With 4 kids, I frankly can't afford to buy them all costumes so they are left to their own creativity and hand-me downs. 
Confession: I neglected to even buy a pumpkin this year...
Even without store bought costumes or a pumpkin on our front porch, we enjoyed a few hours of afternoon entertainment. Thanks Person County offices for having us; it sure beat trick or treating when it was dark, cold and crowded!
Nathan was a bit disappointed that Mr. Ernie didn't get an Appaloosa. However, he seemed pretty smitten with the ponies.
There were two 6 month old ponies who were determined to stay together. Although they aren't siblings, they were raised together and wanted to stay that way.
Walking a dog on a leash is only slightly different than leading ponies!
You can tell by the look on Emma's face that she was enthralled with this process. 
However, I'm not so sure they appreciated the lesson these ladies gave on what each of the children would have been doing throughout the day to help their parents. Nor was Ryan too impressed that he would have been wearing a white dress!
We came to the cooking station soon before lunch. I have to say I'm so thankful for sliced bread, peanut butter and jelly.
I'm glad we have this practical example to refer back too when the kids ask for their own room. Twelve children and 2 adults, in the family of John Allen, lived in this tiny log cabin. I'm guessing nobody had their own space or even their own chair at the dinner table.
Amongst everyone, the favorite station was the cannon firing!
Following closely behind, in second place, was the musket shooting.
As cheesy as the saying is it was really great to see "history come alive". 
The Regulators were stationed near this rock and Govenor Tyron's militia was stationed by the red flags.
It again was time to oil the clippers and this time Nathan was on the docket. I have delayed his hair cut as long as possible. I even had a friend cut it when I knew he was close to getting sheared by his daddy.
As we expected, he smiled all the way through the buzz and I was close to tears as my baby boys blonde hairs fell softly to the ground.
I'm not quite sure if I'll be able to endure this again. I might just weasel out the cost of taking Nathan with me when I get my hair cut so I can still rub my fingers through that baby blonde.
I must say with all three boys having just had a hair cut it is more than obvious that they are related! Can you see any resemblance in these two blondes?
Ryan at 2 years and 2 months.
They loved it, of course! Thankfully, Nathan moderately understood that he wasn't "big enough" yet to get on the roof!
Philip had a birthday last Sunday. We celebrated in style and tradition. Two Angel pie's; one for him and one for everybody else to share. Meatloaf, mashed potatoes and cabbage were on the menu for his birthday lunch.
My parents and their dog arrived late yesterday afternoon and will be leaving first thing tomorrow morning. There stay will be less than 48 hours but it is amazing how helpful it is to have two extra sets of hands for that short of time. Not long after they arrived, we sent them off to take Emma to gymnastics and they actually stayed and watched. Something Philip and I don't usually have the luxury of doing. Then they came back home and stayed with the 3 youngest so Philip could take Peter to Cub Scouts. Philip had the luxury of staying with Peter for the entire cub scouts and I was able to sneak away to the UMW mtg which conveniently and deliciously happened to be at a restaurant! That was just in their first 4 hours of being in Roxboro.
So today, we took time to buy Pansies. We went to Lowes and bought a much needed new toilet seat that my Dad installed. We went shoe shopping and bought Peter a new pair of sneakers that he's needed for about a month.
I took pictures and am actually posting them in real time! The days only a little half over.....It's been like a breath of fresh air.