Autumn Celebrations

I have been loving fall in Kansas. It is so beautiful! As many of you know who know me well, I do not,however,like Halloween.  But, instead of being a Grinch I've tried to celebrate what I love about this time of year.  I told the children we will have an autumn celebration.  We made these beautiful "sun catchers", I made delicious Dolce de Leche to dip apple slices in (way easier than carmel apples!).  I even turned the lights on and let Trick-or-Treaters to come to our house. (We usually shut all the lights off and hide away in some back bedroom so that we don't have to buy candy and answer the door.)  I gave out glowing bracelets this year.  My kids wore theirs to bed!  The kids were delighted to see the other kids coming to our door, but didn't quite get it since they can't really rember the one year we let them Trick-or-treat in Maryland.  In fact, when the other kids came to the door and said trick-or-treat and held out their bags, our kids thought that they were offering THEM candy!  We did go to the Trunk or Treat at Church on the 30th and the kids had fun dressing up for that.  (We just stayed for the indoor activities- not for the passing out of candy part.). The kids didn't seem to miss the candy one bit.  On Saturday when we were all out raking leaves, a neighbor did bring a little brown paper sack of candy to the kids saying they saved it for them since the didn't 't see them on Halloween.  That was very nice of her.  Here are some recent photos of our Autumn Celebrations:

Grant riding through the leaves on our street.  Such a beautiful time of year!

The kids making Fall Leaf Suncatchers.  These were a lot of fun.

Here they are gracing our window.

One of the trees in front of our home.  I love it!

It was hard to get her to sit still long enough to get a decent picture, but let me tell you, she was the cutest elephant West of the Mississippi!

Here she is looking out the window.  Have I mentioned I love having low windows?  This was a trial run of the costume, so when she actually wore it out of the house, she had on the cutest pink and white striped tights on with it.  

View from Grant's window.  I love all those colors!

These are the only pictures we got of us dressed up at the Trunk or Treat at Church- from Kenneth's phone:

I was a cowgirl, Arianna a fancier cowgirl, Grant was a bumblebee, Emma was a Fairie Princess and of course, Kate, was an elephant.  

Get this thing off me, Mom!!!!

Well, that's all for now.  I'll share more beautiful Fall pictures when I get a chance.  Quickly, in other news:  Kate is 9 months old!  She weighed 16 lbs. 8 oz. at her appointment yesterday.  She is healthy and happy, now only if I could get her to sleep past 5 am with this time change!