Young fall fest '11

A sweet moment captured by Grandpa Young, of Amara and dad getting ready for the hayride, and our cute little invitation.  I'll take credit for that.

For years, Amara has gone to her cousin's hayrides but never really got to participate.  They were always older kids, or at night well past when she could stay up, but she enjoyed it.  This year, Eric and I decided to do a little fall party for friends of ours with kids around the same age and it was a blast!  Here, Amara and dad are getting the goody bags ready for all her friends.

Mrs. Sarah volunteered to be in charge of games and crafts, perfect for her!  Here, they are playing the "wrap up like a mummy" game--great fun!

In some cases, they kids wrapped up the daddies, Steve was a great sport to Caroline's decoration.

Amanda and the girls were having Matt help with their crafts and their smores at the same time!

And the roller coaster is always a hit. Brandy and Nevon brought their roller coaster also, so the kids could race and have 2 cars going at the same time.  This was a favorite for a few of the boys, especially Gideon :)

I love a pretty fall sky, especially to end a super fun day with friends!

We had our wagon loaded up with hot dogs, sloppy joes, and beans and potatoes, fruit salad, yummy deserts, etc.  Some awesome friends brought along their awesome recipes too :)

Any other time the action would be all right by the fire, but as you can tell, it was in the 70s and everyone had on shorts and t-shirts.  I'm sure next year it'll be snowing and we'll be wondering why we ever complained about the warm year!

Um...uncle Jason, is this safe?  They were having SO much fun though.

Annie and Robert and little Colin, hanging out while Fiona was racing cars, what a cute fam.

One of the rare shots of Grandpa Young, especially with Cora--she's normally on the move, while he's behind the lens (and Grandpa Jahn was in the field).

The crew getting ready for the hayride, rallying the troops! I figure over time we'll do it later and scare them just like we did with the boys when they were littler, but for now, we worked with the kiddo's schedules.  They really had a great time on that, and uncle Jason did a great time driving everyone.

Mrs. Sarah brought an awsome mask craft and helped Amara with hers.  She also did a pin the number on the pumpkin game and I think Amara actually used her craft mask as the mask for the game.

Eric loved teaching Amara how to roast over the bonfire.  I'm pretty sure that is on most guys' daddy's lists of things to do with their kiddos.

Brandy is a pro at doubling up on the marshmallows--I even got one of them!

We got these pics from Grandpa Young, the kids found this odd bug and I guess took turns playing with him.  you can see how gentle she was being with him and I just love the innocence of this shot.  He has such a great eye.

Cora getting tired WAY before the big kids, but no time for napping now!