2012 Pumpkins

I'm not sure how I posted about Halloween and didn't include our pumpkin pictures! But, better late than never.

We've been painting pumpkins for Halloween ever since Caroline was a baby. It's our family tradition.

Caroline said her's was "an ugly lady. She belongs to the Ugly Ladies Club".

Miles was old enough to join in and he loved it.

Mine is the one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater. Dave, as usual, takes the cake with his Frankenstein pumpkin. He's obviously the family artist!

This year we started a new tradition by having caramel apples for dessert on our pumpkin painting night. We decided to go with apple slice kabobs - better carmel to apple ratio that way :)

Halloween 2012

I was really excited for Halloween this year. I thought Miles would be old enough to "get it" and he...sort of was :)

Miles had lots of costume options thanks to some hand-me-downs from cousins. Unfortunately, I underestimated my sons' rate of growth and they didn't fit. Luckily, we already had this cute rain slicker that a friend gave Caroline when she was this age and the Dollar Tree had the helmet. Voila: fireman. He loved it. He watches a show on Netflix called "Fireman Sam" so he totally knew what he was all about :)

As usual, Caroline decided what she wanted to be months ago. I figured a peacock-like dress/skirt would be easy enough, but had no idea how to do the feathers. I wish I had taken a picture of the back! It was pretty cool and we had fun making it. I especially love the headband. She was definately the only peacock we saw!

I think Caroline's favorite part of Halloween is that she gets to wear make-up :)

Miles would NOT look at the camera! He does look awfully tough, doesn't he? Thanks to falling face-first on the bricks the day before, he had some authentic scrapes on his face. Hey, what's Halloween without some blood, right?

Boys boys boys

I was a mother of one girl for over five years. Now I spend a few days a week at home with three little boys!

Even Miles love Target.

Last week I filled the swimming pool with rice crispies and buried little dollar store toys for the boys to dig through. They had a lot of fun, and then the dog ate most of the spills :)

I love how easy boys are to please. Little cars and airplanes make them so happy!

Miles loves play doh now. I've started making my own and love how soft it is.

This is a rare moment when these two actually shared the caterpillar. A lot of my time is spent resolving disputes between two kids who want the same thing!

I think it's good for Miles to have some other kids around. It gives him an opportunity to learn that he's not the only kid in the universe! Life requires occasional sharing and waiting!

Disney on Ice!

A few weeks ago we had a super-fun girls activity with some of Caroline's cousins and aunties at Disney on Ice! It was so great and even better that we got to share it with such fun girls!

So excited! I didn't tell her until right before she left and she was jumping up and down with glee!

It was a great show. We went to a Disney on Ice a few years ago, but this one was all princesses - very fun for a girl's day out. We had a blast!

Mail is fun

Dave's parents sent the kids a package for Halloween.

It.Was.Awesome.

Fall Break

We spent a few days of Caroline's Fall Break in Gilbert. It was nice to get away as a family and do some fun things and hang out with some fun people. I love that we live close to our families now. We used to only see our siblings and nieces and nephews once a year, maybe less. It's so great to be a short ride from most of them now.

Caroline and her cousin Lucy. After I took the picture and showed it to them, they said "we looked like twins!"

Uncle Jeff used some of his fancy hair products to give Miles a mohawk - I thought it was pretty cute.

We spent a couple of days checking out some Phoenix attractions that we've never been to before. We went to the Phoenix Children's Museum one morning. Other than being too expensive, it was great :) Miles wanted to stay in the car/racetrack section all day.

We also went to the Sea Life Aquarium in the Mills Mall. It was neat and the kids loved it.

Miles kept trying to kiss things through the glass! So funny!

We also took our first trip to Ikea - thanks to Karen for being our guide :)

It was a great little get-away. I'm always proud of us when we do new things - we're kind of a stick-to-the-familiar sort of family.