Haunted hayride

We had a blast at the haunted hayride on Bainbridge last night. It was about 40 minutes long and we saw ghosts, sea monsters and even an oddly placed Frozen collaboration. I'm sure the kids will want to tell you all about it. They loved it!

The logistics were tricky. We went to swimming lessons and changed into costumes there. Then we had dinner at Wendy's on the way and got there just in time for the ride. It was pouring! The kids were good sports and the hayride and a few activites like Dr. Franken's lab were covered. We didn't get home until about 8:40 and the kids were begging to go to bed. This was the best pic I got of our kiddos. I'll get some better ones in the next few nights of dressing up. 

Leo's school picture came home today. Doesn't he look so old?! I scheduled conferences for both the boys. They will be mid-November and I"m anxious to hear how they're doing. 

Here's a closeup of Ivy's favorite new hairstyle. What a cutie!

This sign makes me laugh. I thought it might make you smile, too. Oh, I'm considering joining a church in East Bremerton. I guess we should discuss that.

Love and miss you. Hope to hear from you soon.

Regular old Tuesday

 Today was a pretty normal day around here, but you said you like seeing the kids even if we're not doing anything extraordinary so I took some pictures for you.

The littles had fun in the tub this morning. These two look so alike - especially in their birthday suits with their hair slicked back!

Ivy's changing table is weirdly Auggie's favorite place to nap during the day. After bath, Ivy got some snuggles in. Auggie purred!

It was another beautiful day here so we walked down to the bus stop in the afternoon to get the big guys. Archie was so cute and gave his seat up to the seahorse.  Can you see Ivy's pigtails? I think it's her new look since her hairs getting pretty long and a little crazy.

This is a Japanese maple right by the park. It is such a beautiful fall color right now so I made Archie pose under it. 

The bigs had piano tonight and it was my first time in the room. Dr. Bowling said I need to work with the boys learning their notes on their left hand in C position now. Then she asked if I could read music... 

We spray painted Wilson's gun today since we need to be ready to dress up the next four nights in a row! He is thrilled with it.

Here is Cy's baby announcement. I've had it a week or so, but ran across it while cleaning and thought you'd like to see it. It's on our fridge now. We got him those fox jammies :)

Wilson's school picture came today. I ordered the cd, so it came with all the backgrounds to choose. Most of them are the weird splotchy colors that they've had since our youth. I thought this one was funny. He looks pretty cute except for whatever is happening with that bottom lip. I'm 90% happy with it. We also got his class picture and he is seated front row with a hole in his jeans. I thought if I had the waist up looking good I was alright...

Love you, babe. Tomorrow is the haunted hay ride and they kids' first dress up. They are super excited as you can imagine!

Chewy's new do

Sorry bud.

Zoo and pumpkin carving

Weather.com told me the morning would be lovely and the afternoon kinda rainy, so we got going early this morning to go to the Point Defiance Zoo. This was a cute moment when I told the kids to get their socks on and come back downstairs. They didn't come back so I went looking for them and this is what I found... Wilson was reading to Archie and Leo was playing Yoda with Ivy. So sweet.

The weather at the zoo did turn out awesome - it was super sunny. Archie stole my sunglasses and when I asked him to pose for a picture in them this is what I got.

The zoo was kinda decorated for Halloween and each animal had pumpkins in their area. Can you see the tiger's pumpkin? The kids thought it was hilarious.

The boys found some coffins and they posed...

and posed...

The highlight of our time there was the animal talk. Wilson is so funny to sit next to at these things now. The anteater came out and I was like, Wow, Wilson did you notice how long his tongue is? He answers, Yep, 16 inches. A few seconds later, the zoo keeper tells the crowd their tongues are 16 inches long... 

 

This is what our kids did every time the keeper asked if there were any questions...

 And, finally, we hit up the cool park they have there.

When we got home, it was time to carve pumpkins! Wilson and Leo were very adamant about actually carving them this year, so I found some carving kits for them to use. Boy did they love them. Yep, that's a knife that Wilson's super proud of.

We also found some cute decorations for the littles. Archie picked the mummy and all the boys picked the cat for Ivy. 

Didn't they do a great job? They worked pretty hard and spent a couple hours on them. Leo's is a scary face with a bat mouth. Wilson chose an owl in front of the moon. I was super impressed and they honestly did about 90% of them on their own. I know pumpkin carving isn't exactly your favorite holiday tradition, but you were missed!

Hope your day off was fun, too. Love you!

Lazy Saturday

It's so funny you didn't know which kid was Elmo in the last blog because Archie's been borrowing Ivy's carebear costume all day. He put it on this morning first thing and was asking me to get mine on. I finally did and he was so happy. What a cutie!

The weather was so lovely today, so we played outside most of the day. I stalked Josh's coming and going and got the wood cut to FINALLY finished the shutters. Don't they look great? I'm really happy with them. We made a run to Home Depot tonight and got the hinges and paint to totally finish them. I will probably need Josh's help to hang them but I plan on painting them asap. 

Our door is looking pretty festive...

While we were out today, we picked up more of the Halloween village houses. Leo picked a large hotel and Wilson got the tree house. They are really love them!

Miss you mucho!

Voted!

It felt great to vote today. Thanks for the shirt so I could remember who to pick :) I wish the picture was better, but I felt a bit weird doing selfies with people coming in and out...

We spent a few hours at the Y this morning. Archie is still loving his preschool class. Here is a picture of Ivy in her music class. Today, she spent the first 20 minutes just watching everyone but had some fun at the end of class when they broke out the parachute and scarves. 

After school the boys started work on their haunted houses. They spent a couple hours working on them and had a lot of fun.

I got a few costumes to choose from, so I tried them on for the kids today. 

Here is the second place finisher. 

The kids all got cards from your parents in the mail today. They thought the cards were pretty funny.

After dinner, we went on a walk to see some decorations. Only three houses decorated for Halloween in our neighborhood this year! One of them was kinda cutesy, old lady scarecrows that the boys weren't too impressed with. Here are the boys trampling Camden's yard to check out their decorations. Wish we had more to check out! I want to take them to the haunted fairgrounds, but I think it might be too scary for the littles.

Once I got the kids down, I watched a PBS special called Hamilton's America. It was all about the musical so I was nerding out a bit. It was really good.

Nice talking with you today...love you lots.

Debate

Guess what we did tonight?

  The boys had their swimming lessons tonight until 5:40, so after that we hurried home and grabbed pizza and a redbox on the way. We ate and the kids headed upstairs to watch their movie, Mostly Ghosts or something. I was really thinking about how nice it'd be to have you here tonight with pizza and a few beers. You were missed!

Right before bedtime the doorbell rang and the boys raced to see who it was. Well, we were "boo"ed with the biggest boo basket you've ever seen. The kids partied - - I really like the boys' poses here :)

Miss me? I realized I'm not in one picture yet. So, here I am in my favorite pjs working on the blog. Xoxo.

Auggie

Here's so you don't get jealous of your friend with the daily dog pics...

Swimming and some fun

 You heard all about the swim lessons, and here is Archie on his own and loving it during the lesson. This was taken right before a lifeguard told me no pictures allowed in the Y... what? I guess you won't be getting any more pictures from there. Wilson was disappointed because he had a plan to pose under the Minnow banner. Just imagine him looking VERY proud to be a Minnow now :)

During Wilson's lesson, Leo and I had some one on one time to work on his reading. Still struggling when he doesn't get the words right away, but we're working on it.

Can you see the ketchup on Ivy's nose? The boys were calling her Rudolph and she was really hamming it up. I think she's got a good sense of humor!

The boys got their new Silverdale Elementary sweatshirts last night and were SO excited to wear them today. Archie really wanted to get his fake smile in the picture and I didn't have the heart to kick him out.

Here is Leo acting as a waiter outside. You called while we were enjoying the beautiful, if a bit chilly, weather. Sorry the call dropped! Wilson said Ivy might have pushed the button? I will supervise better next time. Wilson especially was really happy to talk to you.

Here's the sign for Leo's lemonade stand. He's really excited about it. Did you notice a lot of pictures of him? His new thing is to say, "Get a picture for Dad!" whenever he's doing something fun. What a sweetie - always thinking about you...

Love and miss you, babe! Booked the tickets for Vegas - $72 a person for roundtrip and nonstop, woot woot!