all our ducks in a row

Oh! We are talking about pumpkins. Pumpkin treat buckets.

At least I thought so, till about 5 seconds ago, after I started typing here.

The costume is done besides some minor thingies that still need to be finished,

but the sword is in two pieces.

But it truly must have a hex on. As soon it is on Soren he runs of like crazy jumping in his beds. Perhabs  I should make him PJs? But he is all wired up in it.

We still need find all the right garments for all the costumes, but the major items are in the house from hairdos, to ears & tails, to clothes and headsets and mic, ...... so we will manage for Saturday somehow.

P.S. If you ever want to buy a colored treat bucket, don't wait for the last week. You will be out of luck. Believe me. Ours is oooooooooooooooold.

not quite halloween yet

Thanks to Nutella, Prego and Nestle we finally made it to collect 4 ! empty glass jars after two weeks. I couldn't believe it, but we suddenly didn't use any glass jars. I already saw our craft idea washing down the drain even we had the orange and black paper and glue all ready, just only two jars until yesterday. So today we finally went to work. This is so easy and fun to do that we truly have to start collecting jars next year a lot early to get to make a few little ghosts, too. The girls already have more ideas.

Here is my running and hiding costume model. I finally got started. In the picture it just in the first stage to see if Soren actually would fit in it and after some candy bribing I finally got  it on him and he took off on me.

Can you guess what he is supposed to be in his not finished costume yet?

Yes, that little sneak ran around for half an hour before I got the costume back of him.

Pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins ... or just jackolaterns

The day before Halloween is our day to carve pumpkins,

last year we carved jackolaterns the day before the day of Halloween

and carved Sorens pumpkin on the day before Halloween.

This year I couldn't afford Soren's pumpkin. In his size.

Last year's memories.

This year's memories.

Ready. Set. Go. Last year Chiara was still coloring her pumpkin with Sharpies. This year she was working hard on cleaning out her pumpkin and drew her design on, but carved it almost by herself. A little help is acceptable, but she did a fantastic job.

Isabell still thinks it's a all yuck inside but is also carving her masterpiece without any help at all. Aren't our girls growing up?

Are you missing Soren? He was a BIG fussy head, crying and screaming most of the time and not really happy even with being outside and ended up in bed when he reach the limit of all of our patiences.

Her are the GIRLS' masterpieces.

Do you see all of our pumkin farm pumpkins minus the one that had to leave to go to school on Monday?

The girls were almost done Leland is asking where our pumpkins were!!!

Can't you say anything before? Mention this a day or two or three earlier!!!

So, while the two get ready for bed, I head to the supermarket, to look for two more pumpkins, orange, medium to big in size, round if possible with a stem, ...

NO LUCK, all that was left 'Fairytale pumkins', small baking pumpkins.

So, off I went to Walmart, crazy idea, I tell you, that place was a nut house. BUT I found TWO, BIG, ORANGE, ROUND pumpkins and for $2 each. I love a bargain.

So when I am already there I also find Halloween shirts for the two youngest in the family and those have a sticker on

MOVE ME

I LIGHT UP

Just as a warning: I am trying to get a toddler to sleep who is fuzzy but wearing a Halloween shirt that blinks red when he is moving. Not a smart idea. A rather stupid idea. I might have to strip him off his shirt. - I DID.

So a while later back at home, in Soren's company we worked on our pumpkins.

Did you ever use a drill for carving pumpkins? Leland does. Also a part of my mixer without intended to eat any pumpkin.

Here they are. Leland's and Mine.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN HAPPY HALLOWEEN

from the Bissell Gang

Roadtrip to Marble Falls

Can you see all the excitement? The happiness? Getting buckled in for a roadtrip!

And all that for going to a pumpkin farm. Lucky me!

Chiara needed to bring a small pumpkin to school on Monday, so on Saturday with a nice weather prognosys and as always the last weekend before Halloween we got all packed up to drive to Marble Falls to the Sweet Berry Farm for an afternoon with PUMPKINs and more PUMPKINs.

So 30 minutes after finally getting the DVD player to open and to work, 1 hour off driving with a stop at the Germany bakery and spending $5.10 on a loaf of Tic-Tac-Toe Bread (true German bread even I never heard of the name before) and another stop at Wal-mart for fresh Salami from the deli in Lampasas we arrived at the pumpkin farm.

Soren was first more interested with all the straw as with any of the pumpkins, but CHiara and Isabell wanted to pick their pumpkin out right away. Even with the stroller along I postponed that til the end because I doubt it would have been them carrying the pumpkins around until we were getting ready to leave again.

So after a few snapshots with fussy, grumpy, stubborn Soren who had a real rough day, we found a spot in the shade (Do you want to know that we had 87 degrees again?) and picknicked. After feeding all the little goats (a moment of true happiness for Soren) we got tickets for the hayride. The last hayride I remember was in South Hadley, Massachusetts, in the dark, cold, freezing, not here it was mainly DUSTY with a few scrarecrows and pumkin heads sitting inthe trees on the way. The girls enjoyed being in a high field of flowers and picking and cutting a big cup full of fresh flowers. We skipped the BIG maze, but had to find our way through the kid's maze without loosing anybody before the kids started picking out pumpkins

ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE, SIX

in all sizes and colors.

Just like last year after the pumkin farm came my enjoyable part of the trip and it was not putting the kids to bed, but having dinner with actually - hard to believe three pretty good behaving kids at Chilis in Marble Falls sitting outside on the balcony in the sun with a beautiful view over the river. We were a little too early for the sunset, but it really nice no matter what.

Seriously, going there for dinner sitting outside is worth to drive an hour and if you don't like Chili there's the River Grill right next to it.




Here is the link to lots of more pumpkin farm photos.

Hier ist der Link zu vielen weiteren Fotos von unserem Ausflug zur Pumpkin Farm.