School Halloween Party 2015

 I have never been to a school Halloween party. Usually the teachers send pictures.  It works out better for the kids (especially mine) to not have mom or dad show up because they want to leave with mom/dad and they lose it.  But not this year! I have two big kids now.  They did great!

 I got there just in time for Tommy's class picture.  He was so excited to have me there. 

 Then Charlotte's room started their parade so I headed over to see them.  Charlotte didn't see me watching for a long time.  Also, can you see her sleeves? Her teacher didn't quite get her arms in her sleeves.  Oh well, it's a hard dress to put on! So fancy! ;-)

 I fixed her sleeves while her class got their treat bags out of their cubbies.  How was she the only princess in her class? She wanted to be Aurora badly.  There was no convincing her otherwise.  I made her an octopus costume and she wasn't having it.  Not when she can be "Rora"!

 I sat the teeny tiny table with Charlotte while they waited to Trick or Treat.  Charlotte started to lose it when I started to leave to see Tommy (case in point from why I haven't been to a party yet) but I snuck her some candy and she was instantly fine.  Candy solves all Charlotte's problems right now. 

 I went back over and sat with Tommy while she trick or treated around the school. 

Here comes Charlotte with her buddy Sloanie (you know her from Tommy's buddy Owen, it's his little sis).  She did great! She had a job to do.  Collect more CANDY!! She is obsessed.

 Then it was Tommy's turn to Trick or Treat. 

 When Tommy trick or treated in Charlotte's class, I made him stay for a second so I could get a picture with the two of them.  Charlotte had a mini snickers in her mouth.  Ha! CAAAANNNDDDYYY!! :)

 She's still chewing!

 I went BACK over to Tommy's class.  They were having a piece of candy.  They are adorable. 

 They have 12 in their class.  Preschool teachers are so amazing. I wish I knew their secrets.  Tommy's teacher is especially awesome.  Those kids love what they are doing and it's all because of her!

 This is my favorite picture from the day.  Look at that kid.  Is he not the cutest boy you've ever seen?

Fall Pictures 2015

I have been trying to get at least one family picture of us in our backyard in the fall but I'm not always successful due to hitting the perfect weather while the leaves are the perfect color while we're all available and dressed and not sick... and all the other factors that could be involved.  #longestrunonsentenceEVER

I barely got a picture this year of our prettiest tree. You can see it in the back left of the first picture. Lovely pink and orange.  It's awesome. 

But it goes so quick.  It's was gone by the next weekend. So since the sun came out that weekend, it immediately became Picture Day! Andrew was very gracious to pose for the first picture.  What a stud muffin!!

 As it turns out, Tommy was starting his two week horrible cold/sickness.  Charlotte was just getting over hers.  This made it difficult to take pictures.  He doesn't even like to take them in the first place so add a bad cold to the situation and this is our family picture this year. 

 Don't worry.  We didn't give up.  The kids weren't happy but we kept trying.

 May as well take pictures of the kids throwing a fit.  Still a really nice picture of a fit.  Here you can see the young woodland creature pouting in the magical forest!

We had them throw leaves around.  Nothing adds happiness to situation like throwing leaves.  Love that joy!

 Charlotte HAD to wear her favorite boots.  I love them too.  They are even on the right feet this time.

This picture was as good as it was going to get on that day.  It's really not bad with all the factors we had to go against. 

 Most of our pictures looked like this. I still like them just the same.  Way more character and a lot more memories with pictures like this. 

My brother, Adam, and his gf Emily stopped by while we were trying to take the pictures so he decided to get his GoPro out.  That thing is just amazing.  How cool to have pictures from so many different angles and cameras. 
Also.... we have too many leaves.  It makes our yard look big though! That's nice!

 Nothing makes a kid look like king of his castle like this camera.

 Or a queen!!

 Love that smile.

It was a beautiful day.  Perfect for pictures! The sun shines into the perfect space between those trees at that exact time but only when the sun decides to shine at that time of year.  

 Charlotte took some pictures that day too.  ("So watcha watcha watcha want? So whatchu want?")

 

Then Charlotte said, "ENOUGH" and we were done. 

Our First Non-Busy Weekend in Awhile

We finally had a weekend that wasn't busy.  Now that soccer is over, we just feel like we have so much more time! It's wonderful!

 We have time to sit in boxes...

 Dress up in Mama's clothes...

 Pick out our own clothes for a Target Trip.  Don't they look great? They look like American Gothic, I think.


And make videos for fun!

We also had time to watch movies in Mama and Dada's bed too! So much fun! Thank goodness for downtime.  We really appreciate having nothing to do.  It's the best!

Another Busy Weekend... Last Soccer Game and B-day Parties!

 We had another busy weekend.  Imagine that! First it was Tommy's last soccer game on a cold COLD morning.

 The kids really did pretty well.  We actually purposefully scored a goal!! Tommy did great when he was goalie.

 He kicked it really well several times to start off.

I didn't get one of the good ones on video.  But this is a classic example of one of our soccer games.  The goalie kicks it off and one of our teammates tries to kick it into the wrong goal.  Haha! At the very beginning of the video, you can hear a set of sports parents yelling at their little girl.  They got a little mean.  It was ridiculous.  It was our first experience of bad sports parents screaming at their kids the entire game.  Since she's 5, she immediately shut down and stopped wanting to play and she was one of our best players.  It was pretty sad.  So parents, please don't yell at your kids.  This is supposed to be fun. 

He blocked all but one goal.  He really did great.  He loves that position.

Charlotte had a great time because the siblings of Tommy's other teammates were giving her candy.  Ha! Sugar rush!

She also found a pair of party favor sunglasses in my car.  They look great on her. They've only been stepped on a few times.

After the game, we handed out treat bags with tiny little trophies, bouncy soccer balls, soccer tattoos, and candy.  The kids loved them. It was definitely a learning season but at least they had a little fun too.

 Right after the party, we ate lunch quickly and headed over to Buccaneer Bay for the first birthday party of the day.  His buddy Noah was in his class last year.  They split the kids into two classes and Noah is in the other preschool class.  But he still wanted Tommy at his party.  How nice! I told Noah's mom that Tommy had a soccer game that morning and that we would be late.  I didn't realize we would be almost 2 hours late.  Whoops. 

But luckily, we still had an hour of party time left! Tommy has never been here before and we live a mile away.  He was a little apprehensive of everything at first.  He tried the little slide first.  Whee!

Then he tried the bigger slide.  He did not realize what he would be getting into.  Water on his head??? NOOOOO!!! Haha! He recovered quicker than I thought he would. 

There was so much stuff to do!

What Tommy and Noah spent the most time doing was trying to climb up the slide.  Luckily, there was hardly anyone there so they could take over the park.  They had so much fun together.  It was so cute. 

Side story: So Noah's mom is young and she was wearing a bikini in the pool.  She, Tommy, and Noah were playing around and Tommy grabbed her bikini top string in the back and untied it. Nothing showed but she had to get out of the pool to fix it.  I was mortified.  I gave him a stern 'talking to' and then went over to her to apologize.  She said, "Well maybe this wasn't the best choice of swimsuit for a kid's pool party."  Haha! She was right about that.

 After we got back from Noah's party, we headed down to Westfield for Max and Reese's Donut birthday party.  How fun is that? They had a donut truck frying up fresh donuts right there at their house.  The sad part is that we missed the donut truck.  Waaahhh waahhh.  We were also an hour and 45 minutes to their party.  Bummer.  But we still had donuts! Yum! Charlotte was a big fan!

 The kids also had fun playing. 

 They played in the bounce house, on the swingset, on the playing field.  They had a great time!

 We stayed pretty late at their house.  I felt bad that we were so late and then we stayed late.  We are the worst guests ever! But we haven't seen the Goldmans in a long time.  We really wanted quality time with them!

 Ashley was so kind to put up with us.  She even  offered to make our kids dinner and put up with our high maintenance requests to search through her cabinets to find something for Tommy to eat.  Almond butter and jelly for the win!

Almond butter sandwich smile!

We took off and headed home after that extremely busy day.  We couldn't do anything else the rest of the weekend because we were so exhausted.  What a fun weekend!