Tre Treet!

Trick or Treating was so fun this year.  The weather made it SO enjoyable.  We started around 6:30 and did our street and the street north of us.  We didn't wear jackets and it felt great, even when it was dark.  Right at the end it started to get chilly but I couldn't have been happier. ;)  I started with the kids and then Darryl caught up with us and shared in the fun.  It was also super fun because Kade and Clint were so excited about it all and really enjoyed going and going and going.  Cole was the happiest of us all though.  I'm sure he's thinking in his little mind, "Why don't we do this everyday!  This is awesome-- just knock on doors, people open them, say "Tre Treet" and then they give you candy!"  We would pick him up to carry him from house to house so we could keep up with Kade and Clint.  As soon as Cole could see another door he started to squeal, jabber, point, and kick to get down and run to the next door.  You'd think he'd mellow out after a few houses or at least after 20, but nope.  He was just as excited on #1 as he was on #40.  Some times he'd get lost in the group of the kids at the door and not get any candy but he didn't seem to mind and he made up for it.  At one of the houses they had a large package of candy that they hadn't opened yet and somehow Cole ended up with it.  The crazy thing is I didn't even see it get into the pumpkin so I didn't question it.  Sorry whoever you are neighbor! :)  And again thanks mother nature for a great night!

Sticky Sweetness!

Darryl really enjoyed harvesting honey this year. There were only 4 supers (I think 2 were Rhett's and 2 were ours). He said that's the enjoyable amount because it didn't take the entire day. I enjoyed it because we were able to get EVERYTHING done and cleaned up. So we weren't dripping caps for days and then cleaning again. It was nice. I forgot about the wax though and let it set cook all night-- it turned olive green. Oops. :] The boys loved turning the crank and snitching honey that had dripped out of the supers. Fun times. Oh, an improvement this time! Chris let Darryl borrow his jet heater. WOW! Where have you been all our lives! I don't know if he had it previous years but wow it would have been nice to have that before. It heated up the garage to about 100 deg. in about 15 min. So great! Even without his heater Chris is always a great help every year.

Monopoly Anyone!

The boys just discovered this Christmas version of Monopoly and asked Darryl to teach them how to play. I didn't think it would last long. I thought the boys would get bored with it and loose interest. Oh no. It was close to a 2 hour game. And they played it again the next day, and a few days after that with me. Who would have thought they'd enjoy such a long game. It's crazy to think they're past the days of Candy Land- I'm not sure how that happened.

Raking Leaves!

The boys have been crazed about raking leaves. Kade initially started it because he said then Dad will say, "What a good worker." Then somehow money got thrown into the idea and after Darryl came home I heard it said that he was going to give them each $5 for raking the whole back yard. The spent the whole night raking about 6-8(yep they were in the dark-- well they had the porch light). The next day(which is the day I took the pictures) they ran outside and started raking as soon as Kade got home from school. [Side note: It was pajama day for Red Ribbon Week so the boys were still in their pjs on one of the days. :)] They raked again until about 7. At about 6:30 the wind kicked up and so leaves kept falling and covering the ground. The boys were so disappointed. They wanted me to make them stop. "We just got ALL the lawn all clean and then. . .whoosh!" I had them look up at the trees and see that they were covered with leaves still and so the yard was going to be covered again and again. They decided to give raking a break for a while until all the leaves are on the ground. ;) Love, love these boys and the things they become obsessed with!  Cole wants to be just like his big brothers so he grabbed a rake too.  He's had his picture taken one too many times lately.  I walked outside with the camera and immediately he started yelling, "cheese!"  I'm not sure what the pose was when he stuck out his belly-- funny kid.  Clint loved getting in the pile and throwing the leaves up in the air.  Kade loved raking a big pile and jumping on it.  I think he thought the idea was better than the real thing.  He would always lay there after the big thud like, 'that wasn't a nice soft landing like I expected.'

Storytime

Ms. Sally's Storytime Halloween Party was so awesome this year.  It was all great but the balloon guy was really amazing to me.  He told a story--that had a good moral but I don't think many kids got it-- but he'd made the characters out of balloons.  It was so cute!  I wish I'd gotten better pictures and more of them.  There was a wolf that was adorable that I didn't get.  There was a little girl, a pumpkin, a bat, a wolf, and some jungle trees.  The guy was amazing.  I don't remember his name but if you want information about him I'll get it from Ms. Sally.  You can see "Cat in the Hat" was enthralled by the characters.

Jack O'lantern

We finally got to carving the pumpkins.  We were going to do it last Monday with Spooky Dinner like we always do but we had a special guest come to Spooky Dinner and by the time they left there wasn't time to carve.  So since today was the only night Darryl and I would be home together thought we better get it done.  The boys wanted to do it all by themselves.  They drew on the faces and then started carving.  I helped Clint carve a little-- the pumpkin are so big so they're really thick and it makes carving rough.  Kade wouldn't let me look at his until he was done.  It turned out great and then he decided he wanted to cut out a spot on the pumpkin that was scratched and decided it would be cheeks so he cut a circle out on the other side.  Pretty funny.  His mouth was pretty original and neat.  Look closely and you'll see the boys next to their pumpkins. :)

This Year's Line Up

A friend from Darryl's work invited us over for a Halloween Party.  We've never been to one and though we knew it was Harry Potter based we hoped us Harry illiterate people would be okay.  Everyone else was sporting their Harry Potter characters except us.  Then they divided us up into teams with team names that we'd never heard of.  It wasn't looking so good.  They put up with our ignorance and explained everything so we ended up having a great time even though our Davey Crockett and Cat in the Hat were throwing off the theme a little.
Well there is a story behind the spooks this year.  Darryl's grandma had a Davey Crockett book that we just inherited and the boys have been loving it.  Kade was set on being Mr. Crockett.  It worked out too because Darryl had a coonskin hat from when he was a kid that fit Kade perfectly.  I love the picture of him pretending he's grinning down a "bar" [bear].   Since Kade was Davey, Darryl decided to be George Russell, Davey's sidekick.  As for Clint I'm not sure why Cat in the Hat was his choice.  The only thing I can think of was last year there were a couple cat's hats at the thrift store and so I asked them if they wanted to be that but they didn't.  I guess Clint regretted it so that's what he picked this year.  But no hat at the thrift store now so my mom and I made one while we were down there.  Mr. Cole didn't get a choice.  He got to be Peter Pan like Kade was.  I made this costume back when Kade was Cole's age and so I was happy to get more use out of it.  In trying to get the boys outfits ready I didn't get my own done so I quickly threw some of the boys pirate dress-ups on and tried to be Captain Hook with Peter Pan.  : /   Maybe next year I'll get my parachute ready. 

A "Sleep" Over

I guess we should just call these things "overs" because it doesn't sound like much sleeping goes on.  The boys and Kylee love to have sleep-overs when we're in Aurora.  The parents don't love them[the sleep-overs] that much.  The kids just go to bed way late and then they're so excited to see each other when they stir in the morning that they wake up at 6:00 AM and are ready to party.  I guess it's not about us.  It's fun to let the kids make some memories.  Kylee read to the boys.  It looks like Kade was about asleep.  He was coughing a ton because we'd been playing in the hay at the corn maze-- not a good place for an asthma kid. Oops! ;)

Corn Maze Happy Birthday Grandma

I've been wanting to take the boys to a corn maze this year-- it just seemed like something they would really enjoy.  I didn't really know though because I've never been to one myself. Actually I've been to a haunted one once but we pulled in the parking lot and had scary people scratching our window and climbing on the car and starring at us so we kept the doors locked and pulled out of there! Glad I didn't have to go there--so scary!  Anyway, while we were down visiting the Grandparents my brother suggested we go.  We were all excited!  We went to a place in Sigurd and I figured since we were in small town USA it would be pretty basic-- cornfield with a path, try to find your way to the end.  I was pleasantly surprised.  Before you entered the corn maze there was  a big field with all kinds of fun things for the kids made from hay.  There was a mountain like pile that had black tube slides.  There were bales of hay put together to make tractors.  When the kids saw the sky high slide they couldn't wait to go down.  We quickly decided they couldn't go though because there was a 90 deg. angle at the bottom so we thought the reason no one was playing on it was because it wasn't safe.  Surely someone was going to break their leg at the bottom.  Well we quickly discovered the corn pit so they forgot about the slide.  They had so much fun in the corn.  They made snow angels, went swimming, did cannonballs, and buried themselves.  I couldn't believe how they would just bury their faces in the corn for so long.  While we were in the corn we saw other people safely go down the slide so the kids quickly ran over to take their turn.  They couldn't get enough of it.  There were a few times they were airborne going down.  The bottom turned out to be okay for little kids.  It curved just enough to fold them.  Bigger kids though always said, "ouch," and never went again.  They also had large black tubes that the kids sat in while Uncle Buzz rolled them around.  They were blurry pictures but I love how happy Kade's face is and how much Kylee looks like a rag doll.  We finally made it in the corn maze.  Wahoo!!!!  The wahoo didn't last long.  The kids had a plan that they would each take turns picking which path we'd take and then we'd follow them.  When we got to the next intersection they would switch.  Well after the 20th dead end they had lost all interest in the corn maze.   We decided Uncle Buzz should be the leader for a while.  We still kept running into dead ends.  Finally we found some boys that seemed to know the maze so we followed them for a bit and we ended up somewhere we figured we should be.  We eventually started seeing markers and getting close to the tower so the kids attitude perked up a little.  It took us 1 hour to do the maze and if we hadn't found those boys I think we might still be in the maze. :)


We had a little party for Grandma tonight-- well we made dinner for her anyway.  She ended up making some of it while we were at the maze---sorry Mom.  We made Cafe Rio for her and she loved it.  We also made her key lime pie.  When I got out the candles Clint said, "Oh a 2 and a 6 because Grandma is 26!"  Grandma liked that.  Then we put them on the pie and Clint said, "OH! It's a 9 and a 2.  She's 92."  She didn't like that.  We told him it was 62 but Grandma changed it to 26 she liked that one the best.  Happy Birthday Mom!  You're Mrs. Amazing!  We love you!!!!