Monday, October 27, 2014

Painting Pumpkins

One of my favorite fall traditions to do with the boys is painting pumpkins! It's a little easier and more relaxed than carving (Which we still do closer to Halloween, and with Daddy's help!) and we also get to do it a little earlier and put the pumpkins out without worrying about them going bad.


Normally I get a few small pumpkins (like the baby ones) for the boys to paint, and a few big ones for carving, but this year L's pre-K class had a Pumpkin Patch day and he got to choose his own big pumpkin. He is super proud of it, and was adamant that he did not want to carve a jack-o-lantern, he wanted to paint it.


So, today while the boys were at school, I went over to Sprouts and picked up the rest of our pumpkins and hit Target for some paint (Glitter Paint, for the win!!!) and even managed to bribe them all down for good naps with the promise of pumpkin painting afterwards!


This is how Daddy found us when he got home…. sitting in the front driveway, covered in paint and his boys proudly displaying their art for him! Even R sat and painted for a few minutes, but then he became much more interested in painting himself! 



I think our cute little pumpkin family turned out great! They will look perfect on our porch, next to our carved Jack-O-Lanterns that we will do later this week!!!

(The big pumpkin is L's, the one on the left is mine, the middle one is L2's and the one on the right is R's!!!)

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Caps for Sale!

Caps for Sale!!!

Seriously, have you guys ever read that book? If you have little kids, and you haven't, go out and get it. It's super cute!!!

L's pre-K class choose this book as their theme for the "Fall Celebration" parade that the school put on. (On a side note, am I the only one that thinks it's a little dumb we just can't celebrate Halloween anymore?)  Anyway, the kids had to dress up as characters in the book, either a peddler or a monkey. At first I thought L would want to be a monkey, but all the little boys in the class were so excited to dress up as peddlers!!!




It ended up being a pretty easy costume to throw together. I had a some dress pants and a vest for him so I just had to buy a bow tie and a cap and we ended up with the cutest little peddler every!!!



It was a pretty great day. Not only was this L2's bday, I also spent the morning helping out in L's class. I've been meaning to go in and volunteer forever and just hadn't gotten around to it, but I had a blast! I think I'm going to try to make it a weekly thing. Plus, L loved having me in the class. The fact that he was so proud to have his mama there melted me heart, and I know it won't always be like that so I'm going to soak in these moments while I can!!!



After the parade I went and picked L2 up early from school and then we went and got pizza for L'2 class and went and had lunch with them. L was pretty excited to show off L2 and tell everyone it was his birthday, and L2 got such a kick out of hanging out with the older kids!!!

(Seriously, isn't he adorable!?!?!)

Hope everyone had a great weekend! L2 has spirit week at school this week, we have two doctor appointments, and we have to get ready for Halloween and R's first birthday!!! It's going to be busy!!!

Friday, October 24, 2014

Happy third birthday, L2!!!

Happy third birthday to my sweet L2!!!!


I can't believe my middle baby is three years old! It feels like yesterday that we brought you home from the hospital, and now you are this little man!


By the way, trying to take a cute birthday picture of a three year old? It's pretty much impossible.

We started our day with blueberry muffins. L2 is definitely not a morning person at this point, so getting him for school is always a challenge. Blueberry muffins seemed to help! We also picked up some cookies for him to take for his preschool class!

So let's see…. what is L2 doing at three years old? well, he's in his first year of preschool, and we are working on speech since he is in speech therapy right now. I get glowing reports from his teacher about how sweet and easy he is, which is nice to hear. At home, however, I would definitely say we are deep into the "terrible threes". L was hard at three too, and L2 seems to be following suite. We are potty training and trying to manage tantrums and his new favorite word, which is "no." That's OK though, he's still a pretty great kid!

I spent the day at L's school (which is another post) and picked up L2 early so he could come with me eat lunch at L's school. He loved getting to hang out with the bigger kids!!!

We didn't do a party this year, but we had our friends over and had pizza and cupcakes and the kids got to go crazy playing!!!



We have some great friends that have a son the same age as L and another son the same age as L2…. it works out well.





Happy birthday L2!! We love you!!!

Sunday, October 19, 2014

October Camping Trip

This is where we spent our weekend:



Pretty, right?  We packed up Friday afternoon and drove up north to Lake Pleasant for the weekend. It is probably our last camping trip of the season (although it was so warm this weekend we might be able to make it one more time…. we will see!) It was nice to get out of town for the weekend, and even though the thought of camping with three kids under 5 always makes me feel a little nervous, we had a great weekend and the kids had a great time too!





 We got up around lunch on Friday and after setting up camp and eating lunch we headed down to the lake and and fished and let L swim/splash around for a bit. The lake was super low, which was too bad. The campsite we were in is where we always stay, and normally we are right on the water, but this time we had to actually walk down aways. It was really nice weather though. We had figured it would be nice during the day and then get cold at night, but it really stayed warm all day and night. It was prefect to sit by the fire at night but not so cold that you were freezing when you went to bed and woke up!





The boys had a blast playing in the campsite and were pretty wiped out by the end of the day, so we put them to bed a little early and S and I had a nice time sitting by the fire and having a beer and talking.
 (L2 was a big fan of s'mores . L kept telling us he doesn't like smores, however he does like marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers. Go figure)





The boys woke up early on Saturday and S took them out and let me sleep for a bit, which was really nice of him. I don't sleep great when we are not at home so it was nice to get an extra half an hour in the morning. S made french toast and hot chocolate and then we decided to drive around the lake a bit, just to get out of the campsite. We found a nice little area that we could let L swim again and S fished a little more. After that we headed back to camp for lunch and then our friends came up to spend the afternoon with us. I wish they could have come for the weekend, but it's so nice that were we camp is close enough that they could come and spend the afternoon!










The boys had an absolute blast playing and the adults had some time to sit and catch up and watch the kids play!

 (the boys. I love that they have these friends!!)







After our friends left we made another delicious dinner (carne asada tacos!!!) and, of course, smores. The kids went to bed pretty early again and S and I actually did too….. camping is fun, but it's also a little exhausting!!!

And, here's my funny camping story: As I said, I'm a pretty light sleeper. Well, around 2:30 am I woke up heard "Someone" walking around our campsite. I listened and heard them rustling around in our stuff and then I heard a cooler open. Of course, my first though was that some drunk camper from another site had wandered over and was trying to steal our beer, and I was not OK with that! I yelled from in the camper to "get out of our stuff" and then yelled at S to get up. We burst out of the camper, but no one was there. I was sure I heard something, but no one was there. After a few minutes we decided to go to bed, but I decided to walk to the bathrooms first. I walked out to the road and ran straight into a…… donkey!!! Yep, our midnight thief was a donkey!!!  I'm pretty sure S is still laughing at me for freaking out like I did!











Anyway, we came back today and are ready (kind of) to get back to real life tomorrow!!!!