Thanksgiving in Montana

We spent Thanksgiving in Townsend, MT with the Ross side of the family.  I guess we were having too much fun to take many pictures, but here's a few.  The boys were in heaven playing with their second cousins, good thing it was warm outside so all 8 boys could run wild in the backyard.  It was great to be with our family and introduce Natalie to everyone.

 Natalie and her "My first Thanksgiving" shirt

Grandma and Grandpa Ross

 the boys

 Taking Jason's four wheeler for a spin

Carter and Papa at the lake

Our favorite stop along the way - Cracker Barrel

Grandma's birthday

The weekend before Thanksgiving we celebrated Grandma's 92nd birthday.  We enjoyed lunch at her favorite restaurant Anthony's.  It was fun to be together and a blessing to celebrate her birthday with her, I hope I look this good when I'm 92.

 Carter's special gift he wrapped by himself and created her card.

Halloween

We enjoyed carving pumpkins with our small group this year and even did a little apple bobbing.  On Halloween we joined the neighborhood parade, had our family over for dinner and did some trick-or-treating.  Halloween is so much fun in our neighborhood we realized this year it is going to be really hard to ever move. :)

 

 Logan and Levi at the harvest party.

Macy, Natalie, and Ellie....so cute!

We saw one of Carter's friends from school and they had the same costume.

Logan was pretty excited to see Spiderman at the parade and had to give him a pound.

I loved making these cheese cloth ghosts when I was a kid.  It was a lot of fun to teach the boys how to make them.

My favorite picture from Halloween!  Logan snuck his candy into his bed, luckily he only ate one sucker and if you look close you can see it stuck to his cheek.

Pumpkin patches

Just the way it worked out we went to a couple pumpkin patches this year, between that and the CSA, we had a porch full of pumpkins.  I'm pretty sure when we were kids we just picked up a few pumpkins at the grocery store, so I enjoy the adventure of the pumpkin patch and all the fall activities.  Even mored I love watching the kids take it all in.

The best activity at the pumpkin patch - apple sling shot.  Everyone got into this, here's Logan getting help from Nana and Papa.

I love this pictures because in typical boy fashion - Carter had to pull his sling shot back as far as possible so he is holding onto the pole.

Mom, Aunt Jackie and my Godmother Marcia picking out their perfect pumpkin.

The boys wheeling in the hall.

The pumpkin patch is surrounded by apple orchards.  Logan my little apple eater couldn't take it, he had to pick and eat one right off the tree.

The animal train

Logan saw his friend that he played with at Spring T-ball, he was so excited!

We made homemade apple cider.  Everyone helped, it was a lot of fun and really delicious.

Washing the apples

Waiting in line to grind our apples

Grinding the apples...the boys liked this part because it was loud and messy :)

Marcia the jug lady, held the jugs the whole time while we were waiting.

Pressing the pulp into juice

The finished product - 3 gallons

Carter's class studied the pumpkin this October including it's lifecycle and parts.  He really enjoyed it. I bet you didn't know the stem of a pumpkin is a peduncle...Carter taught me that.  We also had our first field trip to Job's pumpkin patch where they had a little talk about different types of pumpkin and gourds.  Then they got to choose any pumpkin in the patch along with a friend and do a scavenger hunt to spot out the parts they've been learning about.

Carter and his buddy Michael selecting their perfect pumpkin.  Carter's is a blue pumpkin, originating in Australia...he loves to tell everyone that.

Carter's class