Halloween!

Halloween was so much fun! Calinda and I took the boys out trick or treating while Niels stayed home and passed out candy. We were told by our neighbors to expect a lot of trick or treaters. While we were gone only 5-6 people came and that didn't even put a small dent in the first of 2 Costco sized bags of candy we bought! I wish I could post video on here (it hasn't worked for me for months no matter how much I try) because I got a video of the boys advertising our candy on the end of the street! It worked, we got rid of at least one bag. If you are interested in seeing the video it is posted on my facebook profile!

Niels hanging out with the candy
Boys at a totally decked out house. Aricin was afraid of the bowl because it had scary music coming from it. Very fun though the whole family at that house was dressed like pirates too.
Here are the boys! Aricin is a Lightning Mcqueen race car driver (very well received costume in these parts) and Christian is a ghost. (He would not let me paint his face white or spray his hair white to complete the effect!) Niels did the whole ghost costume from a sheet, and the sewing too! Go Honey!
Aricin right before we left to go Trick or Treating
Christian right before we went out trick or treating!

Pumpkin Carving

It is pumpkin carving time again. I make this one a "boys" tradition. Niels has been helping the boys carve pumpkins since the beginning. They had a really great time and the boys did quite a  bit of the carving themselves. Like a big "dot to dot" they said. Fun stuff! They can't wait to have their pumpkin glowing for Halloween Night. Also can you tell we got the boys' haircut? Yesterday they were both out of school for a planning day. We all went and got our hair cut and then went and met with Daddy for lunch. Fun stuff! 

Niels and the boys with the finished product, you can see the 2 different carvings partially by each of the boys.
Christian with his side of the pumpkin, a spider
Aricin with his side of the pumpkin, a smiley bat
Niels and the boys carving out the pumpkin. I got all the seeds and roasted them again! Yummy!

Happy Birthday Niels!!!

Saturday was Niels' birthday! I was working all weekend but my friend said she would work my afternoon shift on Saturday. That was so we could attend a baptism and then celebrate Niels' birthday! We went to Dave and Busters (a sports type bar w/ games etc) and ate and then decided to head over to the Nascar Speed Park to play mini golf. The pic of Niels playing with those black things was taken at the Nascar place. They had a big bin of magnetic rocks that Niels and the boys thought was very entertaining! Then we headed home for presents and cake. I totally forgot to take a picture of the cake! Oh well!  Happy birthday Honey!

Lost my blog list!

Ok in my attempt to change my blog template to a Halloween one, I lost my blog list. POOF! It's gone forever! I didn't have them saved anywhere else so if you come by and read this, please leave a comment so I can put you back on my blog list! Thanks!

Aricin at Patterson Farms

Today I accompanied Aricin on his field trip with his preschool class to Patterson Farms. Christian went here with his class about a week or so ago as well. They start the tour out in an old barn where you sing songs along with some farm puppet characters. Then they followed that with a cute puppet story. Then they give each person a cupful of animal feed and then you go out into the barn where they have the animals. They had a couple goats on a leash you could feed. Otherwise you feed the animals (pigs, goats, sheep, peacock) by dumping the feed down a PVC pipe feeder they have made. Next we went on a tractor ride around the property. They show you some of the crops and you get to see the pond. When you finish with the tractor ride you get to pick out a small pumpkin. Aricin really liked that! Then they headed to the playground/picnic area to have lunch and play. We decided to go and see Niels for lunch since Patterson Farms is so close to his work. We ended up going to Aricin's favorite Mexican restaurant that we used to go to all the time when we would visit Niels on his lunch break back when we lived in Mooresville. I haven't been to that restaurant since we moved to the house in April. A fun day! Aricin is very tired and so am I! Pictures from the top: Aricin near the hay bales, Aricin in the pumpkin "patch" after the tractor ride and Aricin on the tractor driven hayride.

Thoughts

So I haven't taken any pictures in a long time! It feels like forever! I have no pictures on my camera to even choose from. What happened? Well Niels was in Seattle all last week so that may be part of it. I haven't done anything too interesting the last week since he was gone. I was just keeping the ship afloat here at our house!

But some thoughts that have crossed my mind lately. This morning I was on my way to drop Aricin off at Playschool when I realized I had NO gas left in my car. So I pulled into a station along the way. The gas was $2.99/gallon and it only cost me $54.42 to fill up my van, from EMPTY! I know that still is a lot but I am grateful because when I filling it from empty before it was in the mid 70 range. That was when gas was $4+ a gallon. So I am grateful that first off there IS gas to be found mostly everywhere now and that it has dropped to $2.99/gallon. Every little bit helps!

This morning was FREEZING, literally! It was in the 30's last night and we had frost on the windshields! I don't remember it doing that until January or later last year. So I can't figure out if I have just acclimated or if it is really colder this year. The end of last week only got up to the 60's and it is supposed to be more of the same this week. I remember it feeling HOT around Thanksgiving last year and we were all wearing shorts! Hmm, something to ponder on have I changed or did the weather change this year?

I LOVE the fall leaves changing. I love all the beautiful color it brings! I want to go to the mountains to enjoy it more! Our tiny tree in front has already turned and just the other day when I was walking back from the bus stop I saw that looking down the row of houses and yards the trees were gradually changed. The one closest to me was still very green, the next just starting to turn, and so on until the last one had fully turned. It was a very interesting sight!

Both boys were sick again over the weekend. They both had fevers. Luckily they both got over them quickly as well. Not in time to redeem my plans to take them to the corn maze or to have some friends over. I feel like every time I turn around we are sick and missing some playdate/church/event. How am I ever supposed to get to know anyone if I am constantly stuck in the house with sick kids? I mean really, how does that work?

Niels came back Friday and is now back to work. He had a good trip to Seattle. Very busy trip. He wasn't too happy on the way back because he had a 4 hour layover in Houston. He left Seattle at 7am in the morning only to get back here around 9:30 at night. Talk about a long day! Niels' foot is doing better though. All day yesterday he was able to just wear a regular shoe instead of his boot which is great! Hopefully he will get it off for good next week!

Speaking of Niels, this weekend is his birthday and usually I am really good about his stuff. This time however I am drawing a total blank! I need to get my act together fast! (Sorry honey if you are reading this.) Ok just one big giant HMM???

Those are my thoughts for today!

Aricin's Pumpkin

For Playschool Aricin took a fieldtrip to Riverbend Farms. He has a very small class for playschool, only 3 children total and he is the only boy! I had a Dr's appointment so I couldn't go but he had a great time taking a hayride and came back with this pumpkin. Which survived exactly 2 days of play with the boys. It's Friday and they did it in last night. They had cut off the stem and then last night Christian wanted to get "all" the stem off. He dug a hole right through where the stem would be! I told them it was dead then and since it is opened no more "playing" with it. Drama soon ensued. "Oh our poor pumpkin!" " Christian - "I'm SO sorry Aricin" with real tears I might add. For 2 hours it was pumpkin drama from the boys. Christian even made cards with writings on them and tacked them to the pumpkin. They cried, they cried and then they cried some more. It is still a bit too early to carve it (plus I don't have the carving kit yet) so to end the pumpkin madness I told Aricin we could open it up fish out all the seeds and roast them to eat! Problem solved and Aricin was delighted at the idea! So we spent this morning getting all the seeds out of the pumpkin to make this recipe which is cinnamon and salt pumpkin seeds. And they are indeed very yummy (and super easy!)! Aricin loves them and even had me add more cinnamon to his snack! Now if you don't do this already you know what to do with all those seeds from the Halloween Jack-O-Lanterns! 

Pictures!!!

Ok for some reason it never occurred to me to post these on my blog. But these are our most recent pictures we just had done by my friend Kristine when Niels' mom was here in September. There are some really cute ones! Take a look and tell me what you think!!! Heather thanks for the idea! 

http://www.imagesbykristine.com/91608

Sick, again...

Alright this whole being sick thing is getting a bit out of hand. For me it started with bronchitis in mid August - for 6 weeks which included 2 courses of antibiotics, and a months worth of prescription cough syrup and an inhaler. Finally get over that (mostly) and then the boys start getting sick. First Niels gets sick. Then Aricin gets a fever, then Christian. Then Aricin again at the first of last week. Then Christian again last Thursday and Friday. Now this week Aricin gets throw up sick at the first of the week for 2 days, and then Christian same thing last night followed by me at 9:30am this morning. I mean seriously, what are we doing wrong to get ALL these bugs? I can't stand it anymore I am tired of all of us being SICK! Please pray for us. We need all the help we can get to get better!

Thanks!!!