekend we carved our pumpkin.  Rather, Michael carved our pumpkin.  Jackson got his hands in it a little bit as well though!  Rachel watched but didn't want to touch it.  

He didn't like the taste of it though!

The finished product!  Turned out pretty good!

And of course today was Halloween.  You'll never guess what Rachel went as...her new favorite thing - a cheerleader.  Jackson was Cookie Monster.  Jackson got to dress up this morning for school.  They have a costume parade in the morning.  This is him and his closest friend, Logan (who was dressed as Scooby Doo, but Jackson just called him a puppy dog because he doesn't know who Scooby is!).

Getting ready to go out trick or treating tonight!

Pretending to eat his cookies!!

Rachel and Kendall.

He tripped and fell...had to pick up his candy!

Rachel with more friends...

They had a good time tonight... It was a rather warm Halloween evening this time - you never know how the weather will be each year!  Jackson got hot in his outfit and wouldn't leave the hood/head on.  He started out flipping it off after each house but then he wouldn't even put it on anymore...his whole head was sweating... 

And this picture isn't Halloween, but they got Shrek and Donkey masks at Wendy's the other day and were pretty cute trying them on!  Just wanted to share.  

Hot Air Balloons

Last weekend, we went to a new event close by called Owl-O-Ween - held out a local college nearby.  They were having hot air balloons, a band, food, fun things for the kids, etc.  I won't go into details other than to say they have a lot of kinks to figure out for next year (it was their first year hosting this event)... Three food trucks for thousands of people just wasn't enough.  

Anyways, the kids enjoyed seeing the hot air balloons up close and being able to trick or treat from them!

It was a cold night so we were all bundled up.  And Michael took all of the pictures this evening so he didn't make it into any of them...

It's Beginning to Feel Like Fall...

Today we went out and got a pumpkin.  We decided not to go to the big pumpkin farm this year because when we have in the past it always turns out to be stressful and kids never want to take the pictures I envision having.  So we went to the nearby church that sells pumpkins and got ours from there again.  And managed to get a few cute pictures while we were there - even if they were taken on my phone!  I didn't even take the big camera this time...I know you're shocked...

And tonight our neighborhood had a Fall Party.  Nothing big but it was fun.  We had a cupcake walk (I ran that), face painting, pumpkin bowling and of course the playground.  At one point while both of our kids were running around and playing with their friends, Michael and I realized that this is probably the first time that we weren't having to run around chase at least one of them.  We kept an eye on them but even Jackson was such a big boy tonight and played with the other kids on his own.  Nice!

Rachel and Bella with their mustaches...

Jackson loved the playground...

Rachel and Naomi with all of the carved pumpkins...

My babies...

Rachel with Kendall and her sister.