Bowers Blog: Soccer.Jack-o-lanterns, and Volleyball

The last 2 weeks have been full of sports and Halloween excitement. Last weekend we kicked off Halloween festivities with a neighborhood festival, church trunk or treat, we had our normal weekly soccer and volleyball practices and games, Mack had a school pumpkin party, then we headed into last Wednesday for a fun Halloween night. All of the kids are at such a great age for us ALL to enjoy being out on Halloween. We did have to be careful with street crossing, etc., but for the most part the kids can get themselves to a door, say "trick or treat" and "thank you" (hopefully) and the adults can sit back and watch, listening to music in the golf cart. The weather was awesome Halloween night. It wasn't burning up hot, but it wasn't yet cold. The kids rode on a hayride pulled by some of our neighbors while the parents followed in golf carts and it was beyond entertaining. The creativity of the neighborhood costumes and home decorations were amazing this year, which mad for hilarious kid/people watching.

2 weeks ago, Worth was home for the afternoon, so we headed to our church pumpkin patch to finally pick out some pumpkins for the front porch

This crew has grown so much since our first pumpkin patch experience

This summer, after Levi drowned, I passed around these posters at the pediatrician's office, and I took one to my best friend who owns a dance studio. She teaches girls and boys as young as 2. I asked her if she minded displaying it so parents could see it somewhere in her studio if she wanted to. I never go in the studio, because I just drop the girls off and then I have to run to pick up another child from somewhere else. Well, the other night, I walked in to pick Ellie up and saw this in the main waiting room of the studio, hanging proudly by the Nutcracker posters and the summer intensive schedules. It brought tears to my eyes. I had to get a picture. Thank you Allison, for helping us educate others on the seriousness of drowning in your dance studio!

2 Fridays ago, we were invited to a high school football tailgate for the Lowndes Vikings. The family that hosts the tailgate are friends of ours and have a big, kid friendly tailgate with tons of food. Worth was on call, so I just went with the kids. We didn't have tickets to the game, but the tailgate was all we needed as evidenced by Mack's face in this picture.

Go Vikings!

Mack and his friend, Sara Gwen, (the little girl in the red dress with her back to the camera) were honing their flossing dance skills in this picture. Her mom got a GREAT video and posted it on Facebook. Sara Gwen's parents were the tailgate host and hostess.

The next morning after the tailgate we had early soccer games. Ellie was cold.

Mack has improved each week in soccer. He plays really well, when he wants to.

Emma's team never wins very often, but Emma can definitely play the hardest. She scored all of the points her team got in this game.

Add caption

Next up last Saturday, was Ellie's volleyball game.

Her skills are improving as well. She really loves Volleyball.

Since the Dawgs beat the Gators last Saturday, we had to make sure there was no doubt who came up a winner when we went to church last Sunday morning.

Last Sunday afternoon, we headed out for our first costumed event: The Neighborhood Fall Festival. Emma was Harley Quinn, Ellie was Maleficent, and Mack was Lloyd, from Legoninjago.

The girls bobbed for apples.

It was so gross.

There was a bouncy slide that my kids would have been just fine on for the rest of the afternoon.

After the fall festival we headed over to our church for trunk or treat. The kids started the night with a big treat of Kona Ice.

There were sooooo many cars and kids!

Cute trunks this year.

You could even go fishing at a firetruck!

This was one of Mack's favorite stops.

Instead of fishing at the firetruck, Ellie opted for face painting.

There was also a put put course. I had to pull Mack off of this one.

We finished out the night with hot dogs and chips on the curb. Emma was acting funny about eating her hot dog and later threw up that night. The excitement and candy were all just too much for her little tummy.

Mack AKA Ralphie

And the pumpkin carving finally commenced....

Mack was taking the pumpkin seeds and burying them just off of our driveway.

If anyone needs a pumpkin next year, we may have a couple spring up in our front yard.

The girls did their own form of decorating their individual pumpkins.

Worth's handiwork

Pumpkin party day at preschool!

Clearly, I was NOT a party parent for this party. So cute!

Mack's class pumpkin. His teacher told me she asked the class, "who's daddy can come carve our pumpkin?" She said Mack immediately responded, "My daddy can't, he has to work and we don't have a sharp knife anyway."

HALLOWEEN NIGHT! (finally)

Sweet sisters ready to get candy

Mack made it to time out before we were even able to leave to trick or treat.

Worth and I procrastinated on a costume theme, and this is all we were able to do at the last minute - superhero mom and dad.

A synchronized father/son photo bomb of our family picture.

Our friends, the Waltons, were the Spartan cheerleaders and played the part all night.

Our trick or treat hayride crew

Worth's pumpkin at night

Emma's team played hard Saturday, but lost the first game in their tournament. This is the best picture I got of their final team high 5. It was freezing outside!

Ellie's team came out victorious once again. Ellie scored a point for her team. She got more playing time in this game than she's ever gotten, and she did awesome!