Sunday, October 31, 2010

Happy Halloween!

This weekend has been pretty busy and lots of fun! I've had a three day weekend and could really use another day to take care of chores and such that have piled up over the weekend...

On Friday, we went back to the pumpkin patch and brought some friends along...

This little guy in the back in JJ, Skylar and Grey's cousin. Everytime he sees me with a camera, he shouts, "hey, take a picture of me doing this (fill in the blank)!"

This time, I got a few of the kiddos in the actual pumpkin patch.

And here is the gang: JJ, Grey, Cheyanne, Caleb, and Skylar. Its a miracle we got all of them in the holes. Sort of. Well, they are mostly in there. :)

On Saturday, we took the kids to the Kersey Valley Maize Adventure and were pretty shocked by how extensive the place is. It is kind of like a little old town with tons of stuff to do. And the maize maze was pretty impressive. You have to go through and find all of the different checkpoints (six in all) and each one has a picture with an animal, a weapon, and a location that you can mark off your card. The one left in each category tells you who killed the farmer. Basically CLUE, maize style.

Skylar really enjoyed pointing out which direction to go in at each turn.

Saturday night we went to my Granny's church for their festival and enjoyed some hotdogs and marshmallows over the bonfire, and a little skit before Trunk-or-Treating. Skylar, of course, was mute during the Trunk-or-Treating, but talked non-stop on the way home about all the candy she got. The suckers were a huge hit.

On Sunday, we went to our church's Festival and made the mistake of letting Skylar bounce in the bounce house first. Ruined the rest of her day when she had to get out. :) Well, she perked up a little later when she got to play games and get candy. This was her pre-bouncy when she was a little full of herself. :)
Grey was pretty serious all night. Except when the strange kid came up and squeaked his ears (they are squeaky); then Grey laughed at the boy.
First family photo: Skylar and Grey both looking at something and Skylar squeaking Grey's ears.
Next attempt: Skylar has one of her "looks" for some reason!
We met some friends there: Here are Krista and her little boy Ryder.
After that, we came back home and went trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. The cousins came over to join us. I'm pretty impressed with my SIL's costume-making abilities! She did them all herself!

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Babies and their punkins

The other day, we went to pick out our pumpkins for Halloween. Grey picked out one, Skylar picked out Grey's, so Grey got a new one and then we picked out a big one for the fam. On the way home, we stopped at this bridge to take some pics since it was a night evening out. There just something so cute about babies and pumpkins. :)

Of course, Grey really, really liked Skylar's kitty cat rain boots.

And the lone leaf he found on the bridge.
The pumpkins were the perfect size for them to carry around and later decorate with sticker faces.

There were a few boys fishing in the water below the bridge, so both Grey and Skylar kept watching them play around.
These next three are close to my all-time favs of Skylar. Love them. :)


Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Birthday fun!

Last Monday kicked off Skylar's "birthday week!" I like to celebrate birthdays as long as possible since I think the kiddos will appreciate that when they are older. So, each day last week we had a special thing to celebrate her birthday. Sunday night Ken and I blew up two packs of balloons and snuck them into her room after she went to sleep. She woke up to a room full of balloons and was so siked! And they provided hours of fun all week and throughout the birthday party on Saturday as well!

The rest of the week was, ice cream day, park day, we had a dinner out on her birthday and you get the idea. :)

On Saturday, she had a "Rock Star" diva party where the kids danced to a game on the Wii, played with the balloons, got "tattoos" that didn't really work, made sand art pictures and ate cake! What I've realized from this is that if I want good pictures of any more birthday parties, I need to make sure someone else is taking the pictures!

And, when Skylar is older, I really hope she appreciates all the effort I put into her birthday cake. She wanted a chocolate cake, so I made a homemade chocolate cake with strawberry ice cream filling and a homemade icing on top. And I made a total of three cakes since the first and third cakes I made fell completely apart and the second one fell only slightly apart. Thankfully, against the odds, the second cake held up long enough to ice it and slice it! And it tasted pretty good too. :)

Skylar was all about the presents this year and just tore into them! She barely stopped long enough to get the cards out (and only then after I had to prompt her)!
And my sister-in-law, Michelle, helped make this insulation board cut-out of a car for the kids to pose with and take pictures.

Sky couldn't really reach over the top of it!
And here are some pictures of the kids dancing. Sorry for the blurriness, but they weren't staying very still and I didn't have time to stop to get a good pic!















Monday, October 18, 2010

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Impossible kid pics


I have a frame that I have been trying to fill for some time now. I really want a good picture of the two kids together and I don't really have one. Because it is impossible I believe. Today I took the kids to the park after getting ice cream at Feeney's for Skylar's Ice Cream Day of Birthday Week. Skylar wanted to bring her baby along too, so we all trekked out to the local park. This is the best picture of the two of them I got:
This one is cute, but you can't really see either of their faces.

And then another mom came up with two little girls and Skylar completely lost interest.

And Grey was much more interested in eating the grass. Which he somehow choked on and ended up spitting up all over the front of his shirt. See below.

So then, I just got a few of each one individually:



This is her, "I'm too cool for this mom, there are other girls over there watching this" look.

So then she started playing with the other girl and showing her the baby doll and you can see Grey was a little put out and jealous.

Funny story: When we got to the park, Skylar was talking about needing to feed her baby since she didn't get any ice cream and Grey had a noticeably stinky diaper, so I changed him on the bench while Skylar sat beside us. I turned around to see that she had one side of her shirt lifted up and her baby was resting casually in her lap, nursing away. I laughed a little and said, "Are you finished feeding your baby?" to which she replied, "No, I gotta switch sides now." And proceed to do just that. Pretty funny, although it still takes me back sometimes. Especially when she tries to use my breastpump.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

A season of balloons

Starting on October 2nd with my college roommates baby shower, we have 6 birthday parties (not including Skylar's school party today) and 3 more baby showers to go for the month of October. Needless to say, it is going to be busy and I will probably be broke by the end of the month. :)

One good thing about all of those parties?? The BALLOONS!
Remember the Carousel festival a few weekends ago? And how much Grey loved the balloons? Well, when we got back home, Grey spent an hour outside on the back deck playing with his balloon, while Skylar ran around the back yard like the crazy girl that she is.

Of course he had to taste the string first:

Then he learned how to pull the string to bring the balloon within reach.

And then comes the hundred-mile-an-hour arm slapping to move the balloon up and down. I love the motion of his arms in these! Notice the plural "arms". Evidently he needed the other one to move simultaneously to keep his balance.



And the inevitable hit to the face! These crack me up! The last one there is my favorite!