Trunk or Treat

Friday night our ward held the annual Trunk or Treat.  We had a great time.  We also had a fun guest with us.  My Grandpa Smith (my boys Great Grandpa) was passing through town on his way to Washington and because he was tired, decided to stay with night.  My boys were very excited to have Great Grandpa here and to come to the Trunk or Treat with us. 

A few weeks ago, Keagan and I were discussing what he wanted to be for Halloween, after I said no to Giraffe (he was that last year) and Elephant (I didn't want to have to try to make that), he said a Cow and I told him we could do that.  After pondering for a few days, I decided that since Andrew wasn't going to be at Trunk or Treat with us, that I would have the three boys be cows and I would be the farmer.  I made the hats, attached ears & horns and then put white spots on black sweats.  For Bauer, I decided that I would  want him in the carrier so that my hands would be free and so I decided that I would make his costume to be split up the back so that I could slip it over the carrier.  We used an old pair of black sweat, cut up the back seam, slid them over him and pinned and sewed legs holes using the the existing leg holes, then added arms.  I am pretty happy with how it all turned out. 

We are going to go out trick or treating on Sunday night so that we can enjoy it as a family and I am hoping to get a better picture and some individual pictures of each of the boys that night. 

The past week or so, Keagan has said some funny things in regards to his/our costumes.  First of all, one day he was talking with Andrew about being a cow and in the process of that conversation, Keagan decided that he would be a Dairy cow.  One night last week, I had the boys try on their costumes to see how they looked.  The next morning, Keagan was coming down the stairs and the very first thing he said to me was: "Mom, I want one of things that you squeeze and milk comes out on my costume."  I, of course, said absolutely not. 

Then Sunday night, we were at some friends house having dinner.  They asked what we were going to be for  Halloween.  Keagan said that him, Deker and Bauer were going to be Dairy Cows and that I was going to be a Farmer.  Keagan then asked me if I was going to have a pitch fork.  I told him no and he said, "But what if there is a bale of hay that you need to lift up."  Then I told him I didn't have a pitch fork and he said "But you can make one". 

Mummies

My sister Marie called me today and gave me a great Halloween craft idea.  I loved it so much that I decided to do it today with the boys.  You will need a cardboard box (like a cereal box), white material cut or torn into approximately 2 inch strips, eyes (I cut 2 circles out of blue paper because that is what I had and put it onto a bigger white circle) and a hot glue gun.  If you want to make it look a little nicer, you can wrap your box in white paper, I didn't have the time to do that.  Start with a little hot glue at the bottom and begin wrapping the material around the box. 

My boys had so much fun that after wrapping the cereal box they wanted to do it again, so I went to our recycle box and found two granola bar boxes.  Keagan wrapped his, then wanted eyes.  Deker wanted eyes as well, but he ended up putting his material inside the box.  They were very excited to show their creations to Dad when he got home. 

Thank you for the wonderful idea, Marie!

Painting

Today's Halloween activity turned out to be really great because it kept Keagan and Deker occupied for quite a while.  I also learned that if I need something to keep them occupied for a while, I just have to get the paints out. 

I got these little ceramic things that came with the paint brush and three paints at Michaels for really cheap the other day.  When I opened them, the paint wasn't very good, but the boys had fun with them anyway.  Here they are the beginning of the activity.

After a little bit, Keagan said that his paint was gone and asked for some more.  I got out our washable paints and put three different colors on paper plates for them to use.  They quickly got very messy and I was glad for two things....#1 The paints are washable and they come off and out of clothes very easily.  #2 I put down newspaper.  Here is Deker after he finished painting his little cat and decided to move onto his plate and newspaper.  Keagan's area looked a lot like this, although Keagan didn't get quite as much paint on this hands. 

Their finished product.  You can tell that Keagan's witch was done mostly with the paints that came with it.  All in all it was a fun project for the kids and gave me a little piece of sanity while Bauer took a short evening nap.  

In other News....

About 3 - 4 weeks ago, Bauer started to try to grab at the things we were using to eat or drink with.  But I kept forgetting to buy baby cereal on the shopping list.  But last week, I finally managed to remember to get it.  Probably because I had the luxury of grocery shopping by myself. 

The first time Bauer tried the cereal, he was more interested in chewing on the spoon.  On the third try (Friday), he really enjoyed the cereal and actually ate it.  But then that night, he spit up A LOT a few different time and then he continued to spit up quite a bit the next day.  We were sure if it was the cereal or something I ate, so we have taken a break from it until he stops spitting up so much and then try it again hopefully later this week.

 Monday night while we were carving pumpkins, I was holding Bauer and tried to take a drink out of my water jug.  Bauer thought it would be fun to try to take it away and chew on the handle. 

One other peice of news...On Sunday morning, I looked at my boys all dressed and ready for church and I thought they looked especially handsome so I tried to snap a quick picture of them before rushing out the door.  Too bad I didn't notice that Keagan was slouching and Bauer didn't look too pleased either.  That that is what you get when your church starts at 8:20 am. 

Sunday was the first time we had a child participate in the primary program.  A couple of weeks ago, when I got Keagan from his class, we were told that he needed to know the first article of faith for the primary program.  When I was getting the boys changed out of their church clothes that day, I asked Keagan if he would say it with me, but instead, he said "No Mom, I can do it myself".  He then proceeded to tell me the first article of faith all by himself. 

On Saturday morning, they had a practice at the church and Deker was quite sad without Keagan and when it was time to go get Keagan, he was very excited.  As soon as Keagan got in the van, they started playing extremely loud.  I told them that they needed to be quite because we were in the van.  That is when Keagan said "Mom, my teacher told us to use our outside voices so that our parents could hear us say our part".  That was fun to explain to him. 

It was great to see all the kids get up and say their part and sing their song.  It was so good to see our sometimes shy boy up with this class participating with is class and even be able to hear him at times.

Cookie Suckers

Tonight (Tuesday) we made Halloween cookie suckers.  I saw this idea on How Does She, but we did a couple of things different.  For the Mummy's I didn't want to buy the candy eyes, so I used mini chocolate chips for eyes instead.  Then for the Tombstones I didn't want to buy black candy coloring and I didn't want to buy green candy melts, so instead is used a color mist food color spray for the tombstone.  After the tombstones and color mist was dry, I piped the RIP on and then piped some lines at the bottom and used green sprinkles to try to make it look like grass.

Andrew and I were too busy making sure that Keagan and Deker didn't eat too many cookies that we forgot to get the camera out.  We didn't want very many of these sitting around our house, so we packaged them up and took them to some of our friends so we didn't have to eat them all.  Here is the quick picture I took just as we were walking out the door to deliver them tonight.

Carving Pumpkins

On Monday night we carved our pumpkins.  It ended up being a very fun evening.  Bauer was being kind of fussy that night, so Andrew and I had to carve our pumpkins in shifts, but even though it took a couple of hourse, Keagan and Deker happily sat there the entire time.  After I helped Keagan and Deker carve their pumpkins, thye both kept themselves very entertained.  Keagan entertained himself by using the poker to poke holes in his pumpkin and Deker kept entertained by putting the pumpkin insides in and then taking them out over and over and over again.

Here am I helping Keagan carve his.  He wanted rectangle eyes, rectangle nose and rectangle mouth.   

Deker happily playing with his pumpkin.

Bauer helping Daddy design his pumpkin. 

 Deker playing taking the pumpkin insides out after putting them in.

Three of my boys busy carving/playing. 

Our pumpkins...Andrews is the one the left, mine is next, Dekers is after that without a nose and Keagans is on the far right.

 The pumpkins lite up at night.

Halloween Activities

A few days ago I decided to start doing a Halloween craft or activity every day.  We started on Saturday with Pumpkin shaped rice crispy treats.  We even drew faces on them with some black icing gel I happened to have in the cupboard. 

 

On Sunday we made skeleton and pumpkin wreaths.  This was accomplished by putting white footprints on black paper and orange palm prints on orange paper (although, I think I should have done orange on white or white on orange).  After they were dry, we cut them out, drew faces on the pumpkins and then glued to a circle cut out of a cardboard box. 

Next up.....Carving pumpkins!

My Fall Wreath

I absolutely love to sew and create things.  My problem is that I am not very creative.  Thank goodness for the wonderful Internet and for all of the crafty people out there that take the time to share all their wonderful creative ideas with others.  Here is another example...I found this great wreath idea on Bugaboo.  I fell in love with it.  So, I used a wreath form that I had and picked out some fall colors of yarn and proceeded to follow this lady's wonderful instructions.  Here is how it turned out. 

 

Manly tea Party

There is this great blog called I am Momma - Hear Me Roar. I fell in love with her blog because she has two boys and makes very fun things for them and she gives me lots of ideas to do for my boys.

A little over a month ago, she did a post about a Little Man's Tea Party that she did for one of  her boys.  I thought it was such a fun idea and so Andrew and I decided to have a fun little party with a few boys over.  When I told Keagan about it, he was so excited.  Yesterday (Monday) we had our Manly Tea Party.  We had so much fun.  When the boys got here, they put on their bow ties that I had made using this Tutorial, they then decorated their hats with stickers. 

 

After decorated our hats and getting dressed up, we proceeded outside and had an obstacle course.  They were to crawl through the fire truck, over four little step stools, up the ladder of our playhouse, down the slide and back to the fire truck.  They then played outside having races and swinging.

Then they came in to have a lunch of tie-shaped sandwiches, chips and grapes. 

 

Dessert were these cute mustache shaped cream filled chocolate cakes (Andrew was the great artists behind all the drawing).

We then played bean bag games which included throwing the bags through the alligator's mouth. 

The afternoon was finished off by playing with playdough until the party was over.  The boys then got to take home their hats, bowties and some playdough.

I ended up with an extra bowtie and decided to put in on Bauer for fun while we were all playing outside.  Within minutes, he managed to get it turned and in his mouh for his chewing pleasure. 

I had so much fun planning and hosting this party and my boys had fun playing with the other boys.

Andrew's Birthday

Today was Andrew's Birthday.  We had a really fun day.  Unfortunately, I kept forgetting to get the camera out, so there will be no pictures on this post. 

We started the day out right by having the yummiest Cinnamon Bun Pancakes (the recipe can be found on Smithalicious).  These are Heaven!  After breakfast, we headed down to the Discovery Center and we all had fun playing around there for a few hours. 

For dinner, we went to Red Robin.  At Red Robin, we handed our waitress Andrew's birthday certificate for a free burger and Keagan asked if they were going to sing to Andrew (through no coaxing of Andrew or I).  So after dinner, they came and sang to Andrew and gave him his ice cream sundae. 

We finished off the evening eating yummy brownies.  It was as fun day spent together as a family. 

Happy Birthday, Andrew, I love you!

Pumpkin Patch

On Monday night for Family Home Evening, we decided to go to the pumpkin patch/Corn Maze.  All the boys had a lot of fun.  Keagan and Deker excitedly ran around doing all kinds of things.  Bauer slept off and on and was pretty happy until the very end when he started getting hungry and it got dark and cold. 

The first stop was the giant chair.  Bauer was pretty upset about the wind blowing in his face.  After this picture, I put in in the baby Bjorn facing me and he fell right asleep.

There is this really fun big bouncing thing.  I wish I got a picture of the whole thing, because it is hard to describe.  Last year, we couldn't even get Keagan on it, but this year he ran right up, took off his shoes and started bouncing away.  And wherever Keagan goes, Deker goes. 

Of course, you have to stop for one of the usual photo spots. 

Then it was off to pick out our pumpkins.  Keagan and Deker were very excited when we finally got to the area that had the smaller pumpkins and eagerly picked out their own. 

Luckily, Bauer woke up just as we picked out all our pumpkins and we were able to get a very cute picture of him in the wagon with some of our pumpkins. 

 Then of course, we had to get one of all the boys. 

 After that, Keagan and Deker played in the corn box.  Think big sand box but with corn instead of sand.  I was holding Bauer, who was starting to get fussy and Andrew was paying for our pumpkins, so I didn't get any good pictures of that. 

Next up was the cow train which is pulled by a tractor.  The tractor part is very important because that is one of Decker's favorite things.   

 

Of course, Andrew had to get in on the action.  I sat out with Bauer, who had fallen asleep again.  

After the cow train, we went on a tractor hay ride around the corn maze and pumpkin patch.  At this point is was getting dark and so none of my pictures turned out.  We were so glad that we went because we all had a great time.  We are hoping to go back again, maybe a little earlier in the day and try out the corn maze.

Drums & Trikes

I am not sure if I have mentioned this or not, but this year I tried to do a Co-op preschool with other ladies that have kids the same age of Keagan because we had a lot of fun doing it last year.  Unfortunately, it fell through.  So, instead I have been doing my own little preschool with Keagan and Deker.  I have decided to focus on one letter during the week.  We practice writing the letter, as well as other crafts and activities.  I have had a lot of fun doing it. 

This past week, we talked about the letter D, so what did we do...We made drums.  The boys have had so much fun with their drums, especially Deker.  That has been one of the first things he has picked since we made them. 

A couple of weeks ago was the annual Moppet Togs sale.  I look forward to this sale every spring and fall.  It is a really big consignment sale for all things baby and kids.  We have found some really great clothes and other items for great prices.  This  year, one thing we purchased was a little trike.  We were originally going to save it for Christmas, but instead we got it out this week.  Deker was in love at first sight.



Bauer's Balancing Trick

Here is a cute video of Bauer balancing on Andrew's hand.  I loved how he kept laughing so I wanted to post it.