Bears Bonding

A few weeks ago, the Bears had a night game and, of course, Daddy was watching.  Right before he went to bed, Owen crawled up on the couch and watched with him.  I walked into the living room and saw the cuteness and couldn't resist taking a photo...

It won't be long before all 3 of my boys are snuggled on the couch watching the Bears!  And I'm sure it won't be too long after that, the snuggling will subside and the yelling at the TV will commence.

"All I want for Christmas is..."

A belt.

Halloween in the Middle of November

My apologies to Grandma Lynn, to whom I told these would be up yesterday.  I think she knows me pretty well by now, though. ;)

Just like last year, we headed over to Pella to trick-or-treat with our good friends, The Knoxes.  I was pretty worried about how Cameron would do since he typically goes to bed around 7 or 7:30pm.  A late night is 8pm for him!  Thankfully, I got him to take a nap late in the afternoon and he was a perfect little angel all through trick-or-treating!  It really couldn't have gone better if I'd written the scenario out myself!

Cameron, Owen, Jason, and Brandon--this was the best I could get with all 4 of them.  As you can see, Cameron wasn't a fan of his hood.  Thankfully he left it on just long enough to get a few pictures. 

Is he the cutest little dog or what?  Notice Mickey had to join us for the evening!

The Fire Fighter and his Dalmation Dog

The first house.  Brandon was so cute running with the big boys!  He would say, "Wait for me!" when they got too far ahead of him.

Our little doggie just sat in his stroller cuddling with his blankie and enjoy some Cheerios.  Our little dog even stayed true to his costume at one of the houses when there was a big dog tied up outside barking at him.  He giggled endlessly everytime the dog would bark and then he started barking back at him to get the dog barking even more!  Then he would giggle more!  It was the cutest thing and I wish I'd gotten it on video!

These were on the porch of one of the houses we went to.  I thought the Mr. Potato Head pumpkins were so cute!  And much less messy and easier for little ones than traditional carving.

After the boys collected their loot, we made our way back to Chuck and Dawn's house to enjoy a little dessert that Owen and I had made:

This was Owen's idea and we had so much fun making it together!

Cameron not being much of a cake fan (I'm officially starting to question if he's actually my child), had a ball playing with all the Knox boys' toys.  I couldn't resist how cute he looked in his costume so I had to take a few photos.

I'm pretty sure your house would burn down if this fire fighter was on the job, but isn't he too cute?

I believe this concludes our Halloween festivities.  Who knows, maybe I'll even get Thanksgiving photos up before December starts!  A big thank you to the Knoxes for letting us crash their neighborhood again!

Pumpkin Carving Time!

We couldn't leave the Pumpkin Farm without a pumpkin to carve.  Cody and Owen picked it out and Cody said that as they were looking Owen said, "I have to find one that isn't very dirty because Mommy doesn't like dirt."  He knows his mama well, that boy does.  After finding a relatively clean one, we brought it home and carved it the following week.  Of course, we couldn't make it a jack-o-lantern like most people do.  We had to carve Thomas into it!  (Daddy wasn't nearly as excited about this as Owen was.)

Owen helped scoop the "guts" out, as he called it, and then left all the carving to Daddy.  I believe he was supposed to be the special helper, but I don't think there was much helping going on.

It's hard to see in the light, but it did turn out pretty cool.  The most important part, of course, was that Owen LOVED it!

At the rate Cameron is going with his newfound love of Thomas, I have a feeling this won't be the last Thomas pumpkin Daddy carves!  Next up, costumes!

Carroll's Pumpkin Farm

A town about 20 minutes east of us has a great Pumpkin Farm so we thought that would be a great activity for us to do while Grandma was visiting.  We had a great day for it, save for a bit of wind and some mud leftover from all the rain.  There were a couple of times when we thought our wagon was going to get stuck in the mud on our tour of the patch!  Thankfully it was being pulled by a monster of a tractor and we made it through!  Here are a few highlights from the day...

The World Famous Pumpkin Tree

Owen loved this dog!

Owen and Daddy having fun on the wheelbarrow course.

This was the highlight of Cameron's day.  He laughed and giggled in this swing for the longest time.  He just loved it and it was so cute!

One of the barns has a TMX Trike course.  We soon discovered Owen wasn't quite ready for extreme triking when he fell over trying to get his trike through a tunnel.  No injuries though and he shook it off pretty well!

Owen and Daddy shooting corn through the cannon.

This is what they called a Pumpkin Pillow.  Owen wanted to jump on it but Cody and I were a little leary because it just didn't seem too safe to us.  All we saw when we looked at it were a bunch of broken necks!  I told Owen he could only go on if Daddy went with him and Cody relunctantly agreed.  There are no pictures of them actually on it because I was busy wheeling Cameron around in the stroller!  But they enjoyed it and Owen walked away unscathed.

These next two photos are really for my Mom.  First up, the characters from "Arthur":

And we can't forget Curious George and The Man in the Yellow Hat!

We all really enjoyed ourselves and can't wait to go back again next where we hope Cameron will get to enjoy it and experience it even more!

A Visit From Grandma

Grandma Lynn came to see us a couple of weekends ago.  Cody and I had a wedding reception to attend on October 24th so she was nice enough to make the drive out here and watch the boys for us while we went on a date!  Of course, we still managed to pack a lot of fun activities into the weekend!  First up, Daddy, Grandma, and Owen went to Mariposa (a State Park close to our town) for a Hallooween Hike on Friday night.  It was cold and muddy so we thought it was best that Cameron and I skip out on this one.  But Owen had a ball!!!  They had a bonfire, roasted marshmallows, drew on little pumpkins, and went on a hike where they followed animal tracks! 

Notice Owen is sporting Grandma's glove.  Apparently his mitten was full of sticky marshmallow and Grandma was kind enough to give up her glove.

Cody didn't get a lot of pictures at the hike because it was so dark out there!  Next up, we headed to Owen's soccer game on Saturday morning.  Grandma was so excited to get to see Owen play.  He did pretty well but we're still not sure that soccer is really going to be his "thing."

Cameron sat on my lap for most of the game.  He was content to do so as long as the Cheerios were plentiful and Mommy kept singing, "Thomas Roll Call." 

The fun didn't end here!  After the game we headed over to Grinnell to Carroll's Pumpkin Farm.  There were just too many good pictures from that visit so you'll have to wait for another post!  I promise the wait won't be nearly as long as it has been!  And don't worry, Auntie Gaye, Halloween photos are coming too!