Our Halloween 2013

This year's Halloween proved to be fun as always when you have young ones. ;)

Costume Prep

I am not usually home-made costume kinda mom. But, I thought the candy corn fairy idea was super-cute and Lorelei was game. I did made a few tutus for Verna a while back, as well as Lorelei's scrappy one for Christmas and since there is not much sewing involved, I figured I could do it. Brad helped cut tulle and also helped with making our own wand...what's a candy corn fairy without a poof wand after all? So, this was how we spent a good portion of our Saturday...
Makin's costume was from a store and he loved it and looked cute to boot. ;)

Painting Pumpkins

Painting pumpkins seems to be all the rage these days. So sure, we can join in the fun. :) I got one-on-one with both kiddos for this which was really nice. Makin was still napping while Lor painted and then Lorelei helped Brad fix pizza while Makin painted.

They loved adding faces. And this was our porch set up.

Carving Pumpkins

Brad had a good time carving the pumpkin's to the kid's specifications. Lorelei requested "triangle eyes and one of them winking." Along with "a scary mouth." Makin asked for circle eyes. As always, Lorelei was his right hand man taking out the guts, while Makin and I took a quick trip the the park down the street before coming to help clean up and bake the seeds.

Projects

We made lacing spider webs as well as our own books

 "Orange Pumpkin, Orange Pumpkin What Do You See?"

The Big Day

We had a whirlwind day as we started Kindergym (recently joined the YMCA) for the next two and a half weeks as they were just about ending their fall session. The kids LOVED it and cannot wait to go the next couple of weeks. Then we headed to story time and enjoyed Halloween books there. After nap we played a few games. One was with the painting tape spider web and they had to walk on the web to whatever picture I called out. We also played Halloween BINGO.

Trunk Or Treat and Trick Or Treating
1C (our church) has a Trunk Or Treat every year. They told us they have about 700 people who come...I'm anxious to see what the number was this year! We weren't brave enough to do a trunk this year since I didn't know what people usually did. The kids loved seeing a few of our favorite ladies, including Michelle Purcell who was dressed as The Cat In The Hat. :) The pic on the bottom right is the line when we got there at least 15 minutes before it was supposed to start...by the time it started that was at least doubled. The band sings songs and they hand out "business cards" for our church to all who come through. Each person has their trunk decorated and many were dressed as a theme for each family and decorated their trunk to go with the theme. Pretty fun, even though it was COLD. :)

We met up with some new friends who came to the Trunk Or Treat as well. More on them some other time, but yet another Concordia connection. :) They live in the country (Camp Luther to be exact) so came with us down our street after we got back from 1C. There were only about 6 houses on our block handing out candy, so it was a quick trip and then we were plenty cold and tired. Our neighbor next door got something special for our kids so we made sure to stop by...a fun little activity pack with stickers etc so that was really sweet. Had to get a pic of Lor's toes. We had to cut the tights so she could put her flip flops on. :) 

The next morning it was funny watching Lorelei go through and dump and sort her candy into categories. That girl loves her sorting for sure! :)

My favorite quote from the day was from Miss Lorelei. "Fall is 100 days, Halloween is only one. That's not fair to Halloween."

This mommy is very thankful it is only one day! :) Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

From Lorelei The Candy Corn Fairy And Makin The Fireman

Our Husker Cuties

Indoor Zoo Time

"Kinda a cold day for the zoo isn't it?"
Obviously the lady who asked me this has not been to the Omaha Zoo!

We intentionally planned our zoo trip for the cold rainy day in the city. There are LOTS of indoor buildings at this zoo so you can enjoy it all year round. Wednesday we visited the Desert Dome, Kingdom of the Night (under the desert dome), the Aquarium and the top half of the Rain forest. It is great just taking our time and going at a slow pace and not feeling we have to cram in every inch of the zoo.

The kids loved the desert dome. The Kingdom of the Night was kinda creepy! We were the only ones walking through parts of it so that makes it extra scary! Makin was very ready to be done after the swamp section with crocodiles. :) I enjoyed the beavers in that section. The biggest hit (probably of the day) were the aardvarks. The kids came home that afternoon and pretended to be aardvarks the rest of the day. I liked seeing the kookaburra as well. :) 

Just can't beat the aquarium. Even got to see someone cleaning something in a tank! :)

Penguin Time!

J Is For Jellyfish. :)

Makin was practically dragging me through the aquarium to get to "the step on thing" and I had no CLUE what he was talking about. When he finally got there I finally remembered. This is one of those things where a projector shines down and the kids can run around on it and it looks like they are running on water etc.  They have similar things at a couple of malls we have been too and he can spend a LOT of time there.

One building we went through had animal art up on the wall along with a picture of the animal that painted it. Lorelei and I thought that was pretty fun! I was happy just getting through two buildings but the kids said they were up for one more, so we did half of the rainforest before Makin was asking me to carry him around, and then we headed out for the long drive home. Just loved that we could spend our dreary cold day someplace extra-fun!

Michelle watched the kids the next evening when I went to pick up Brad at the airport so I had some quick shopping alone time. They seemed to have a great time with her and so thankful she was kind enough to do that for us!

City Time And Chuck E Cheese

Brad has to travel occasionally for his job. This week he had a quick trip to Chicago in order to train some clients on how to use Magento on their company site. gumbrand.com uses Brad's company for their site, so thats who he was training.  We decided to enjoy our trip to Omaha since he had to fly out very early Wednesday morning and late Thursday night.


He worked a few hours Tuesday morning, then we headed to Omaha and he worked from Panera. The kids and I enjoyed the mall play area (which was sports themed, not sure they have ever loved a play area so much!) and I got to visit with Alea. (Dan and Michelle's daughter, who goes to college in Omaha)  We also went to Barnes and Noble and enjoyed the train table and stuffed animals, respectively, before meeting Brad for a late lunch at Panera. Then the kids took a nap in the car before we could head to a way, WAY overdue trip to Chuck E Cheese. We still had not had a chance to take Makin as his reward for potty training. (Poor guy has been potty trained for probably 9 months or more now!)

THE Chuck E Cheese

Both kids had a wonderful time at Chuck E Cheese. It was fun watching our natural athlete play some of the games. He had a blast with basketball and skeet ball.

So glad we finally got to treat our guy to his well-deserved reward!

Visit From Nana and Papa

Nana and Papa came for a visit during Nana's fall break.

They got here Wednesday afternoon. Thursday we went to story time (But Mr. H wasn't there, such a bummer!) and then just played around the house because it was very windy and chilly.

Helping Make Apple Crisp

Friday was our trip to Vala's Pumpkin Patch. We have been counting down the days, and Brad made sure to do extra work ahead of time so he could come with us for the fun. We were disappointed it was pretty cold, but we managed anyway! The kids said they were okay in vests, but I had a vest AND coat!

I went to Vala's way "back in the day" with Verna when she only had two kids. :) It has grown quite a bit since then. I have been bad about comparing every pumpkin patch I've been to to this one, so I was so excited the kids got a chance to enjoy it.

I was also bummed about the amount of people. If we go next year, Monday-Thursday only! 

So. Many. People.

We started out watching the pig races which was pretty fun. Then we headed over to the Great Pumpkin Jump and Lorelei did lots of jumping. Makin decided it was not his cup of tea. ;)

We also had a chance for pony rides. This was Makin's first time braving a pony ride and he really enjoyed it. :) We also checked out the massive amount of pumpkins and gourds while we waited to get inside to eat lunch. :)

There are lots of different areas for the children to play. Including jumping into the hay, the "Country Kids Jamboree" with fun different things you can use for instruments, a giant sandbox with diggers, a petting zoo and a giant cannon that shoots out pumpkins.

Some fun tractor time. Makin had so much fun pretending to drive!

This was one of their favorites...they called them "The Bumper Cars" and they just drove them back and forth and sometimes crashed into each other. :)

And finally...the REAL patch! I love that you take a hayride out to the field and get to see the pumpkins growing on the vine. We even got to see the flower the pumpkin starts out as. Papa kept the kids entertained in line for the ride with a few "vest lifts." :) Both kids found a small pumpkin. Makin fell over trying to get his picked up! :)

We stopped and played in the pirate play area and I had to get a couple "how tall this fall" pics of course.

 Enjoying a camel apple after we got home.

We love Nana reading books.

They had to leave Saturday after lunch but the kids enjoyed a good amount of play time that morning, including Makin's favorite, The Elephant Game.


Thanks for a fun visit! Miss you already!

My Little Helper

Columbus House Tour

Enjoy! And a laughable moment from each child on the video makes it extra entertaining. ;)

Goodbye Ugly Wallpaper

Okay so most of this happened a couple of weeks ago, but wanted a nice "finished" pic so had to wait a while to post!

Even though we are renting, it was worth my peace of mind and sanity to paint the kitchen. Yes, the men do not agree, but that is how I felt. I would enjoy my kitchen much more without these flowers all over the walls. Thankfully I had an understanding husband who went full force into taking it down and really ended up doing more work on it than I did. It was a process that spread out over at least two weeks as we tried to take down a few sections of paper and glue each night.

Yep. Soooo ugly.

Lorelei LOVED helping and was actually very good at tearing off the stuff.

Getting there...

Wishing Mom and Dad were playing rather than painting.

I determined the kitchen has got to be one of the most annoying places to paint because its so hard to do anything without functioning kitchen counters! And no, we didn't even eat out once!


Ta Da!!!
(This has been done for a few weeks, but I kept waiting because we have frames to put up by the kitchen table that are going to look super cute...but that isn't happening within the next week or two, so wanted to go ahead and post. Will put updated picture when we get the frames up. :) )

Apple Picking

We spent a gorgeous Sunday afternoon at Martin's Hillside Apple Orchard.

We had the giant wheelbarrow very full of apples when we were done! Here comes dried apples, apple pie, apple crisp, and of course most will be used in Brad's juices!

The kids enjoyed the tire swing again. Makin got lots of laughs and loved it the most for sure. We also found out the cattle in the pasture liked the apples too...another parent started feeding his apple to the cow so Lorelei had to go over and see it up close.

The corn box. Makin was asking about this the second we talked about going to the orchard. He spent a lot of time playing in the corn...and their favorite is to jump in!

Tire Mountain

We enjoyed free apple cider samples, a hayride, a corn maze and the playground. We were there about four hours and the kids could have played a couple more! :)