Birthday Boy!

We had Tyler's family birthday party last night.  He said it was the best birthday ever!  I should have left his cake in the car or hid it somewhere, because all Tyler and Collin wanted to do all afternoon was look at it and wanted the play with the decorations on it.  We did a Star Wars theme this year.  Tyler was really impatiently waiting (most of the afternoon) for his cousin Jacey to arrive.  He sure had a great time playing with her.  He also loved all of his presents he got, which was good since it was mostly clothes and games and not much for actual toys.  Here are a few pictures from the evening.

Carving Pumpkins

Tyler has been begging and begging to carve our pumpkins.  We finally had time to do it last night.  Tyler was excited to play in the pumpkin guts.  He thought it was smelly.  They did their best to try to clean out the inside, but it is still a little hard for even Tyler to get the stuff out.  I scraped it and he tried to get it out.  Shane wanted to roast the pumpkin seeds this year, so the boys helped him pick the seed out while I finished cleaning out the pumpkin.  Of course, Tyler had to pick out a really hard design to carve, but convinced him to pick one that was a little easier.  Here are a few pictures from our pumpkin carving.

Blackout at MOA

Well we headed to MOA to Blackout at Nickelodeon Universe last night.  This has become a yearly tradition now.  We almost thought we weren't going to be able to go because Collin got a fever the night before and woke up at 5 am with a temp of 102 degrees.  Even though he didn't complain of anything hurting, I had a hunch it was an ear infection.  Good thing it was, so we got a few doses of antibiotics in and kept doped up in ibuprofen and we were good to go after nice a good nap.  Why do these thing always happen when a person has plans (as last year we tried to go, but I was having fevers).  I was a little disappointed this year.  Normally it has been called Nick or Treat in the past (except for the year it was in between Camp Snoopy and Nickelodeon).  It usually cost less than $15 for the little ones and everyone got a trick or treat bag to hit all the stations that passed out fun goodie and whatnot.  Not this year.  It was $20 for a wristband and only a small amount got bags were given out.  It was really busy at first but by 7pm it was pretty easy to get on rides and thru the crowds.  Tyler wore his Hulk costume and Collin didn't want to wear his costume, so we didn't push it.  He likes to be difficult.  Even if he was feeling 100%, he probably wouldn't wear it.  I am nervous for Halloween.  It may have crying involved (as does having to put on a life jacket or wear seat belts on rides, ect).  Our niece was Pippi Longstocking and won a prize in the costume contest.  She looked adorable.  The kids had a great time and were well behaved which is a plus.  Tyler and Jacey had a blast and their favorite ride looked scarey for me even.  It was the Splatosphere or something like that.  There was hardly a line, so they went on it 3 times in a row.  Well here are a few pictures from out night.  Oh and its my mommy's birthday today so HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

Huge Leaf Pile

I think all the neighbors leaves ended up in our yard this year.  Usually its windier and they just all blow down the street, but not this year.  So I did a little yard work yesterday and had a HUGE pile of leaves in the front yard.  I think it was at least 10ft long by 2ft high.  I couldn't wait for the boys to get home from daycare to play in it.  They had a lot of fun.  They were burying themselves with the leaves and then decided to bury the little pumpkins we had and then try to find them again.  Now if the wind would just come up and blow them away.  

I ALMOST made it!

The boys have been wanting to climb the fire tower at Kathio State Park for awhile now.  So we finally had time to do it on Monday. They boys did a lot better than I did, by far.  Those two climbed the thing all by themselves, but Shane carried Collin down.  I am not sure what was scarier for me, going up or down.  I was freakin out a tad (a little white knuckled) and only made it up 3/4 of the way up.  I got as far as the top of the trees and that was as far as she'd be goin'.  I wasn't liking it too well.  So Shane took the boys up the rest of the way.  I had my foot on the next step thinking I can do this, but didn't get any further than that.  Maybe next year I will be more motivated if we go there when there are a few more leaves on the trees and more of a beautiful view than dead branches.  Going down wasn't much better.  It is bad when a 2 1/2 and a 4 year old do better than a 33 year old.  How I wish I didn't have a fear of heights.  Then after that we took a drive through the park and walked to the dam (oh Marie btw it's dam and not damn lol) and took the dog for a little run and swim.  It was probably one of the last, best fall days of the season.  I am so happy I got to enjoy a beautiful afternoon with my family.

 

This was my view.  I could even see the lake, but it is hard to see in this picture, so that was good enough for me.  

Mmmmm....apples

I have been craving some good apples for about a month now and we finally got to an orchard last weekend.  We headed out to Apple Jack Orchards in Delano with my sister-in-law and her family.  It was absolutely gorgeous out, well maybe too gorgeous.  Not to complain, but it was actually kind of hot out.  There were a lot of fun activites to do. The kids had fun running around there, but got pretty wiped out from the heat.  We skipped a few thing because we were getting kind of warm.  Here are a few pictures from our outing.

 

Jacey had to pick this one because it was the name of her dog.  

 

Out of about 10 pictures there were about 2 were everyones faces were actually looking somewhat up and not at the ground, even tho not at the camera.  

 

Buffalo River Pumpkin Patch

My last trip to Fargo, my mom and I took the boys to the Buffalo River Pumpkin Patch.  My dad had to miss out due to a funeral of a coworker.  They had a lot of fun stuff to do.  There was a petting zoo, hay bale maze, barrel train, carriage rides, and lots of fun games to play for the kids.  There was even an older gentleman that had and old west theme with his covered wagon and camp set up with his campfire going cooking some grub.  Tyler really enjoyed listening to the guys stories.  He was really playing the part for the little ones.  The boys sort of ran wild there.  It was nice that it wasn't really busy when we went.  We even found a pumpkin to pick too.  Poor Collin had a hard time walking thru the pumpkin patch.  He kept tripping over the vines and falling.   It was another beautiful and sunny fall day.  Unfortunately I was cleaning up some of my pictures and I think I deleted some from my computer.  Oh well, not that I don't have enough darn pictures.  Some that I deleted are a few I snuck of my mom and the boys, so she will be happy about that since she hates her picture being taken.

 

 

   

New storyboard

I got this new 11x14 storyboard template off of the Clickin Moms photography forum that I belong to.  I can't wait to get it printed.  Storyboards are a great way to display a bunch of pictures without having to print all of your favorite photos individually.

A few new creations

Well as usual, we had a great time scrapbooking this last weekend.  I think I gained 15 lbs this weekend.  There was so much great food and baked goods as always.  There was lots of good laughs and stories as always.  After we all got caught up with what's going on in each other lives we really got down to business.  We were pretty quiet and concentrating come Saturday night and Sunday.  I was happy to get 21 pages completed.  We/I sort of cheated in a way.  Kaye had gotten all of these new volumes of sketch books in and we each bought a volume and traded with each other what we bought.  It sure made our layouts go a little faster and gave us more creativity, away from our same old, same old (well at least for some of us).  Here are a few pages that I got done.