Early Halloween

A few weekends ago Phil had to work, and on Sunday the base had a family day to celebrate Halloween.  So I decked the boys out in their costumes,  met up with Phil at work, and we went trick-or-treating on base.  It was a gorgeous day and the boys had a fun time wearing their costumes, getting candy, and playing in the squadron.

My friend, Andrea, has 4-year-old twin boys and last year they dressed up as trains for Halloween.  And not just any trains... characters from the Thomas the Tank Engine series.  Since my boys love the Thomas trains almost as much as Andrea's boys, I asked her if she would mind if I stole her train idea for the boys this year.  Of course she said it was fine, and her boys actually went as trains again this year, too.  We made the train parts out of cardboard boxes, most of which we were able to find at Costco for free.  Emmett and Jackson were the characters that Andrea's boys were last year, so she was able to help me a lot with the construction of the costumes.  Jackson is Thomas, Emmett is Toby the Steam Tram (he looks a lot like a box car), and Andrea's boys are Gordon and Henry, the biggest engines.  :)  I thought they all looked absolutely adorable in their get-ups!

Here are the boys the night that we cut the holes for their head and arms.  I was SO afraid that Jackson wouldn't wear the box, since he's usually timid about things, but all we had to do was offer him an M&M to try it on the first time and then he loved it.  

This is what Jackson did when I asked him to turn to the side...

I loved them in the boxes even before they were decorated!  And here they are before we left for the base...

I love these next two pictures of Jackson looking cross-eyed at Thomas's funnel...

Emmett wasn't a huge fan of wearing the box, but he really loves looking at Toby.  Every time he sees it he yells and points.  :)

Here are a bunch of other fun pics from the day...

The boys also had train hats to go with their overalls, but the ones I bought were adult size and way big on them.  They would fall down when the boys walked and make it hard for them to see, so they didn't wear them very long.  

"Toby" got a little frustrated because his hands couldn't reach his mouth to allow him to munch on pretzels, so to avoid a major meltdown we took the box off for a while.  :)

Here we all are after meeting up with our other train friends, "Gordon" and "Henry".  This picture was taken right before "Toby" tripped and fell face-forward.  It was the funniest thing!  The front of the box landed smack on the ground and his feet were still on the ground, but his head and arms were sticking straight out from the holes.  Everyone around us was laughing!!  Luckily, E wasn't hurt at all and we could laugh without feeling too guilty. :)

We wanted to get a picture of all of the trains in a line, but since we were walking quite a long way around the base Emmett didn't wear Toby very often.  We had to carry E a lot and it's pretty impossible to carry him with the Toby costume on.  Plus, like I said earlier, he didn't love wearing the box for very long.  :)  So we settled for a picture of three of the four.  I was really proud of Thomas and Toby until I saw how well Gordon and Henry were constructed!  They looked awesome!

After this picture, the boys were d.o.n.e with the costumes and we met some firemen, got a pumpkin, and left to get some lunch.  It was a fun morning, and it was great to be able to spend a working Sunday with Dad!

I just have to end by saying the Emmett is not nearly as grumpy as he looks in all of the pictures I've posted lately!  I was just reading over this post and realized that he's hardly smiling in any of them!  He's usually very happy and goofy... I guess he's just not into smiling for pictures nowadays.  Just didn't want you to think he was depressed or something.   :)

Bowling

Just wanted to share a few cute pictures from when we went bowling a few weeks ago.  The boys loooooove to bowl and it's one of the only things we can do as a family in yucky weather in this town.

And here's a little video.  Notice Emmett's stompy dance.  He does that whenever he's excited or impatient about something.  :)


Untitled from Heather G on Vimeo.

Pumpkin Patch and Carving Party

Phil got to go to Denver this past weekend to do a flyby for the Broncos' game on Sunday, so it was just the boys and me for four days.  I tried to sit down and do a blog several times, but just couldn't get around to it.  Anyway, we had a pretty good weekend here at home even though the weather was terrible (40s and raining) and we were stuck inside almost all weekend.  We had a little break from the rain on Saturday, so I took the boys to a pumpkin patch to get a few pictures and let J pick out a pumpkin to paint at school today.  The rain stayed away for the most part, but the wind was blowing like crazy and it was pretty cold!  So we petted some animals for a few minutes, checked out the horses they had there, took a few quick pictures, picked out two pumpkins, and were out of there.

Emmett was a little grumpy at the patch, but not as much as he looks in those last two pictures!  It was getting close to lunch and naptime.

That evening we went to a pumpkin carving party at a friend's house.  The hosts had about 20 good-sized pumpkins in their garden this year, so they invited us over to make good use of them.  We had a great time, even though the weather was still atrocious.  It was actually raining at this point and about 35 degrees.  They had a covered carport, so we were able to carve out of the rain, but it was still really cold!  I did the fastest carving of my life!  I wanted to let Jackson help more, but I was in a hurry to get in out of the cold and get the boys out of the rain.  As you can imagine, Emmett loved running around in the rain and found a hill of gravel/dirt/mud to run and fall up and down on.  Luckily, he didn't get too dirty.

The jack-o-lanterns turned out really nicely!

After carving we all went inside to eat and play.  The brave hostess had 13 kids under 5 in her house!!

I tried really hard to keep an eye on my two so they didn't make a huge mess.  There was a train table there so that's where J and E played most of the time.  Phil and I know one thing the boys are getting for Christmas now!  They loved that table.

After dinner we put on the Charlie Brown Great Pumpkin movie and all of the kiddos zoned out and were quiet for about 7 minutes.

It was a fun time and a great way to pass a rainy, yucky Saturday evening.  And Phil got home safe and sound on Monday night.  Yay!!
P.S.  The boys were only wearing half of their costumes.  Stay tuned for pictures of the best part!

ABCs and Blanket Babies

Jackson has been singing so much more since he started school.  He has always liked listening to singing, but would never do it himself.  Now I'll hear him singing all on his own sometimes and he asks to sing with me all the time lately.  Here he is "singing" his ABCs by himself for the first time...

Untitled from Heather G on Vimeo.

Okay, so it wasn't so much singing as reciting, but he's still never done that before!  And please excuse the outfit - this was right after naptime.  :)

We all went to "town" on Monday and both boys fell asleep in the car on the way there.  I love to watch them sleep but never get to, so I love it when they sleep in the car and I can stare at them as long as I want (when I'm not the driver, of course).  They both love their blankies so much.  They carry them all over the house and we always have to have them with us on a trip.  Jackson ended up putting his over his head in the car and fell asleep that way...

And here's Emmett... quiet and peaceful for once!!  :)

    

New Developments

1.  We now have to keep our bathroom door locked to prevent Emmett from going in there and taking bites out of my deodorant and dragging my toothbrush and toothpaste all over the house.

2.  Jackson doesn't need pull-ups during naps anymore!  His pull-up has been dry after naps almost since he started potty training, so we finally decided to just not put one on him anymore.  I'm sure it's much more comfortable to sleep in.  Unfortunately, I don't think he's close to not needing one at night anymore.  :)

3.  Who knew that a bottle of soap could be such an exciting thing?  I bought Jackson one of those Dora the Explorer bottles of foamy soap to wash his hands with and he thinks it's the best thing ever.  He doesn't know who Dora is, but asks me every time we wash who that is on the bottle.  He even made Phil go into the bathroom after work yesterday to look at his new soap.  :)  I also bought a great big old-wooden-icebox-turned-into-a-footstool at an antique store this weekend and now J can reach the faucet himself.  And, thanks mostly to school, he can now wash his hands all by himself!  I still supervise, though, due to my handwashing OCD.

4.  The boys have discovered a hidden dirt pile on the side of the garage.  We have a sandbox that we have to keep closed most of the time because Emmett eats the sand constantly (and the "sand" we get out here is really just like dirt), but the boys love to play in dirt.  They were playing out in the backyard today while I cleaned up the kitchen and all of a sudden I noticed that it was quiet and they weren't in the backyard anymore.  I thought for sure they had gone around to the side of the house and were playing in the garage, but when I went out there I saw this:

 

There's some dirt and rocks on the side of our house between the asphalt and the fence and the boys were in heaven.  Jackson was pouring dirt on his head and Emmett was sitting in the dirt and eating handfuls of it.  All in the few minutes that it took for me to get out there!!  AAGGHH!  I can't turn my back for a second!

5.  Jackson is talking so much now! I don't know if it's from being at school or just getting older, but we love hearing all that he has to say.  Just a little bit ago I suggested we make cookies and he walked over to the cabinet where I keep my bowls, opened it, and said, "How 'bout we use one of those bowls? That's a good idea!  Let's use one of those!"  I know that's not funny or especially cute or anything, but it's so neat to hear him talking like a big boy.  :)  One of our favorite things right now is that whenever we tell him he can't do something he says one of three things... either "It's too spicy" or "It's weewy dirty" or "It's too noisy."  And to hear him say (totally unsolicited), "Oh, Mommy, I wuv you so much," makes me absolutely melt every time.

6.  The further along in this pregnancy I get, the more sure I am that I will NOT be pregnant again.  It is hard being pregnant with two other young kids, especially two very active boys.  Lately I've been totally exhausted at the end of each day and my back is constantly killing me.  I cannot even imagine being pregnant with all three boys running around.  Kudos to those moms that have lots of kids... I think I'm done!

7.  The boys love the shower.  Emmett has always loved it, but it's taken Jackson three years to get into the shower with Phil.  He finally did out of the blue the other day and now he can't get enough!  He says the whole time he's in there that it's just like a water park.

8.  I started taking Jackson to gymnastics once a week.  Actually, it's just a tumbling class, but he really loves it.  The first week he was really shy and didn't want to participate much.  Now he'll try almost anything.  He really loves one of the ladies that works there and will do almost anything she asks.  And it's really neat to see him using different muscles to do things he normally doesn't do and see how he improves every week.  I almost didn't go back after the first class, though... Emmett was CRAZY!  He truly is my challenging one right now and he basically just runs all over the place the whole time we're there.  The first week I thought I had to try to make him do what the other kids were doing, but now I know that it's okay if he just runs around so that makes it a little easier.  Every week I mean to take pictures, but with helping Jackson do the activities... and making sure he doesn't get hurt... and trying to keep him focused... and chasing Emmett back into the room... and making sure E doesn't drink someone's soda or call on someone's cell phone... and pulling E off of the equipment to give other kids a turn... and trying to interest E in something else when he really wants to do what I just pulled him off of... and making sure E doesn't pull everything out of my purse.... I just haven't managed to take a single picture!!  Maybe next week.

9.  Jackson is still loving school!  He crawled into my bed on Tuesday morning and the first thing he said was, "Mom, I ready to go to school!"  He had his first school picture day on Tuesday and he wanted me to take a picture before we left the house, but then he wouldn't look at the camera.  :)  These are the best that I got...

10.  Just wanted to share what my family room looks like on a daily basis.  I try hard to keep up with the toys strewn all over, but keeping the pillows and blanket on the couch and chairs is a lost cause.  I must pick these up 15 times a day.  And notice how the pumpkins on the fireplace are all mixed up and turned around and one of them is missing.  Boys!!!

Well, the boys are both up from their naps early... looks like I'm in store for a fun afternoon!!  Here's a cute video for the road...


Untitled from Heather Gilcreast on Vimeo.