Trick or Treat 2014

Our boys have been looking forward to trick or treating for a few weeks leading up to Halloween.  We're not super into the scary part of Halloween, but its fun to watch them dress up and of course, they love the candy!

They had been talking about wanting to be Captain America and the Hulk, which was great because we had one of those costumes already and were borrowing one from a friend.  But in true kiddo fashion, they changed their minds and wanted to wear another one of their dress up costumes.  Fine with us!!!  So, we had a family of a cowboy, a fireman and a baby giraffe.  I'm biased but they were stinkin cute!

The boys loved having Auntie Amanda and Nana join us this year!! 

this is what Ethan thought when he realized he wasn't getting any candy!! 

 His sadness didn't last long though!

 Benjamin helped pass out candy once we arrived back home!

 showing off his moves for Nana

 Peter's carving handiwork....Flash and Batman were requested

 soon, the sugar rush hit their little bodies and they went nuts!!  Auntie Amanda wrapped them up like pretzels over and over while they jumped around this crazy.

Loving the attention and candy, a boys dream!

A fun evening was had by all.....and who doesn't love leftover Halloween candy??? :-)

A day at the pumpkin patch

Our boys love going to the pumpkin patch, but our weekends just filled up too quickly in October for us to be able to go as a family.  So I got brave one morning and spontaneously decided to take the boys by myself.  When I told the boys the news, they were delighted!  And thankfully, Ethan did pretty well going with the flow.

It was a gorgeous day and though it was muddy from rain the previous weekend, the atmosphere was just perfect.  And the boys probably loved having the mud, in fact, I know they did!

We were super sad Daddy couldn't come with us, but I was grateful to spend a few hours making sweet memories with my boys!

Sunshine, pumpkins, boys happily running through mud, apple cider doughtnuts......it was a beautiful day spent with my precious boys!

Random bits of life

*  Our boys love superheros, and I love watching them use their imagination to fight bad guys and rescue whoever or whatever is around them.  So cute!

*  Each of their boys has their own beloved Floppy, stuffed dog.  However, we somehow managed to lose Ethan's in his first two months of life.  At least we still have Ethan right?  So we bought another one off Amazon so the bonding can continue :-)

*  Friday nights are usually movie night in our house.  We love the low key evening spent together.  We usually get a pizza and the boys get popcorn with candy in the bottom.  I have a feeling its going to be little moments like this that I will miss the most when they are older!

Do you like how we keep it classy with the paint sheet underneath them?  Gotta protect that carpet :-) 

This is how Ethan ends up most movie nights :-)

*  Peter and I have been talking lately about how sad it is that our boys are growing up.  Time.please.stand.still

*  Peter got brave last Sunday and took the boys to a brass quintent concert at our church one evening.  He said the boys did good for awhile and it slowly went downhill, with Jonah saying "oh poop, oh poop" over and over.  Boys will be boys right??  Good thing it was a low key event!

*  I was telling Jonah the other day that I wanted him to stay little and not grow up.  And he said no, I have to get bigger.  Of course that made me frown.  And then he pointed to the wrinkles on my forehead and said, I'm going to get bigger and get some of those.  Meaning my wrinkles.  Oh sweet boy, thanks sooo much for noticing!!

*  We went with friends to a local waterpark and Ethan had his first little swim.  He liked it pretty well and the older boys loved it....they swam for 5 hours!

Road trip to the grandparents!

We love living within driving distance of Peter's parents, it allows us to see them more often since flying with 3 kiddos can get expensive!  We finally had a free weekend where Peter could take an extra day off work, so we headed to Spokane to see the much beloved Poppy and GongGong.....especially after their last visit was more of a hospital visit.  And a new bonus of our trip is getting to see the Larmores now that they're up from San Diego!

To say I was a bit nervous about how Ethan would do in the car was an understatement.  Little man is not the biggest fan of the carseat.  But God truly blessed us because he was so good.  Peter and I took turns riding in the captains seat next to him at times to entertain him, but there was very minimal crying and we were so glad.  Our other boys travel like champs if you give them books, snacks, and a movie.

We arrived around 10:15pm Thursday night, so it was late but we were so excited to be there.  The next day we got to sleep in a bit (thanks Poppy & GongGong!!) and then we took a 2.5 hour hike up a mountain.  I carried Ethan in the Ergo, Benjamin walked the whole time, and with a little prompting Jonah walked nearly 3/4 of the hike.  I was so proud of my little hikers.  Unfortunately, I was carrying too many other things to bring my camera so there's no picture.

We saw Anita's adorable home later that day and had a fun family dinner just catching up together.  Saturday we went to Jack's soccer game, went for another beautiful walk on the river, then went to Anita's again for yummy hamburgers that night.

Sunday we went to church, ate a delicious lunch, vegged a bit, and stayed up late to watch the Cleveland Browns get their bums whipped.

Monday morning it was time to take off and once again the boys did so good in the car.  It's not easy to travel 8 1/2 hours with 3 boys but we are lucky to have good travelers.  We rewarded them with a Krispy Kreme doughnut on the way home.  Of course, we rewarded ourselves too, ha ha :-)

It was such a wonderful visit to catch up with everyone.  Life can go by so quickly and we're thankful for these quick weekends to just enjoy being together!!