The Stake Fall Festival

Two weeks ago was the Stake Fall Festival. In years past, instead of a Fall Festival they had a ball. This was much more family friendly. Each ward was assigned to do a few games, and every family was asked to bring chilli. There was a lot of chilli. The kids had fun carving pumpkins, "bobbing" for donuts, playing tug of war, getting face paint, making sand art, and many other things. It was a nice activity. We only got a few pics. William was with me all the time, so the pictures I have are of him.

For face paint William wanted a "W" on one side and an "X" on the other. Here he is very focused as he gets it done:

Fun at Ft. Benning

We recently went to the Ft. Benning celebration they had for all the new soldiers and their families that have moved to Ft. Benning. There were many many bounce houses and other activities. Here are a few of the highlights:

William and Sarah waited in the sun for nearly an hour in line for this "ride". They both loved it.

The velcro wall was so fun.

This is Kaitlyn and Alan "fighting". Kaitlyn needed help holding up her "weapon" (what are those things called anyway?) because it was so heavy.

At the end of the night we watched an awesome display of fireworks, and waited to see if we won a car in a drawing. We didn't. Oh well, it was a fun day anyway.

Our trip to the Fair

It was a rainy dark day, but the only day we had to go to the fair, and so we decided to make the trip to Perry Georgia and see what was there. Tom and Kaitlyn and Sarah went on the Mad Mouse roller coaster. Alan is not much of a roller coaster kid and William was too small, so we waited while the others went.

I remember going to the fair when I was younger, but what I don't remember is all the paintings of immodestly dressed women all over the rides and games in the carnival area. Yuck. It was disgusting. Alan did not want to be there. We only went on a few rides, then we went to try and find some other things to look at away from the rides. We decided that we didn't really want to go again.
We did go the petting zoo, and that was pretty fun. We also went to see a small circus while there.

But actually, the best fun of the night was going to Applebees after we left the fair. It just so happened that the night we went Applebees had a "kids eat free" night. We didn't know it. They also had a craft table where the kids got to decorate and keep their own mini pumpkin and decorate a little pumpkin mask.
No more Georgia National Fair for us. But maybe Applebees again.... :)

M&M math

Math is always more fun with m&m's.

Happy Autumn!

Here's just a little post about the fun stuff we like to do to decorate for Autumn. We just love this time of year.

One of our favorite things to do is to get out the mason jars we painted to look like pumpkins and put them in our fireplace with lights in them. Now it looks like there's a fire in the fireplace. You can see them in the fireplace behind Kaitlyn.

Here's a new one we did this year that I thought was cute. Kaitlyn is holding the balloon pumpkin we made. We just attached an orange balloon to a little dowel with floral tape and then drew a face on it. Here's a very bad pic of one of our living room windows with shiny leaves draped over the window treatments....

Stone Mountian Feild Trip with Georgia Cyber Academy

Thousands of Georgia Cyber Academy students and their parents met for a fantastic event at Stone Mountain on a beautiful September 14. There were bounce houses, educational games, a chance to meet the teachers and interact with other students and parents, and just alot of fun. It was really nice to be around people who care so much about the education of their children and take a very active role in it. All of the kids we met were well behaved and polite, and all the parents were really nice.... but it was soooo crowded!!!
After we went to the GCA event, we decided to go exploring the mountain. We went to the park museum, and also started to hike up the mountain. I say "started" because it was a pretty hot day, and the mountain was pretty steep. We decided to come back and climb it on a cooler day. We learned alot about how the stone itself was formed, and also about the carving on it. The kids had a lot of fun and they didn't want to leave. It's a beautiful park with alot of things to do.

The GCA event was so well attended, and their were so many people that it was hard to get a good picture of how many were there. I'd say there were probably 2,000-4,000 people.

Drawing with chalk.

Making a pumpkin craft.

Sarah had fun doing some dancing.

Alan waited patiently to challenge a boy who was beating everyone at Chess. When it was his turn to play, Alan beat him. The boy wanted to do a rematch, but we were on our way to do another activity.

Looking at a replica of giant crystals in the stone mountain museum.

Kaitlyn on a journey to the center of the earth!!

The climb up Stone Mountain.

Playing on the way up the mountain.

The giant field in front of the carving. This is where people come to watch Laser light shows.

William had fun discovering the mountain.

First Day of Dance

Tonight Kaitlyn and Sarah started their dance classes. They both are taking beginning Ballet and Tap. They're in separate classes of course, but luckily for us the classes are held at the same time. Neither of them have taken any dance classes of any kind before, but they were eager to get started. They are taking Dance at the "Academy of Fine Arts and Dance" here in Columbus, a dance school that has been here for 43 years. They had so much fun!! (Kaitlyn is still dancing and singing right now instead of putting her pajamas on like she should be :)

Kaitlyn's "Tangled" Birthday Party

Yesterday was Kaitlyn's 7th Birthday Party! She wanted a rapunzel themed party. Here she is in her Rapunzel costume and her Rapunzel hair waiting to greet her guests. The Rapunzel hair is a thick yellow rope we attached to her real hair. Notice the "wanted" poster of Flynn in the background?Here's a closer look at her dress. I used a pattern... sort of.... I altered the pattern alot.

We put paper laterns over the lights in the house to look like the lanterns in the movie.

We also hung the purple sun pendants in the house and outside just like the ones you see in the movie.The birthday cake with Rapunzel in her tower. The tower is just a big batch of Rice Krispy treats molded to make the tower and then frosted. Super easy.

Notice Flynn on the watermelon boat in the blue Jello water?

Here's Kaitlyn Rapunzel enjoying a strawberry.

This is a craft that we did as the guests arrived. They are Paskel blowers. You take a blower and put it between too sheets of sticky foam and then cut it and decorate it to look like Paskel. The blower part looks just like his tongue in the movie.

Here's another fun craft we did that the girls absolutely loved. I braided yellow yarn onto a hair elastic and let them add flowers and ribbons to it just like when Rapunzel's hair was braided in the movie.

Opening gifts.

A game we played was "pin the nose on Flynn" since in the movie Flynn always complains about his nose in the wanted posters. I took a picture and removed the nose, and then made a bunch of funny looking noses to let the kids tape to it. We also hung the poster on a tree just like the first time we see the wanted poster in the movie.

Here the kids are having fun playing with Rapunzel's hair. They played a couple of rounds of tug of war, which they loved, and then wanted to do the Limbo. So fun.

And the last thing we did was hit the flower pinata with a frying pan, of course!! As you know the frying pan was Rapunzel's "weapon" in the movie. It actually worked really well.

Kaitlyn also gave out little thankyou gifts of Rapunzel's paints.

It was a great birthday party and everyone had so much fun. I had alot of fun planning it too. Now it's time for a nap. :)