Halloween 2010

We had a super fun Halloween weekend! Saturday morning we got up and decided to take the kids to Gardner Village to see the witches. We were early enough that we beat the crowds that swarm the day before Halloween. It was a great way to start the day!

The Ducks are our Favorite Part!

Dancing With the Witches

We had a wonderful lunch at Archibald's. I love that place! They even had the restaurant decorated for Halloween with little spiders hanging from the lights. Zack and Lexi had fun reaching for the spider. Zack even drew a spider family for our new friend.

That night we got the kids dressed up for the tricks and treats. (Ok, it was mostly treats!) Zack was Dash from The Incredibles, and Lexi was a prettyful princess. She loves her new costume.

Despite the cold and rain we had a great time. For Lexi's first official Trick-or-Treating, she sure caught on fast. She had been asking to go all week. I don't think she even realized that she was getting candy at each house until the next morning. She had a blast running from door-to-door following her brother.
Spending time with my family is the best part of any holiday!

Flashback Friday: Zack is a Super Hero!

Aaron was really excited when Zack was finally old enough to truly appreciate super heroes. He has always been eager to teach him all he wants to know. Zack loves to soak it up. You may remember the post (clicky if you don't) I did last year about Zack pretending to be a super hero. Yesterday Aaron was cleaning a few things off the computer and started playing in the photo albums and found this little nugget of gold.

I think we sometimes forget how small and cy-oot he used to be!

He still loves super heroes, and loves to pretend to be anything from Superman, Batman and Spider-Man. He likes to get t-shirts of them, and was pretty excited to get a toy of The Thing from Fantastic Four the other day. Aaron is now excited because Zack is old enough to appreciate sitting down to watch these movies with him. It's great to have this little super hero in my life to help me!

Art Time!

One of the things that used to bum me out was that Zack didn't like to color. He didn't care for it for longer than about 30 seconds of scribbling. Now that he's learning to write, he's more interested in drawing.
Lexi, on the other hand, loooooves to color.

Since Zack didn't much like to color, we never needed to worry about leaving crayons within reach. Nothing ever got colored on that wasn't supposed to with him. And now that he's starting to show an interest in it all, he knows better. The other day, we learned that we should know better than to leave a box of crayons on the table.

Do you think she's trying to help me with my redecorating? Turkey Girl.

All About Zack

Zack starts his second year of preschool this week and we get to meet his new teacher tomorrow. One of the things we are supposed to bring with us, is a paper All About Me. I had Zack sit down with me and fill this out. I let him write his name on the top, all by himself. Then I asked him the questions and he told me what to write for everything else. (I would have loved to let him write it all, but the boxes were too small.)

After we were done filling it out, he was not done with the paper. On the front, it asks us to tape a picture. Zack wanted to draw his picture, so I told him to do it on the back. He drew himself, then wrote his name again. Then he drew Dad and Mom and wrote their names. Finally he realized he missed his sister, so he drew Lexi and wrote her name. I only had to help him a little with the spelling. I love to see how smart he is getting!

Redecorating

I got a beautiful new piece of art to put in my house. My sister Britta hosted a class where we got to make our own temple pictures. We painted the frame pieces, glued the picture onto a backing, glazed the picture, stapled the frame together, and then attached the picture to the back of the frame. It turned out sooooo beautiful! I've been wanting a good temple picture to put up in the house and this was a great opportunity to get a good quality for a really great price. I had a great time putting this together for myself. It was also fun because I got to do this along with my sisters. Ranna and I were working together to staple the frames, and we joked about how many projects we've done together over the years. We make a great team, and we had so much fun!

After I got this home, I realized I would need to redecorate the living room in order to find a place on my wall to put it. Where the temple is now, I used to have my family pictures. I moved the family pictures to a wall on the other side of the living room.

In order to make room on this wall, I needed to move the lamp that was there to the other corner. The other corner had a CD rack and the drum set for our Guitar Hero. I cleaned out the coat closet and put the drum set and guitars in there. They fit so well even with my vacuum. Then I boxed up the CD's, which we already have all downloaded onto the computer, and we took the rack to the DI. This cleaned out my corner perfectly. I now had a place to put all my lovely pictures. I am so happy with my new walls! Now I just need to get my new family pictures printed, and it will be perfect.

Family Collages

Along with our family pictures every year we like to do a few collages. One of the family and one of each of the kids. Since my sister, Britta, did our pictures this year, we asked her if she would be willing to do our collages as well. She loves to do digital scrapbooking, so this was a fun project for her. We are so grateful she was willing to do this for us!

Thanks Britta!!!

Father's Day

I have been meaning to get Aaron a grill for quite a while now. We enjoy cooking on a grill, especially during the hot summer months when we don't want to heat up the house. This year for Father's Day we went down to the store and let him pick out the one he wanted.

Dad got a new toy, that I am benefiting a lot from as well, and the kids got one too.

Aaron cut out a door and two windows for them. They played with this for a few weeks, until it wore out enough to throw it away. The simple pleasures childhood brings.