Thanksgiving

These are just some (ok, a lot) of the many things I am so very thankful for in my life.
My mom hosts one mean Turkey Dinner, with everyone around the same table! I am so lucky to have parents and all my siblings and their families living nearby. We love getting together and I love that my boys get to grow up around so many cousins. It was a great holiday spent together that seemed fitting for a year with so much to be grateful for. For all those family and friends that we didn't spend Thanksgiving with, you were counted as blessings throughout the day. I am amazed at how abunant life can be with so many wonderful people in it.

Fall Family Pictures

Thanks Kate and Jess for the great pictures and fun time - it's not an easy task with our crew!

Boo!

Introducing our extremely random 2009 Halloween costumes! We tried to convince the boys to go as a basketball team (hence Bart in the referee shirt - he still went with it) or Kung Fu Panda's furious five (but I couldn't find furious five character costumes and I was not quite crazy enough to make 5 of them - almost, but not quite). So we have Ichiro and Griffey Jr., a Power Ranger Police Dog, a cute little Pumpkin and a Duck. But everyone was all smiles. We had a great night trick-or-treating in the clear, crisp fall weather, and finished off the night with our traditional home-made donuts and cider (no pictures of the grub this year).

Luke and cousing Bauer getting a taste of their first Halloween. Cuteness!

Preschool Party Time

Bo stressed me out a bit with his costume this year. As most 4 year olds do, he changed his mind every other day about what he wanted to be. We finally settled on a cowboy (or so I thought), which we had an adorable costume of. The morning of his preschool party he refused to wear it...and those who know Bo, know that he is one strong-headed kid. I tried all of my usual tactics to convince this stubborn child of mine, and then decided that a sad cowboy wasn't very cute anyways - so I caved - and we managed to find this Power Ranger police dog costume in the bin that fit - and he was THRILLED! Not that you can tell from his pictures at the preschool party. Remember how I said he was stubborn - that goes for everything, including smiling for pictures. I was just glad that he was happy and very grateful that day for older brothers and hand-me down costumes.

Pumpkin Night

Caden became a pro this year with the carving knife...and did quite well on his tombstone design.

Mom and Bo had fun carving Mike Wazouski (Monsters Inc.) together - our pumpkin even won a prize at the church Halloween party!

Tyler did his own jack-o-lantern desing and carving completely solo - and you can tell how proud he was.

A spooky doorstep it will be at our house on Halloween!

Would you smile?

...if you had to eat this mush??
Luke has started on solid foods. I'm a little heartbroken over it to think my baby is already that old.

He caught on quick. Now he goes like a pro.

He gets this concerned look if I take too long in between bites.

It's not so bad, especially when the apples are added! Good job Lukers.

Pumpkin Patch

Me and the 2 "littles" (we have the "bigs" (Cade and Ty) the "middle" (Bo) and the "littles" (Cole and Luke) at our house) joined Bo for his Preschool Pumpkin Patch fieldtrip to Baggenstos farm. It was a gorgeous fall day and went quite well for this outnumbered mom! The boys loved posing for pictures in front of the signs.

Cole wasn't too sure of the tractor hay ride, but he managed to share my lap with Luke and settled into smiling quickly.

The farm moves their pumpkins from the patch they are grown to a nice clean field, perfectly suited for helping little ones find the perfect one. We only had to pick out 1 extra pumpkin this year since we grew 3 others in our garden this summer.

My little pumpkin hunters loving the hundreds and hundreds of beautiful orange pumpkins!

{Sept 2009}

Bo's 4th Birthday

With Bo's imagination and love of dressing up, it was only fitting to celebrate his 4th birthday superhero style.

The invites were simple and quick with the help of my digital scrapbook software.
I didn't do a lot of decorating...I've learned in the past that decorating is lost on boys and a lot of work to put up and take down. Some bright colored plates and napkins, confetti and curling ribbon can do wonders. I sewed capes out of shiny bright blue fabric (I was able to get two capes out of one width of fabric) and used red ribbon at the neck for a tie. I cut masks out of black felt and straight stiched a matching mask out of red cotton to one side (so that the felt didn't stretch when worn and wasn't itchy to the face)
The party was fun to plan and ended up being a blast. I didn't get as many pictures as I wanted, I was too busy running around keeping up with the little superheroes! I had The Incredibles movie playing as kids arrived (a great way to keep them entertained, but mellow while everyone gets there). When all the kids were together I told them we were going to have a party to help them be the best superheros in the world! They would have to work really hard to perfect their superhero powers and ban together because there was a party villian out there that likes to come spoil birthday fun and we would need their superhero help to keep him away and save the party!

First, they did a superhero training course in the backyard.
They had to climb the ladder (like spiderman), fly down the slide (like batman),
jump over the building (a little garage for toy cars) in a single bound (like superman), lift "heavy" weights (like the Hulk),

bend under the bar (like elasti-girl), then race to the finish (like Dash). When the kids finished, they were awarded capes.

Then the "villian" (Bo's aunt) showed up all dressed up and dropped cryptonite (balls of foil - would have been even better if they were painted green, but oh well) all over the lawn. This was the only part of the party that didn't go so well - the boys loved it, but my 2 neices freaked out! They got so scared and I felt really bad. It actually took a little while to calm them down, but once everyone was ok, we told the kids that they had to hurry and pick up the cryptonite with tongs, being careful not to touch them and dispose of them in the hazardous waste bin (cooler). The kids got into this and we were cheering them along to hurry before the cryptonite took away their super power. When they were finished, they were awarded the masks.

The villian didn't come back in (we adapted after the panic episode and only showed the kids parts of the villian costume to explain that he had been back) but Aunt Haley showed the kids the villian's hat and the bag of fire balls (blown up balloons) that he had left. The kids were told they had to diffuse them by stomping them out! You can imagine they loved this.
When all the balloons were popped, we told the kids that they needed to go eat to keep their powers up. We went inside and the kids made their own "hero" sanwiches.
and cupcakes
Here are the superheroes after lunch. But not finished with ther suphero missions...the villian had returned (Aunt Haley showed the villian's coat) and hid all the presents. We told the kids they had to find the presents and save the party! They quickly found them under the desk in the den and we finished up with Bo opening gifts. Each child took home their cape and mask as well as a goodie bag (filled with a superhero color book, spiderman pencil, spiderman fruitsnacks, balloon and other treats). Everyone left with smiles and Bo was one happy birthday boy!

Birthday boy Bo with the "Party Villian" aka Aunt Haley. Thanks Haley for coming to help and making the party a success (even if I you did make the girls cry), I couldn't have done it without you!

Time for School

Our 3rd grader and 2nd grader all ready for their first day of school. Fall is already in the air here, with cool mornings, hence the reason the boys grabbed hoodies and wore then over their nice school shirts. While the hoodies are stuffed in the back packs in the warm afternoons, so far, these smiles are still on their faces at the end of the day. They like their teachers and being back with friends. It's back to early bedtimes (yeah!) early mornings (ugh), making lunches, homework, and mom attatched to the calendar making sure we don't miss anything!

Here's a little comparison to last year. Oh, how fast they grow. Here's to a great year boys!