Happy Halloween!

Halloween 2010. Colton came up with his own costume this year. I think he did a great job picking out his outfit! Here he is as the King of Pop: Here's my little Justin Morneau. After 25 costume ideas, this is what he ultimately chose.

This was the first year that Colton carved his own pumpkin from start to finish. He worked hard on that thing - switching tools, double checking his cutting with the pattern - he did such a great job.

Then there was this guy. He was more concerned about how his hair looked. As you can see, he went and gave himself a mohawk. Unknown to me, he left the water running with the drawn closed. Needless to say, there was an overflow in the bathroom that lead to watermarks on the ceiling in the basement. Ugh.

The picture is a bit blurry, but Colton's pumpkin is the owl and Brett's/mine is the face.

Hope you all had a happy and safe Halloween.

On another note, November 1st starts NaBloPoMo - one blog post per day for the whole month of November. I'll be giving it another go again this year. Wish me luck!

Family Time....

This weekend was all about family. I stayed home with the boys on Friday since Colton didn't have school and Brett didn't have daycare. We stayed plenty busy. The boys watched Karate Kid (I caught bits and pieces in between loads of laundry and dusting), made wooden airplanes to paint and then it was on to making Halloween sugar cookies. I baked, they frosted and decorated. It was a mess as always, but they love to do it.
Next up was researching crickets. Yep, crickets. Colton has a presentation to do in his challenge reading class. I know more about crickets then I ever thought I would. He was so proud of his finished product. Can't wait to hear how it goes on Monday.
Mike's grandparents are in town from Missouri this weekend. I adore those two. They remind me so much of my paternal grandparents ~ it's wonderful.
Saturday was spent at Mike's parents visiting with them and letting the kids run wild, eating food and enjoying some good laughs. Sunday we were over at my sister-in-law's house. More time for the kids to run around and burn off some energy. The kids play so well together. Brett and Kyler are a year apart and could play cars and motorcycles until they crash from exhaustion.
Here's the younger two with their great-grandma. Nevermind the pizza sauce on Brett's shirt. He refuses to use a napkin if he's wearing clothes. Seriously.

Colton and Jadyn spend their time playing sports and video games.

The kids thought it was so cool that their great-grandma could roll her tongue and thought it would be a great idea to take a picture and of course I took advantage of the opportunity.

Weekends like these are my absolute favorite. No stress, no rushing from here to there, just being in the moment with family.

Fish Lips....

Yesterday was the school's PTO carnival. The boys and I went up there to play for an hour before my volunteer shift started. I took a big risk in letting Colton stay with me while Brett went home with Mike. I was nervous letting my 8 year-old loose in the gym with 100+ other people, but we laid down the ground rules and luckily for me he was hanging out with one of the most well behaved kids I've ever met.
I gave Colton a bunch of tickets to play games with. At the end of my shift, I went to find him in the gym and saw him with this on his face.
Right when he saw me he turned to the side and started making fish lips. I couldn't help but to start giggling.

He was so pleased that this fish painting only used up 4 of his tickets!

Father Son Day.....

At this very moment, Mike and Colton are entering the Twins game for a little father/son day. Colton is excited beyond words. Here the are all decked out in their gear.

This picture is blurry, but I love it! A little pre-game chest bump.

He was going to make a "Circle Me Bert" sign, but didn't want to carry it around so he opted for a little hair color instead.

Corn Maze....

Yesterday I met up with some girlfriends and their kids to go to the corn maze. What a perfect day for it! The place had a petting zoo, a kids maze, hay rides and then a huge corn maze with the MN Twins logo. The goal was to find the 20 questions and if you got them all right, you'd be entered into a drawing for 2011 season tickets. Here's Marilyn, Jaci and our brood of kids attempting to answer a question. We gave up after about 6 as we had no clue. These trike/bikes were a huge hit in the kid play area.

Ahhh...the petting zoo. Gross slobbering barn animals that the kids chased, fed and loved. Thankfully for my issues with animal spit, they had a hand washing station nearby.

My boys getting ready for the wagon ride.

It was a fun time and the kids have asked when we get to go back!

100 Years.....

The boys and I boarded a train (the first time for all three of us) on Thursday to begin our journey to Michigan to celebrate my great-grandmother's 100th birthday. We rode in style from St. Paul to Chicago with our own family sleeper car. Apparently, when you purchase a sleeper room you are in first class! What does that mean? Well, for us, it meant sitting in a more posh waiting room with a tv and couches (see photo below). It also meant "free" meals in the dining car and most importantly? It meant you can confine your rowdy children in a room where no one else can see them being naughty.



The experience on the train was great! Below is a picture of the lounge car. It's first come first serve. It was packed the entire ride to Chicago so we didn't get an opportunity to sit there at all which was a bit of a bummer.

The first couple of hours went pretty smoothly. Colton dove right into his homework and Brett kept himself busy with his activity book. I thought to myself - so far, so good. Then things took a little turn. After about 4 hours, the boys started getting antsy and annoying to both me and each other.

I tried to get Brett to take a nap. No luck. At least I could confine him to his "ceiling bed."

Whew. Time for lunch. The change of scenery for the boys was helpful.

We had a short lay over in Chicago before we boarded another train heading for Indiana. We didn't have our family room anymore so I was a bit nervous about how the kids would do with the general public. Thankfully they impressed me and the ride was only 1 1/2 hours. My mom and step-dad picked us up at the train station and we headed to my Great-Grandma's house in Michigan which was about 30 minutes away. The boys zonked out right away in the car. I got the boys settled in to bed and busted into a big ol' bottle of wine.

Friday was spent visiting, feeding the fish in great-gram's lake and a trip to Lake Michigan.

I think Minnesota's great lake got the shaft. Why are Lake Superior's beaches not white soft sand?!!

Saturday was the big party. We were able to get a few family pics in before we went out for dinner with the family that was able to be in attendance.

Gram picked out the location based on the fact that she like their burgers and chicken wings. It was an interesting location. The place was probably as old as she is, but she was right, the chicken wings were tasty!

So what does a 100 year old eat for her big birthday dinner? Chicken wings with hot sauce (I'm talking H-O-T) and a Miller Light. She rocks.

I'm so glad I got this picture of her. This is her chair where she sits most of the day until it gets too cold on her three season porch. I love that she is smiling and enjoying the company even though I'm pretty sure she didn't hear a thing anybody was saying as it's hard for her when there is more than one conversation going on at a time.

The boys and I headed home Sunday and spent all day on the train. I'm not kidding. All day. Other than a melt down by my youngest, the way home went much, much smoother.

Riding the train was a great experience and I'd gladly do it again.

Naked Bacon Band.....

Colton's band had a gig at our house today. The band's been together for a week and they've practiced twice. It's just him and the two neighbor kids. They've all been friends since kindergarten. It.Was.A.Riot. They played about 6 songs with not one lasting more than 30 seconds.
I now share with you, pictures from the first ever Naked Bacon concert:

The crowds came by the masses:

Then this guy snuck on stage when the band went to write more songs: