Happy Halloween!

This year we decided to do things a little differently.  We went to the house of the co-leaders of our bible study group.  We wanted to be just a hint of "missional" this year, so we paired up with the B family to give out candy to the kids and hot cider to the adults.  Our family went early, around 4, to do our trick-or-treating in their neighborhood, then help hand out candy and cider.  The cider was a hit, especially as the sun started to go down and it got colder and colder.  The boys had a great time trick-or-treating, and got quite a haul.  Our touche bag will be full for many months.  Here are some pics of the evening

Huge spider made of trash bags

Counts Family all dressed up:

Zachary - Spiderman

Wyatt - Basketball player

Art- 1970s Detective

Shayna - Hershey's Kiss

Zachary, Wyatt, Shayna trick-or-treating

Art as a bad 1970s cop/detective

Counts fam trick-or-treating

Wyatt trick-or-treating

Here, Wyatt needed to take a break from trick-or-treating to play some basketball in a neighbors front yard.  Zach kept saying "Come on WYATT, let's go get more candy", and Wyatt would say "in a minute, in a minute"  The only 2yr old I know that would prefer to play basketball over get candy.

Zachary and Wyatt trick-or-treating

Wyatt preparing to hand out candy to kids & Zach enjoying some hot cider

Wyatt and Zach, post trick-or-treating watching Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown in the super comfy seats, on the massive flat screen tv at the Blair's.

They boys loved running to answer the door when it rang, to check out the trick-or-treaters.

Fun night for all.

Petite Pele or Zachary starts soccer!

Much much anticipated event in our family:  Zachary starts soccer season.  He's on a 4 & 5yr old team at the YMCA that plays indoor (whew!).  We thought indoor would be best for his first foray into the sport.  I registered him weeks and weeks ago, specifically for the Red team.  We have all been excited about this!  The format is 30 minutes of "skills", then 30 minutes of a game; red team vs. yellow team.  It is so so cute I could just die!  I have easily gotten my $57 worth of entertainment in the first few games!  Zachary LOVES it.  He is a goal-scoring maniac.  That is all he is interested in.  He has about 9-10 kids on his team, but only 3-4 of them are really interested in playing with some seriousness.  One kid stopped in the middle of the game to go to the sidelines and do some coloring.  One boy started climbing the bleachers.  Two boys were having some sort of sitting dance contest, and Zach's friend Maguire would much rather spend her time hanging on the coaches or running over to try and tickle Wyatt. :)  Zachary and 2 boys are pretty serious about getting the ball and wanting to score.  One girl is very serious about the game, but only wants to be goalie.  There is no goalie in 4 & 5yr old team. :)  She spends a lot of time hovering around, and staying inside the goal.  So funny.  All Zach seems to care about is scoring goals...not having fun, being a good sport, etc, just scoring goals.  As of this post, his team has scored 13 goals total and 11 of those were Zach's.  He scored 2 goals in the first game, 3 in the second, 4 in the third, and 2 in the 4th.  We are worried that he might have a massive coronary if he has a game where he scores no goals.  Sigh.  We love it all though.  It is so funny - the amoeba ball strategy which ends up with a massive pile-up any time a kid falls down.  Wyatt enjoys being there and watching too.  He especially loves that during half-time and water breaks, he can go onto the "field" (basketball court) and score some goals.  Everyone is always so impressed with Wyatt's ball control.  He's said to Art "find me a team, and I will play", and he doesn't care what sport - soccer, basketball (preferred), or football.  He's ready.  Too bad there are no teams for 2 yr olds!

It has been very difficult to get decent photos and videos, but here's what I've got so far.  I'll try at future games too.

Red team practicing - Zach in the middle

Zachary w/ blue & white ball

dribbling the ball during a drill

The other nice thing is that there are 2 kids from Zach's preschool class on his team, plus one kid that was in his class last year.  Plenty of familiar faces.

I love it.  I don't love giving up my lazy-stay-in-bed-until-9:30 Saturday mornings, but it's so easily worth it!

One of Zachary's early games.  Starts off w/ Zach getting to start the game with the ball, and waiting for the whistle to blow so he can take off.  Ends in a kid pile-up and Wyatt whining "Let ME see that picture".  Good times.

First 2010 Halloween Party

Here are the boys, preparing to go to a Halloween party at Zach's school.  It's a dinner for all 3 part-day preschool classrooms.  This means that Zach's best friend Kale will be there.  It was a crazy fun evening.  The boys were having so much fun that Zach opted to skip AWANA Cubbies and stay and play more at the party.  As room-parent, I stayed late and helped clean it all up.  We all had a fun fun time.

Wyatt- basketball player, Zachary- Spiderman

Both are so proud of their costumes and have been wearing them constantly.  Wyatt is thrilled that he can get his wristband on all by himself!  He will tell you his favorite basketball player is either "Wyatt" or "Michael Jordan", whose videos we watch on youtube.  After the party, Wyatt let me know that he did not like to bring that small orange ball, because he could not dribble it very well.  He said that he would bounce it and it would go everywhere.

A well proctected house

You can never have too much protection at your house.  You never know what type of emergency might come up.  Our house is very well protected...we have Spiderman, moonlighting as a Firefighter, living right in our house!  We also have a Firefighter that is so cool, he wears his protective hat backwards!

Wyatt, hat on backwards, waiting patiently for a book to be read to him

Zachary as Spiderman AND Firefighter

Crafty Morning

Zachary decided NOT to go to school today.  He said "we don't get to play a lot at school, so I'd like to stay home and play".  And play we did.  We also took a break to make 11 Halloween cards.  I drew the words and picture on the front, then each boy got their own side of the inside of the card to decorate how he chose - coloring, stickers, etc.  They worked very hard on these.  It took several sittings, as they would get bored after a short time, but worth the effort.  They both got rewarded for their efforts with Halloween candy.  Unfortunately, for a few days afterwards, Wyatt asked for candy after he did ANY coloring.  No dice pal!

Boys working hard

Wyatt was a big fan of the stickers, and it was hard to get him to pace himself for the 11 cards. Zachary on the other hand, made sure he had enough stickers in the same proportions for each card.

Zachary and I were still in our jammies at lunchtime.  Zach said "hey mom, after lunch, can I get some real clothes on".  I took that as a sign that I'd better shower and get my clothes on too. :)  Got to be clean for nap time!

These are the moments...

These are the moments that I try to burn into my heart, to be able to pull up when the boys are being terrors to each other.

I caught the boys in moment of calm downtime.  So calm that I had to come into the living room to make sure they were not up to something bad.  I found Zach reading a book, unprompted by Mommy, to Wyatt.  I love these moments.

Zachary reading to Wyatt

Zachary reading to Wyatt - so cute!

Halloween is beginning

Today our big outing was to a Pumkin Patch, which will be on a separate post, once I get the pictures off the phone.  While there, the boys each picked out 2 pumpkins to bring home.  One each to paint and one to carve.  Today, while Art and Tante JaJa worked on dinner and the grill, the boys painted their pumpkins.  They are desperate to get some decorations up.

Zachary and Wyatt painting their pumpkins

Zach proud of his neon pumpkin

Wyatt happy with his pumpkin

A fun project!

Zoo Trip with Tante JaJa

Janneke came into town this week, Wed - Sunday.  Today was going to be a nice day, so I thought we'd go to the zoo after we visited Mr. Steffeck.  Mr. Steffeck declined a visit from us, so we were free to head down to the zoo at our earliest convenience.  I asked Zachary if he'd like to skip school and go to the zoo with us, but he elected to NOT miss school.  Crazy.  He did NOT want to miss show-and-tell!  So, Janneke, Wyatt and I made our way down to Lincoln Park Zoo.  So lovely that it's free!  Free parking, on the other hand is a bit tough to come by, but in the end we found one tiny spot.  The Fit made it into the spot with about 1.5" clearance in the back, and very nearly touching bumpers in the front.  Jan had to get out of the car while I moved teeny tiny bits forward and back and forward and back.  Just barely got the trunk open to get the stroller out!  Quite an accomplishment...just for free parking!

We started off at Wyatt's favorite - the Cat House.  Then proceeded to hit as many animals as we could in the 1.5hrs we had before we needed to pick up Zach from school.  Here are some of the better pics of what we saw:

Lovely giraffe!

Love the Silverbacks!

Tante JaJa pushing Wy in his chariot

Beautiful lioness

Lazy lions!

We saw many other animals, like all the cute penguins & sea birds, monkeys, rhino, bears, etc.  We were not able to take many pictures however, because task-master Wyatt had us moving on from each exhibit pretty quickly.  We'd linger a bit and he'd say "Ok, let's go". :)

As we were driving back to get Z, I lamented that I wished I'd had the forethought to pack lunches so we could have a picnic lunch with Art - it was gorgeous outside!  Janneke then offered to treat us all to lunch at Burger King, which we took to go and met Art on the grass near the lake by his office for a wonderful picnic lunch!  Thanks Tante JaJa!

Bowling!

Zach got invited to a bowling party for a boy in his class. It was the first time he has ever been bowling. I was pretty excited about it, and Zach was nervous, not knowing what to expect. So, me trying to prepare him, found a bunch of kids bowling parties on youtube, and we watched videos for about 30 minutes. I had neglected to tell him about the special bowling shoes, so when Janneke asked him about it, he flipped a bit. So then we had to explain what those are.

Day of the party came, and it was a huge success. Fun for all.

Loved that pink ball

Video of Zach bowling, and not caring enough to see what his ball hits down

Zach would not sit/sand still long enough for me to get any good pictures of him in his bowling shoes or with his friends.  He sees me as intrusive paparazzi.

Fire Safety Week - Fire Station Visit

This week is fire safety week, and the fire stations are generous and open their stations from 1-3 on Saturday this week.  We went last year and it was a lot of fun, so we planned on going again this year.  It was cold, rainy, and I was sick sick sick.  Still, we perservered, and had a good time.  Wyatt wore his dress up fire hat, and we were hoping that the fire station would give out free hats like they did last year (they did!) for Zach.  A fun outing!

Shoes inside pants - ready to go

Wy driving

Wy driving back of ladder truck

Wy driving

Z driving back of ladder truck

Z driving

Zach hold heavy hose

Wyatt & Zach driving ambulance

Zach & Wyatt in the ambulance

Wyatt & Zach coming off ladder truck

The other side of Date Night

Tonight's Date Night was M. family out and us in with the kids.  Here's a cute moment of Art reading to all three kids in Zach's bed before bedtime.  Morgan loves to be in Zach's bed for stories and prayer time.  It's pretty amusing!

Wyatt, Morgan, Zachary listening to Art read them a story