All about October

October started and ended with a race of sorts. I ran another Half Marathon with two friends of mine, Hannah and Kari. We ran the Roots n' Blues n' BBQ Half in Columbia, MO on October 2. Kari drove out from West Virginia for the week and stayed at our place. It was super fun to have her here. This was Hannah's first half and it was so awesome to be able to train with her and run it together. It is always such an emotional moment to finish a race. Kari PRed and was able to catch our picture at the end since she finished first.

I just love the looks on our faces here. 13.1 miles done!

Way to go girls!

I just thought this was such a cute, everyday shot of Wes and Ellie. He still wants to hold her at least once a day even though she is almost as big as he is. She is 9 months now and into everything she can get her hands on, and it usually goes in her mouth!

The month ended with the "race" of Halloween. I admitted to some of my friends here that I am the Halloween Grinch. It would be so nice to be a makeup artist or costume designer at this time of year and actually love getting the costumes put together and the make up on the kids. Unfortunately, I detest that part. Then to top that off "doling" out all the candy so your kids aren't on an endless sugar high (or low) isn't my cup of tea either. So I would be up for skipping Halloween every year, but the kids love it. I try to humor them and not be a real "witch" on Halloween. It doesn't always work out that way. I am always at least the "mean mom". Since Halloween was on Sunday this year, we just counted Halloween as Friday when the kids dressed up for school and we had Trunk or Treat at the church that night. It was great to get it over with early.

Our resident Vampire. YIKES!

A cute "vampire" bat.

The witch....I mean Wizard!

All the kids (including our neighbors Princess Leah (Brooke) and MU Chearleader (Maggie)) right before we left for Trunk or Treat.

Ellie wasn't too excited to get a picture in her costume...this was the best I could do. (Try to block out the baskets of clean laundry in the background). What a cute Little Bee though!

The Wizard plays the bean bag toss at the carnival before Trunk or Treat.

A Halloween kiss for Little Bee! (She gets all the kisses around here.)

The weather has finally turned cool here and I got out the winter clothes and put the summer ones away (a chore I rather dislike (sorry about all the negativity in this post). I thought all the kids looked so cute in their church finery that I had to take a picture on Halloween right before we got in the van to head for church.

Peace out!