Pumpkin Patch 2011

Wow! I am so behind on my posts!!

We went to the pumpkin patch with Jessica and her kiddos. The kids all had a great time playing on all the rides and picking out their pumpkins. The pictures kind of speak for themselves!

Fun mini hay maze.

Some hay in the eye I guess!Too bad it was cold outside - the pink sweater just doesn't match the Halloween outfit! Oh well! :)

Bounce house fun!

They even got to ride on a mini ferris wheel!

We even got to ride a pony.

Beautiful pumpkin! Too bad this one cost $20! We put it back and got a more reasonable one.

That's a better size!

Off to pay.

What a great afternoon!

I Got My Camera Back!

I finally got my camera back!! Whoo hoo! I have quite a few posts to catch up on. First our caterpillars turned into butterflies! The kids were so excited! We were playing outside with our neighbors and decided to let them go.
The kids are busy checking them out.

They were really beautiful butterflies!

This is when we first saw that the butterflies had emerged.

A few weeks ago Ben had his open house at preschool. He got to travel around the room, showing us all about how his day goes. He started playing on the floor with some of his friends.

He moved over to the table where he was supposed to be making his letters.

On to the discovery center.

What a cutie!

He ended up at the math patterning center. It was really fun watching Ben in his element with all the other kids. He's doing really well!

Trick or Treating at Grandma and Grandpa B's House

The day before Halloween we went trick-or-treating at my mom and dad's house - we do it every year and then follow up with a Halloween lunch. Elizabeth went trick-or-treating as Wendy and Ben was the red Power Ranger.

The glasses that turn into sunglasses make pictures a little inconvenient!

Here we are!

The kids were lucky and got lots of good treats.

Cute boys! (not sure what is going on with Cooper's expression!)

The cute Halloween table.

My mom had a cute snack for the kids to make. The kids made candy corn yogurt using lemon, and orange yogurt and whipped cream. Yum!

It was such a fun lunch!

Halloween Party at Ben's School

Ben's preschool had their annual "fall festival" (Halloween party) and all the kids were able to dress up, have fun, and eat candy!

Here's the class. Ben is in the back row - a red Power Ranger.
He didn't want me taking his picture until he was actually doing something! Ha ha.

Here is is doing the obstacle course.

On to the treasure hunt. Ben spent a lot of time here gathering a lot of treasure.

He played a few more games,

and then I made him stop and pose for a picture.

He's got a ton of loot in there - and interestingly enough almost no candy! Lots of plastic bugs, popper things, and other plastic items. I think he got 2 pieces of candy out of that whole bag.

You can see his missing tooth really well in this picture!

I also had a bit of a scare the other weekend when I watched Cooper and Jackson for Jessica. Jessica went out of town on a girl's weekend and I had the kids for the entire Friday. I put Jackson down to nap and when I got him up his eye was almost swollen shut! The part that scared me the most was when I pulled his eye open I could see that the white of the eye was also extremely swollen! Needless to say we ran out of the house as fast as I possibly could straight to the doctor's office. (If they couldn't have gotten me in right away we would have gone to the ER). You can tell by Ben's inside out shirt and too small of clothes that I just threw everyone in the car - Jackson didn't even have shoes!

This really doesn't do his eye justice. It looked so much worse than this right when he woke up - but like I said the most worrisome part was the white of his eye. The Dr. didn't know what was wrong - she actually brought in 2 other doctors to see the eye and called a pediatric opthomologist, and they all agreed it seemed like some type of trauma or allergic reaction. After we got home to my mom's house (after they had us wait for almost 2 hours to make sure the swelling didn't get worse) I realized that Jackson had been playing in the sand before nap and we had washed his hands and brushed him off, but when I layed him down for nap I think some sand got in his eyes (I remembered later that he had said "my eyes" and rubbed it for a second). But he just rolled over and went straight to sleep so I didn't think it bothered him!

We don't know for sure that is what the cause was, but it seems most likely. It was so scary (I really thought he was going blind or something!) so we were so thankful that everything ended up ok!

The Start of our Halloween Traditions

These little guys have nothing to do with Halloween but we were pretty excited to have them! On the last day of school I got the kids a butterfly keeper cage which came with a coupon for caterpillars. After reading about the caterpillars they needed cooler weather than the TX summer so we had to wait until fall to redeem our coupon. Fall came and we finally decided to get our caterpillars! Here they are, all eating, getting big, preparing to make their chrysalises.
A couple of weeks before Halloween we made our annual Gingerbread Haunted House. I had the best one last year with notches on all of the pieces that held it all together so well. I forgot which brand I bought and I didn't get that one this year! :( This house fell down about 10 times but I finally got it all together.

The kids each took a side to decorate.

We had much less sneaking of the candy this year and the Haunted House turned out pretty cute!

I also redid our downstairs bathroom and I LOVE it!! This is still my not so nice camera so the colors didn't turn out so well. I'll have to take the pictures again since I finally got my camera back. I painted the walls first all white since they were builder beige. Then I painted thick gray stripes with turquoise accents.

I also made the matching shower curtain. The stripes were pretty time consuming but I love the result!