Tanner's 5 year old checkup and Halloween parade

Tanner had his 5 year old checkup last week. He's finally 40 pounds, so we could take the harness straps off his carseat, and he's just buckled in with the seatbelt now! Woohooo! He's 42.75 inches tall, and 40 pounds.

Tanner's preschool had a costume parade and trick-or-treating through the church buildings. The Sunday School classes and offices decorated their doors and handed out treats. The kids had tons of fun. Then in the classroom, we decorated monster cookies and played Halloween BINGO. Tanner kept his SWAT team costume on alllll day long. (It needed a little bath last night before we go trick-or-treating for REAL today!)

Trick or treating outside of Eric's office. He had to be at a meeting, but thankfully he had a stand-in handing out goodies! :) 

Trick-or-treat!

Tanner in his classroom (he's near the bottom left) 

Tanner and his kooky monster cookie! Those frosting eyeballs are SO much fun. We stuck them on bananas this morning at breakfast! I think they'll be making an appearance on lots of food in our household! 

pumpkin patch 2014

Halloween Night!

We had a super fun night trick-or-treating in Gigi and Doobie's neighborhood last night! The kids got some seriously GOOD candy this year, and man - they got a TON. Their bags were HEAVY by the end of the night.  Tanner counted his pieces, and we got to about 50 when he lost interest in counting.  Bryce's Ghostbusters costume was definitely a hit, and everyone was thankful that Captain America was there to save the day too! The neighborhood was definitely a safer place with our two heroes around! 

(Eric's FBI shirt and fake mustache were pretty fabulous, but the mustache didn't stick very well!)

"Who you gonna call????"

It was a GORGEOUS sunset to enjoy while we were out!

And this was the beginning of the Sibling Candy Trade that took place (and which continued this morning!) 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIMI!!!!!!

It's okay, you can do a double-take. . .yes, that is indeed BRYCE, and not Tanner.  (Circa 2007)

Happy birthday to the best Mimi EVER!!!!!

We love you!!!!

xoxo

Halloween in the mountains

 Mr. Firefighter Tanner, and our Mad Scientist Bryce were ready for a great (chilly) night of trick-or-treating!

First we went into Dillsboro and had Mimi's birthday dinner at the Greek restaurant.  Then we collected treats at a lot of the stores downtown, who were handing out candy.

On our way out of town, we stopped at the fire station! The boys each got a bag of treats, and the firefighters let the boys sit inside one of the firetrucks! 

After that, we went to a neighborhood nearby, and the boys trick-or-treated in the chilly autumn air! The houses are so cute up there, and it was fun to have a NC Halloween.

 The morning after, (and every day since) the boys have had fun trading candy, counting their candy, and EATING their candy!

pumpkin patch

Even though we had been to the farm last weekend, we couldn't NOT go the pumpkin patch.  We've been every year since Bryce was a baby!

We didn't end up buying a BIG pumpkin there, but we got a lot of little baby pumpkins! 

Then we had a great dinner with Gigi and Doobie afterwards.  It was a perfect Friday evening!

Halloween night!

Even though Gigi and Doobie are out of town, we went to their neighborhood for trick-or-treating this year.  It's sort of become tradition!  (Especially since it's where Eric used to trick-or-treat when HE was a kid!)  Tanner (you know, the toddler who thinks he's six) was NOT going to be superman in a stroller this year - which made for a slightly frustrating and more difficult experience walking around the neighborhood, but the kids had fun, and thankfully the weather was beautiful!

These pictures are sort of backwards, but on our way, we stopped to trick-or-treat at Nana and Gil's.  There go our superheroes!

 This picture TOTALLY cracks me up.  It reminds me of the commercial with the kid dressed as Darth Vader, and he keeps trying to "use the force".  I don't think that's even at all what Bryce was trying to do, but I think it's hilarious! :)

Between Spooktacular, a fall festival, and Halloween, the kids came home with LOTS of CANDY. Probably enough to last until NEXT Halloween!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIMI!

Happy birthday to my cutie-patootie mommy, 

who made me THE best Halloween costumes.

Thanks for sharing TREATS every year on your birthday, Mommy!!! 

(She gives trick-or-treaters the BIG candy bars - they LOVE her!)

We will all eat LOTS of treats in your honor today!

We love you bunches and bunches and BUNCHES!

Happy happy BIRTHDAY!

xoxo

Pumpkin pickin'

We took our annual visit to the pumpkin patch, on Friday after school!  It was the 6th year we've gone there to get our pumpkin. . .ever since Bryce's first Halloween!  This year was a first though. . .a first time picking a pumpkin IN THE RAIN!!!!  But it was fun, and it only rained REALLY hard for a few minutes!

Hey Mom, can you BELIEVE all these pumpkins!?

I am a pumpkin EXPERT!

Seriously Mom, I've got it.  This is the one. And  I can TOTALLY carry it.  It's NOT too heavy.

What's the big deal? I think 17 pumpkins is a reasonable number to take home.

Showing off some goodies. . .in the RAIN!

Feel free to peruse the past few years of pumpkin picking. . ..
2010
2007 (because apparently I never posted pumpkin pictures in 2008 and 2009? how is that possible?)
2006
2005 - the first year!

Conner's Amaizing Acres

Yesterday we went to Conner's A-maize-ing Acres.  It's a farm with a corn maze, about an hour from here.  They open to the public, on Saturday's in October and November, and I've always wanted to go.  But it's a little expensive.  But thank goodness for Groupon, and awesome coupon codes, the four of us got in for $11! LOVE it!!!!

Our day was perfection at its finest.  The weather? PERFECT (75, breezy and clear!) The kids? Surprisingly well behaved and pleasant.  The farm? Absolutely the most fun and such a fantastic place!

 First we did the corn maze - something that none of us had done before.  It was fun, but once was enough for me!  It was more difficult than we expected, and the kids were sort of over-it pretty quickly!!! :)  BUT, there was MUCH more to do after that!

 The kids climbed on some GIANT hay bales - here is Bryce standing way up on top!

 Then we saw a donkey, but that was only the BEGINNING of the animals we saw. I think we counted 14 different kinds of animals: goats, cows, horses, bunnies, peacocks, chickens (tons of chickens!) donkeys, shetland pony. . . .lots of animals! (My favorite was the baby donkey! SO CUTE!)

 Here the boys are visiting with the goat and baby donkey.  Tanner kept trying to give them pumpkins.  He LOVED the animals.  He would get down really low next to them and make little squeaky noises - he was precious!!!!!

 The boys each picked out a tiny pumpkin.  Bryce was very thoughtful about which he picked out, and spent a lot of time considering his choices.  Tanner. . .well, Tanner ran around like a crazy person and tried to make giant pumpkin messes.  But he did end up with a baby pumpkin.  (And yes, I am pleased to report, that Bryce does indeed still say "punk-man" instead of "pumpkin"  .. . and I LOVE it.)

 After the pumpkin patch, Bryce played a fun game called a Duck Race. . .there were rain gutters slanting slightly down, and he had to pump the water from the old water pump to push the rubber duck down the gutter.  Lots of fun!

 feeding more horses. . .

 Bryce also got to drive this fun pedal car. . . he needed a little help though! (He got the tough one!!!!)

 The food was DELICIOUS. . . .Bryce said the barbeque was better than Bono's!  We had cheeseburgers and pulled BBQ, mac n cheese, green beans, and fries. . .Tanner ate every last french fry he could find!

 Bryce rode on the "cow train" after we ate. . .Tanner and I were going to ride, but he got cold feet at the last second!!!!! He was quite happy to just watch Bryce go! (as you can see, from the picture below!)

 Okay, so they had this giant plastic tub. . .and it was FILLED with corn kernals.  I took Tanner to play in it, while Eric and Bryce went on the hayride (because, again, Tanner got cold feet!) 

  Look at Tanner's feet. OH MY GOSH - the boys were FILTHY.  The boys both were totally and completely dirty, from their noses to their TOES (as you can see!!!) Tanner was wearing Crocs, which was why his feet were ESPECIALLY dirty!! We did a serious baby-wipe wipe-down when we got to the car! (And yes, I carried around hand sanitizer the entire time we were there!!!!!) :)

 Bryce came and joined us at the corn tub after the hay ride.

The farm was a great place for the boys to just RUN and get DIRTY and be BOYS!!!!!  There were a lot of people there, but it didn't FEEL crowded, because it is such a big place. 

 We finished off the day with HOME MADE ICE CREAM and a funnel cake! The ice cream was vanilla, and orange. (YUM!)

 Apparently, the ice cream was hilarious!

 The day was PERFECT.  Everything about it was awesome!

xoxo