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Blog, Fall, halloween, holidays

Hi-Ho-Halloween


Happy Halloween!! I’m so excited to share our Halloween costumes with you!! When we were thinking up family costume ideas for this year, I couldn’t resist dressing up as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. With 7 children, it just seemed so perfect. After Evangeline got over the fact that she was going to be an old man with a beard instead of a princess, she was excited as well 😉

Every year on Halloween, we go to a fall festival at a church nearby. The kids love playing the games and winning candy. And I love that it’s indoors so we don’t have to worry about the cold weather! They also have a costume contest that we’ve won many times! Unfortunately, this year the fall festival was canceled. And we didn’t find out until after I had already bought half the stuff for our costumes.

I ended up purchasing the rest of the stuff we needed and quickly DIYed our costumes (minus my dress that I happened to find at Goodwill!) Then on a warm day, I had my friend, Maggi, take a few pictures of us all dressed up!

Now don’t go comparing us with the actual movie characters because I didn’t really make the costumes exact. Even so, my kids still decided who was going to play the part of each dwarf.

Liam was Doc and Kai was Sleepy. Kai is our late sleeper so it was very fitting.

Kingston was really set on being Grumpy and he played the part perfectly. I don’t think Evangeline ever decided which one she was going to be so we’ll just go with Happy.

The boys decided that Desmond was Sneezy and Clementine was Bashful.

And then, of course, we have Dopey. Held by Prince Charming.

The most magical shot–ruined by a dress that I was too lazy to iron haha.

We had so much fun with these costumes but decided not to use them on Halloween. The main reason is because without a costume contest, I’m not motivated to put this Snow White dress on again. And I knew the Dwarf costumes wouldn’t be nearly as exciting without a Snow White. So for Halloween tonight, the kids will be digging through our costume box and dressing up with whatever they decide to be (Evangeline is super excited about not having to wear a beard haha.) And for the first time in many years, we’re going to be Trick-or-Treating. It’s going to be chilly and possibly rainy so I sure hope we end the night with a good amount of candy!

In addition to the Snow White theme, we also had a few more opportunities to dress up this month. The cat ears from Target’s dollar spot are always too cute to resist so I had to dress up these 3 sweet girls.

What I learned from this experience–putting whiskers on a baby is definitely not the easiest thing I’ve ever done. Evangeline and Clementine absolutely loved it though. I mean, look at Clementine’s smile in the picture above!!

 

And thanks to another Target dollar spot find, a witch’s hat, I got this totally adorable napping photo of Primrose! Looking at it now, it reminds me of the cartoon in the intro of the old TV show, “Bewitched.”

And finally, a couple of pictures of these 3 party animals. Life really is a zoo with them. I think they all plan to wear these costumes tonight as long as we all make it out of the house! Desmond is an entertainer at all times. Can you tell?

And I’m ending this post with this cheesy photo. You’re welcome! One of my favorite parts about Halloween is seeing everyone’s creative costumes! What did you guys dress up as this year?

If you want to see some of costumes from the past years, you can see them all in the links below! (Notice my lack of creativity for a couple years as we repeated the same costumes…twice haha.)

Wizard of Oz, 2017

Star Wars, 2016

Peter Pan, 2015

Star Wars, 2014 and THIS ONE too!

Peter Pan, 2013

Blog, Fall, st. louis

Picking at Eckert’s


Back in the beginning of September we went apple picking in the 90+ degree heat. We came home with the most amazing Honeycrisp apples I’ve ever tasted. But it just didn’t feel like fall. Apple picking is one of my favorite fall activities so I knew I wanted to try again when it was cooler outside.

Last weekend we were invited back to Eckert’s for apple and pumpkin picking. Instead of sweating, we were shivering. It felt much more like fall and we loved it so much! We had never visited the Millstadt location so we were excited to check it out. But we made a quick stop over at their Belleville location to see their fun pumpkin house!

 

We typically don’t get family photos while we’re out and about because I don’t love asking strangers to take our picture. But my friend, Maggi, and her family came along with us and I made her promise to snap a family photo for us at some point. She ended up taking multiple photos for me and I am so grateful! The majority of our family photos are just taken with a tripod and remote. So it was a nice to have her take a couple for us!

We obviously loved the pumpkin house!

But everyone was anxious for apple picking so we drove over to the Eckert’s in Millstadt. I immediately fell in love with the small town country feel. And even though it was a busy Saturday with tons of people there, it didn’t ever feel overly crowded because of how big and spread out everything is.

Once you pay to get inside, almost all the rides/activities are free! There was seriously so much to do that we couldn’t even fit it all in…even after spending 5 hours there. There was a little petting zoo with a few different animals. Clementine loved feeding the kangaroos carrots. She typically shies away from most things so it was sweet to see her trying to interact with the kangaroos.

But we did manage to fit in 2 viewings of the pig races, per Kai’s request. And actually, he would have preferred going to all the races that day. But I feel like 2 was probably pretty sufficient haha.

Poor Clementine was so cold that day! It had been nearly 90 degrees a few days before so we were totally not used to cooler weather yet. And every fall I just forget how to dress for cold weather. I mean, it was 50 degrees. So it wasn’t freezing. But when you’re used to 85-90, it feels pretty cold.

I mean, look how cute this place is!!

Desmond and Clementine (my two kids who are scared of so many things) were obsessed with the pony rides. I wish I would have gotten a good picture of Clementine. She was giggling the whole time.

We eventually managed to pull the kids away from the rides so we could go pick apples. And I’m pretty sure every time we go apple picking, our bags are just about completely filled within the first few minutes. And then half empty a few minutes later as the kids are eating them.

The weekend we went picking, they had a new apple called Evercrisp (a combo of Honeycrisp + Fuji.) Honeycrisp are still my favorite but I think everyone in my family liked the Evercrisp!

This picture of Kingston pretty accurately sums up every apple picking outing we have ever had. He always eats more than everyone else. Even on the way home, he asked for another apple haha.

Two nearly identical family photos because sometimes I just go back and forth between pictures so many times and can’t decide which one I like more.

One of our favorite things about Eckert’s is the abundance of ripe, unblemished apples. In the past, we’ve really had to search hard to find good apples. But at Eckert’s, we had no trouble filling up our bags.

I had to include this picture of Desmond with Primrose. Because even though it’s not the best picture, it shows how much he adores his baby sister.

And I’m certain it doesn’t get any sweeter than these two cuties eating apples together. I got a few questions about their outfits on Instagram so I’ll just go ahead and link here too. The sweater rompers are from Target (currently out of stock but they have randomly restocked multiple times in the past so I recommend signing up for notifications.) And Primrose’s bonnet is from Yarn Republic.

We also hit up the pumpkin patch in search of the perfect pumpkins. But all the kids/husbands were cold and tired so we cut that visit short. We’re actually going to try going again today because the weather is supposed to be perfection! If my kids are as indecisive about pumpkins as they are about everything else in life, I’m predicting this will be a long day out 😉

We are so grateful to Eckert’s for inviting us to spend a day at their farm! The Millstadt farm is now officially one of our favorite places for fall activities and we are so hoping to have the chance to visit again!

One more thing before I go–if you’ve been apple picking recently and need some good apple dessert recipes, this apple crisp that I made for my family this week was pretty amazing. And Maggi raved about these apple cheesecake bars so I’m thinking they may need to be next on our dessert lineup!

Have a great week!!