Happy Halloween!

2006

2007

2008

(which slightly resembles 2007)

2009

2010

2011

2012

Happy Halloween!

October Wrap-Up

My October wrap-up actually includes photos dating all the way back to June - oops! I need to do a better job of transferring photos from my phone to my computer in a timely fashion...

Will and Logan at Dylan's birthday party.

Camryn and Hallie at Dylan's birthday party.

Hallie's most recent "project of waste". (Hallie has taken on MANY
projects that one could categorize as wasteful in the last few months.)

Hal's getting pretty good on her balance bike - next up, her "bike girl"
bike with no training wheels! (We're never using training wheels again.)

Tea party at the park.

With actual tea!

On a mission to mail a letter.

"Popcorn sandwich, $1. Popcorn dip, $0.50, Tostido cheese sandwich, $2."
Will and Logan made A LOT of money off their parents that night.

That's a popcorn sandwich.

Debbie Gibson called, she wants the 80's back.

She fell asleep reading about how Peter Parker became Spiderman.

Will and I ended our October date night at the arcade.
He honestly couldn't have been happier.

Thank goodness that pig is stuffed, because I'm not sure a real animal could
survive all the "love" she gives it. (And a real pig certainly wouldn't enjoy
wearing stickers on his face, necklaces around his ankles, and a rain parka.

If you look closely, you can see that Hallie's written, "MOM
DAD WILL HALLIE LOVE HALLIE". With no help at all. Smile.

October's a wrap, now on to November!

Flag Football

Grandpa Mike and Grandma Susie came to visit last weekend, and while they were in town they took Will shopping to pick out his birthday present. He selected a flag football game, which included an awesome football, a tee, and enough flags to outfit a small army. While I captured the action behind the lens of my camera, the boys - and Grandma - ran quite a few plays out in front of our house. I was shocked to discover that Will has mad quarterback skills - the boy can throw a perfect spiral 24 out of 25 times he releases the ball. Of course he has to excel at the one sport I really don't want him to play...

I suppose he can play football as long as he sticks with the flag version...

Snap Happy

Just an afternoon spent hammin' it up with my girl.

Two things struck me when I saw these photos...  First, Hallie and I don't look at all related. Our mouths/lips are similar, but it's hard to tell if that's because they actually are similar or because we're wearing the same lip gloss. Second, when she smiles, Hallie looks so much like my dad when he was a little boy. So maybe she and I are related after all.

She Runs

Up until last week, I hadn't considered Hallie to be all that athletic. Though she played two seasons of soccer, Hallie cared so little about actually participating that it was impossible to tell whether or not she would follow in my shoes as a soccer player. And while she takes gymnastics and dance lessons now, it's still too early to know if Hallie will excel at either one.

I do know, however, that Hallie doesn't love to physically "push" herself, which, while to be expected considering her age, doesn't necessarily bode well for a future as a competitive athlete.

But then I caught a glimpse of her running - and I mean really running - when she thought no one was looking. She ran a third of a mile, without stopping and in flip flops, like this:

Perhaps her sport will be running...yet another example of how she takes after neither one of her parents.

The Birthday Boy Turns 7!

The birthday boy rose bright and early, styled his hair into a mohawk (which I then sprayed with a boatload of hairspray so it would stay "up" throughout the day), and put on his birthday badge. "Someone" had a difficult time accepting that it wasn't also her birthday, so after breakfast she put on her birthday badge as well. I didn't fight it.

In keeping with our "cookies for school, cupcakes at home, and cake for party" tradition, Will brought these fabulous karate ninja cookies - courtesy of Sugar: Cookies, Cakes, and More - to school for snack.

Meanwhile, I spent all of Will's birthday (while he was at school) working on his cake and cupcakes. I kept both the cake and cupcakes simpler this year, primarily because I wanted to try working with fondant for the first time. Thankfully Will loved the finished products and I now feel considerably less intimidated by fondant.

Tom had been out of town the entire week leading up to Will's birthday, but he arrived home shortly after Will's school day and in plenty of time to share in the festivities. Both kids were thrilled to see their daddy, but I think Will's excitement when Tom walked through the door had more to do with finally being allowed to open presents (I must have said, "you have to wait until Daddy gets home to open these!" 25 times that morning) than it did missing his daddy.

Will's birthday happened to fall on his elementary school's Family Movie Night, so after school we enjoyed dinner and a movie with a couple hundred of his closest friends and their families. The highlight - at least for Tom and me - was watching Will do push-ups in the gym to impress a girl.

After Family Movie Night we headed home for cupcakes and candles.

On Saturday morning Tom assembled Will's biggest present...a brand-new bike with gears! Will looked as huge on his first bike as he looks tiny on this bike, even with the bike in it's "smallest" position. Tom had to teach Will how to start riding from a standing position (Will can't touch the ground if his bottom is on the seat), and though Will crashed a few times at first, eventually he got the hang of it and can now ride the new bike like a pro. And because he's too smart for his own good, Will also now seems to understand gears better than I do.

Just for fun, here's a look back at the day Will finally learned how to ride his first bike without training wheels.

We held Will's party at the same location as we did Hallie's birthday party: Hallie's gymnastics gym. All the kids - and the grown-ups - had a great time.

And here's a link to Will's birthday post, which I put up on Chasing Roots.

Happy 7th birthday, Will!