Sunday, October 25, 2009

The fun continues

Tonight was my birthday celebration with my family. My mom wanted it to be a Halloween party. Everybody dressed up in their Halloween costumes. Grandpa did scare the grandkids with his costume. We had to hurry and take pictures so Little Princess would stop crying. We all had a great time at the party.
Here's the devil herself. She went all out on the party. We played a lot of Halloween games. Everything on the menu was orange or black. She'd gone to a lot of work. Thanks mom :)

Christopher and Becky (and my cute penguin)



Me and Indiana Jones (aka Jeff) I borrowed my mother-in-law's Harry Potter robe. It was pretty cool.


The cutest grandkids on the planet :) I think kids make holidays so much more fun. It's fun to watch their excitement. I just wish I could borrow some of their energy.


The first game was a fishing pond. All of the grandkids got a goody bag full of prizes. The favorite toy of the night was the little squishy skeletons that stuck to the ceiling. The kids had fun with those quite a while.


The second game was sucking the ghosts with a straw and carrying them across the room. It was fun to watch the little people try to do it.


Little Princess would not be left out of anything. She may be little, but she's determined. Especially with a doting cousin and grandpa :)

The other games included bobbing for apples, bingo, darts, and more. It was a great night. Not only did I have a great birthday, but I got to watch my kids have fun. Here's Big Man bobbing for apples. It's kind of hard when you have no bottom teeth :)

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Let the fun begin...

Halloween is a week long event for us. It started today with the "Spooktacular" today at the gym. The boys had a great time. They went on a hayride, a bouncy house, a huge slide, a horse ride, decorated pumpkins, ate treats, and much more. It was great fun.
The boys on their horse ride.
After the spooktacular we went to Gardner Village with cousins and Grandma and Grandpa. We went to the petting zoo, the pony ride, and looked at all the witches. It was fun.

Little Princess thought she was hot stuff. She loved riding on the pony. It was really cute.
The kids thought the witches were great. We had a fun time.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

He's growing up...

So why have I been MIA you ask-well it's partially because my camera has been involved in hunting season. I like to have pictures when I make a new post and whenever I think about it, the camera is nowhere to be found. I'm thinking we need to be a two-camera family :) One day...

For the last few days, Big Man has been talking about training himself on his bike. One of his preschool friends apparently trained himself on his bike. So today we got out the tools and took the training wheels off. I held onto the back of his bike the first time he went around the driveway. After that he was off and running. It took about 10 times of me helping him get started, but then he totally got it. By the time daddy got home, he was doing it all himself. He was so cute the first few times. He'd just smile and giggle. He was so excited that he was doing it himself. It's so fun to watch kids learn new things and discover that they can do something if they set their mind to it. Little man of course wanted to try his bike without the training wheels. We tried once, but decided we needed to work on his balance first. So his training wheels have been raised way up. Before long he'll have it too :) It was a fun afternoon.

Don't you love that stage where babies want to start feeding themselves? Finger foods are one thing, but foods that require a spoon are quite different. Don't get me wrong, I love it when they can feed themselves, it frees up a lot of my time, but I don't love the mess. My kitchen floor is always caked in one thing or another. It's exhausting to try and keep it clean. This particular morning Jeff was on breakfast duty and wasn't happy with me for giving her yogurt before I left :)

I found this picture on my camera. It's a couple of months old. Little Princess has since given up the bottle. Doesn't this look cozy and fun. These little munchkins have taken over our bed-day and night. They don't sleep with us, but sometimes sneak in when we're too tired to realize what's going on. I can't resist cuddling with them, they're so dang cute.

I can't believe that October is almost over. I love fall and Halloween. The boys have had fun making decorations for our windows and fridge. Big Man is really into art projects. Most of his time is spent coloring, cutting, pasting, and creating. He is very imaginative and does great work.

The boys are excited to wear their costumes. There are lots of fun events coming up in the next few weeks: Halloween birthday party for Mom, Gardner Village, Trunk or Treat at our church, and then Halloween itself. I'm not looking forward to all of the candy in the house, but it's fun to see my kids have a good time. I hope November is not a let down after all of the October excitement.

For some reason this year, I got an itch to start my Christmas shopping in September. We exchanged names for Jeff's side of the family and I started buying presents. With the exception of two people, I am done shopping for the extended family. I'm pretty proud of myself. I still have my kids to shop for, but that will require shopping trips without them :) I love the holidays.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Fall is in the air...

I love fall. It's been a nice change from the hot summer days. I love the cooler weather, the changing leaves, and the exciting of the upcoming holidays. The boys have been wearing Halloween shirts for weeks, but now that it's officially October I don't mind. Today we made decorations for the windows. We made pumpkins and bats. The boys drew faces on the pumpkins. They were cute. We also made pumpkin cookies. Yum. This year we grew pumpkins in our garden. I planted the whole package thinking a few would take. We ended up with a TON of HUGE pumpkins. It's been fun to pick them and put them on our porch.

On another note, I love having a girl. Now that she has a little bit of hair, I have fun doing it. It's a little bit curly, so today we gelled it and made curls. I thought she looked adorable.

She's also extremely naughty-climbing and getting into everything. This week she has finally started turning around backwards to go down stairs. She's also standing up without holding onto anything and taking about 10 steps. Another week she'll probably be cruising all over the place.
Little Princess had her one year visit yesterday at the Dr. She's 20 lbs. 12 oz. and in the 80th percentile for height. She's right on track in every way. The big goal has been to switch to Whole milk and get rid of the bottle. These both were met with a little resistance, but she's doing great. She's such a big girl.