Very Busy Weekend

On Thursday I took the boys to the Pumpkin Patch at Carter's preschool.  Holy Canoli is it hard to get two boys to look at the camera at the same time.  Particularly when I'm by myself and they are running around playing with pumpkins.  Here are the results of my attempts for a "Pumpkin Patch Postcard Picture"

No, that isn't Carter's mad face.  That is the face he gets when he flaps his arms (and most of the time jumps around) when he's excited.  He was so good at smiling for the camera - it was Cole that was so interested in everything BUT getting a good photo.

  

Carter trying to corral Cole

No we're getting somewhere

Later that afternoon I took Carter to Awbrey's 4th birthday party at the roller skating rink.  Carter and his friends all tried skating for the first time.  I even got on some skates.  I forgot how difficult it can be.  It's probably been 15ish years since I've been on skates and in that time any skate I've had on was either a roller blade or ICE skate, which is totally different.

They had an aparatus you could push along on wheels that helped keep you stable, and that made a huge difference in the fun factor for the kids.  Carter didn't want me to hold his hand and skate together, he said I kept making him fall.  It's kinda true ...

On Friday, the church put on a HUGE fall festival.  Carter had already had a full day, that he fell asleep on the way there.  Hey, all that SuperHero work is exhausting!

Brian being silly with Carter's mask

There were lots of Spiderman's at the festival.  I took this picture thinking it was Carter, turns out he was on another ride. 

Cole in the balloon bopping room, he loved it last year too 

Happy on the swings, for the moment.  He liked it for a couple rotations and then couldn't find us and started crying.

Of course Carter loved every minute of it.

Here's a pic of Cole proving again, that he only wants to ride momentarily :)

On Saturday, we had a surprise visit from Matthew and Allison.  They came in town to celebrate her birthday with some old friends.  We had a quick breakfast and then they came to Carter's soccer game.  They are so sweet with the boys.  I don't have any pictures but I stole one off of Facebook from her mom's page - they are dressed as Maverick and Kelly McGillis from Top Gun.  He's my brother, but he's handsome!!

That afternoon after the game, Mom and Dad took the boys to ITZ pizza and then watched them that night while Brian and I went to Austin with Seth and Jen to the UT v  Baylor game (they are Baylor alums and got last minute tickets from Seth's friend).  Even though Texas lost, I did have a great time hanging out with friends, sans kiddos :) 

Sunday evening finally arrived and the boys were more than ready to start trick or treating.  I was surprised that Carter's costume lasted, he had also worn it on Thursday night at a Halloween party at my Grandma's place.  Plus all the times he's played dress up in it.  Cole was a train conductor.  He hated wearing the hat (why it wasn't on in any of the pictures from Friday), but if I distracted him with candy when I put it on, he'd forget about it.

In costume and headed out the door to get some treats!

Cole running up to a house across the street.  He had this running from house to house thing down.  He kinda didn't care much about the candy.  He just enjoyed the freedom.

We trick or treated around 6:15, a little early and the first ones on our block.  The kids were so tired from the weekend that I had to get the party started.  Unfortunately only a few people were home and/or ready so Carter thought we should trick or treat at our own house to get some more candy.  Smart kid.

As you can probably tell, Carter is way into Spiderman and all things superhero right now.  I found (thanks to a friend of a friend) some Spiderman pumpkin accessories and he made his own SpiderPumpkin.  Cole got a Mr. Potato Head Pumpkin that looks like Humpty Dumpty. 

We had a great Halloween weekend, but I'm so glad the week has started again.  I'm exhausted!!

Visitors

Brendon & Stacy and the boys came in from Oklahoma for the weekend.  It was great to meet my newest nephew, Cody.  He is absolutely beautiful.  He reminds me of my boys when they were tiny, only with dark hair.  His hair is so cute.  Carter was enamored with him, no surprise there.  He would come up close and say sweet things to him, but tell me that he's being careful "not to share germs."  He wasn't sick, but still wanted to be careful.

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The three bigger boys eating what they think are popsicles for breakfast.  But they are actually mini yogurts that I stuck popsicles in and then froze them.  They're a hit.

We took the families to the Wings Over Houston Airshow on the south side of town and had a blast.  The Thunderbirds were there, several fighter jets (not sure of the numbers, F-16 and F-18 I think), really cool trick planes, helicopters, etc.  The dads were just as excited as the kiddos.  And I was super impressed as well. 

Here is my favorite picture of Cole.  One of the trick bi-planes flew by blowing red, white and blue smoke and twirling in circles.  He was cheering it along.  And yes, I'm that neurotic as to put him in an airplane shirt for the airshow.  Thanks for noticing.

Blue Eyed Brady

Photo Op - I can never pass them up.

A picture of a weird looking NASA plane that they no longer use, but wouldn't let us on.  We did get a tour of the plane that they use to transport the shuttle when it flies back to Florida after landing in California.  It wasn't as big as I thought it was going to be. 

Cody was so good the entire trip.  He snuggled with Stacy in the Baby Bjorn most of the time just hanging out while we had fun.  He is super cute and I regret not getting more pictures of him. But he was just so quiet and slept so much that he was over shadowed by the bigger (and louder and more demanding) boys.

End of a long day

We went to the beach the next day and had another long but very fun day.  In hind sight we realized we probably should have just gotten a hotel room in Galveston for the night since we spent the day at Ellington Field on Saturday and turned around and came right back to the south and went to the beach.  Oh well, we have good kids that napped in the car for us :)

Brady in the sand.  I think this was his first trip to the beach.  He loved it. 

Brendon and Brady

Hey Sports Illustrated - I have your new swimsuit cover model!

Big gulp of salt water.  Not tasty.  Of course I'm sure there were several onlookers wondering why I was taking pictures of my kid choking on salt water instead of helping him or giving him a drink of something else. 

One of the few pictures I have of Carter.  He spent the entire time out jumping the waves with Brian. It was very windy and there were tons of good waves.  He had a blast, but I wasn't going to wade out in the ocean with my expensive camera to take pictures.  Oh, and the fact that I'm terrified of fish :)

Mud fight with Daddy.