Halloween Madness

Here's our SPOOKY ghosts!  I originally had bought a Charlie Brown & Woodstock costume, but Whitney wouldn't have anything to do with something on her head & Tommy kept saying he was going to be a ghost so I made ghost costumes.  After I put it on Tommy he said it was scary & the next day kept saying he was going to be an owl.  He kept telling everyone this & even after Halloween when a nurse asked him what he was he said he was an owl.  Silly boy.

 Tommy was really in to Halloween this year so we got plenty of it.
For once I was done with a holiday when the big day finally past!

 A week before we went to "Boo at the Zoo" where we looked at decorations, carved a pumpkin...

 ..played lots of carnival type games...

...and the kids absolute favorite was the unlimited kiddie rides.  

Whitney was pretty mad every time a ride ended.

Vic got these pumpkins at a pumpkin patch in September so we painted them for the month of October.

 We went down to watch Ben's kids for the weekend so we made sure to have Halloween fun with the cousins too!  We went to their ward's trunk-or-treat. Becky did a fun job with their car.

Tommy & Kiersten

 The next day we took the kids to the zoo where they had more trick-or-treating throughout the zoo.  It was a little bit of madness.  I was worried about the 3 youngest giving us trouble, but what made it hard was that Kara & Kiersten thought they could run off whenever they wanted!  Here I thought I was going through the hard years right now when they may actually be looming ahead!

We also went to the Children's museum (I'll post pictures later)

We made a million paper crafts this weekend & the week leading up to Halloween.  Here is my favorites.  The kids really like these.

The day before we went to another Halloween party at the church for toddlers.  Tommy wouldn't wear his costume, but he thought it was pretty fun.
Tommy was so excited to finally carve the pumpkins & as expected lost a lot of interest when he saw what was inside!

 It was freezing cold on Halloween so we had the kids in multiple layers so others didn't get the full effect of their costumes.  Everyone kept saying Whitney was a cute ballerina. Here they are coming up the walk for their first official trick-or-treat.... all business!

 They loved our house after dark when it was all lit up. They seemed oblivious to the cold.  Notice our pumpkins... we haven't done them for years so I was quite impressed with them when they were all done.  Tommy picked out the crazy eyes & smile for the face & picked out the cat design from a book.

4th of July

Happy 4th of July!  I have always loved the 4th to celebrate everything great about being an American, but 5 years ago this month we moved home from England & can now FULLY appreciate being true blue Americans & loving all of our freedom, choices, & culture.

Here's Whitney ready to go to the parade.

The parade started off with at least 20 fire trucks followed by a million tractors.

I was starting to wonder if they had actual floats when finally this one pulled up... pulled by a tractor!

The kids loved it.  Whitney was permanently pointing at everything that went by.  The parade people must have loved seeing such a little ones out there because they threw LOTS of candy our way.  

Tommy was in heaven.

I was MELTING the entire time & even the kids just sitting there were dripping with sweat.  I looked up the heat later & it was 100 degrees (a record) with a heat index of 118!  

No wonder I was exhausted when I got home!!!

I had little motivation to be too creative this year so I happily made Vic's favorite: fruit pizza.

We went to a friends party & she had these amazing drinks!

Our kids threw water balloons for the first time & loved it.  They went right through the pile in no time!

All the kids had sparklers so I was surprised that Whitney actually wanted one.  As you can see here she just wanted to touch it & blow it out. (both kids are obsessed with blowing out candles)

Fun little star pinata.  Tommy was by far the most aggressive with his wacks. Surprise!

 It was nice that there was a playground right by the fireworks so we played here right up until time for the fireworks to start.  The humidity was up 87% so although it was down to 95 degrees it still felt like way hotter.  Everyone was walking around dripping with sweat... so weird at 10pm!

 I guess people don't like to sit on the sand because once we saw where the fireworks lit off from we walked right down next to the river & sat immediately across from where they set them off with plenty of space everywhere.  It was really nice!  Tommy loved it & Whitney cried at first, but liked it as long as she had a packet of fruit snacks in her hand. (Glad we happened to have the parade treats still with us!)

 We had a few fireworks left over from last year so we let Tommy do those when we got home & he was begging for more so we'll have to grab some more to do later.

Easter Weekend

Eeeek!  Could there be a cuter image of Easter?!?

For Easter Weekend we went to St.Louis to be with my brother Ben's family.  We went to see another part of the zoo on Friday, but my camera was dead so I didn't get any pictures this time.

On Saturday we went to the Children's Museum & I knew as soon as we saw this water room that it would be Tommy's favorite.  I thought it was cute that they even had baby seats for the really little ones.

 His second favorite are was the sand, this inside one & the outside one he could climb in.

 LOVE his smile of pure joy on the train!

 I really LOVE this picture.  I can't get enough of the 5 of these cousins together!  They always have so much fun together & it's guaranteed mass chaos & giggles :)

 Here we are decorating eggs.  Tommy was really excited until he got shooed away from the dye too often so his interest didn't last as long as the girls' did. 

 Cute picture of Vic & Whitney.

 Love this picture of Tommy & Whitney's outfit... not as much her cry face when she has to sit by Tommy!!

 Tommy thought it was a joke to put eggs in the basket.  He didn't know why Kara & Kiersten were running around like mad, but he knew he wanted to chase them so he was more interested in running than hunting!!

 The 3 girls egg hunting as they should & me chasing my wild boy around trying to convince him to come find some eggs. ha :)

 Whitney was so adorable in her dress & her cautious little nature.

 She really likes her very own pink car.

 I was trying to get Tommy excited about finding more stuff so I had him open a few eggs so he could see there was yummy candy inside.  He opened one & ate the marshmallow, then opened the next one & found a dollar bill inside.  He stared at it quizzically & then shoved it in his mouth!  Haha, poor thing couldn't figure out why there would be boring paper inside an egg. 

 Our chaotic family & our spoils.

 This is my favorite memory of Easter... the crazy piles of goodies & checking out the loot!

 We ended the weekend having the kids play with their new toys & us playing Becky's new game.  Time always flies when we are with family.  It is always SO much fun!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!!!  

How could we not bring in the new year on a good note with these 2 cheesers?!?

We planned on these two being in bed by midnight, but they must have known there was a midnight party coming because here they are at midnight happy as can be!

We went to Olive Garden on New Year's Eve. Tommy was so cute drumming those 2 bread sticks and as soon as I pulled the camera out he dropped them & shoved his hand by his mouth... when has he ever been camera shy?!

Whitney got a lot of compliments on her party dress. It has lots of fun sequence all over it that you can't see in this picture.

We didn't know anyone yet so we went to Faith Community Church and they had free swimming, sports, movies, a game room, and board games so we jumped in on game of Ticket to Ride with a couple people & another family that moved here only a few days after we did!

Vic was too busy with KMart during Christmas so we did our gingerbread houses really late!  I was so impressed with Tommy as I put the house together w/ the snow and he put the rest of the stickers on.  It looked really good a few minutes before this and he started adding and taking away in a destructive way so I hurried and snapped a picture!

We really got our money's worth out of this gingerbread house.  Here it is a few days later with the stickers rearranged a bit... and yes that is a train stuck in the side of the house! 

I snuck up on him a bit later and found him rearranging again.

The close up of his art work.  He is such a BOY!

Here is the final day of his house.  I thought it was cute he made it into a train house (I guess he was pretty determined to make that train get in there somehow!)  After this it was a tunnel, but it wasn't very sturdy so that didn't last long & Whitney kept trying to eat the leftover pieces so it finally made it to the trash!

We tried making a real gingerbread house and as you can see that didn't go over too well.  Now I see why people just hot glue the house together.  The frosting didn't do much & it drooped all over.... and Tommy wasn't as helpful with this house because all he wanted to do was eat it!

We had a train show come through Indianapolis and Tommy is obsessed with trains so we just had to drive down there.  Here he is with wooden trains.  I love wooden trains.  It is wonderful to see all that talent & detail that is put into them. 

They had a million Thomas the Train tracks & trains for the kids to play with.  Tommy was in heaven.

When we got home we got his out that we thought he was too young for and he LOVED it for day.  Then Whitney showed too much interest so he hid it and 2 weeks later we still can't find it! 

Tommy's favorite part was this underground train that made noises and had buttons for him to push and pick which train was going to come out of the tunnel.  He didn't take his paw off the pad for at least 20 minutes.  I had no idea he was so obsessed with tunnels until we came here. 

Another one of Tommy's favorite exhibits.  I made tunnels out of his mega blocks after this and he loves that! 

I couldn't have a post without Whitney!!  Here is her last picture before she got her hair cut!  She was having a ball in her jumper this day and we got some pretty cute video of her.