Reading time

This is how the boys chose to entertain themselves while I prepared dinner last night:

Don't I have great kids?!?

Turkey project

The instructions:

Decorate the turkey pattern so he is in complete camouflage. Examples of items for disguise include buttons, sequins, tissue paper, etc. - any combination of items that hide his true identity.

My questions:
How is this turkey sketch a pattern? How do buttons and sequins help a turkey camouflage?

I know I'm putting too much thought into this. And, who am I to question the usefulness of school projects? In any case, Brady's turkey sure looks cool with his shades!

Boys' Hike

I went to Ohio last weekend to visit my grandmother, so the boys were left to their own devices. Friday was movie night. Saturday was soccer and a birthday party. Sunday, the boys wanted to take James back to the hike they'd done with me a few weeks earlier. It looks like they had another gorgeous day, and even managed to hike a little closer to the top!

The Halloween Haul...

One of Brady's friends told him about the "Halloween witch," who comes to visit you on Halloween night and will leave you a toy if you leave her some candy. This is a new tradition for both James and I...so we are kind of improvising! Brady seems to think that he can leave her only the candy that he doesn't like. We've told him if he doesn't leave most of his candy, then she probably won't come or will only leave him something very small! We'll see how it plays out!

Happy Halloween!

This year for Halloween, we had a pirate and Bob the Builder. (I love these easy costumes...someday it's going to catch up with me!)

We started the night with mummy dogs and witches' fingers casserole (asparagus, bread crumbs, and slivered almonds)...hoping to get some nutrition in them before the evening's activities :)

Brady was a highly accessorized pirate: he had his own parrot, a sword, an earring, and even a hook!

Rudy was Bob the Builder, complete with hard hat and tool belt.

Halloween happy hour

We hosted a neighborhood happy hour last night - about 50 people total, including around 15 kids! The weather cooperated and it was nice enough for a rowdy game of flashlight tag before the kids finally migrated inside.

Cindy set up this fun game, which was pretty amusing (mostly for the adults who were watching, though - the kids were getting really frustrated!)We'd set up the Wii and SmartCycle in the kids' rooms (not where those items usually live!), but the biggest hit was the blacklight and fluorescent paint in the garage!

Pumpkin Carving

While it's not my favorite holiday activity, we carved our pumpkins tonight. In fact, I think so far it's my least favorite Halloween activity...there are just always way too many meltdowns. I hope that once the kids are old enough to be more independent with this project, it will be more fun. Until then, I guess the ends justifies the means right!?! (You can tell how thrilled they are with the carved pumpkins and the new "pumpkin-powered" lights.)

Rudy was going for a silly pumpkin; Brady's is a pirate.

More autumnage!

This picture cracks me up...it looks like they are really trying to sell me something!

New way to get good pictures

Apparently, if I promise the boys that they can make silly faces after they make normal picture faces, they'll actually hold still and look at the camera for a real picture...genius!

Autumn hike

After a very rainy Saturday, with Brady not feeling well again, we took advantage of a gorgeous autumn Sunday to head out for a hike. We drove to the mountains to investigate a new waterfall hike we'd heard about.
It was beautiful and a good hike for the boys. We didn't quite make it all the way to the top. (James was out of town and I wasn't willing to risk needing to figure out how to carry two tired kids and still hold on to Charlie!)
We love these waterfall hikes where you start at the bottom and hike up first...then when you're starting to get tired, you're headed downhill.