Advent Calendar

Day 2: This was a busy day. We had cookie baking at Nana and Papa's house. This has become a yearly tradition with Corey's family. I made Swedish wafer cookies and Molasses cookies. 

While we bake, the kids are busy playing.

The boys also went and cut down our Christmas tree.

Day 3: Corey was home alone with the boys. I had my 5th graders Christmas program. Corey and the boys made puppy chow and hung out together.

Day 4: We had planned on decorating the Christmas tree, but our daycare provider was sick. Corey stayed home with them so the boys were a little stir-crazy. They decided to go to the basketball game tonight while I cleaned our house.

Countdown to Christmas

The advent calendar was hung today! The countdown is on.

Charlie pulled down Day 1 and on the back it said "Hang Christmas Lights". So Charlie and Daddy tackled that project today.

The Christmas Dinosaur is making an appearance in our front yard again. Charlie sure thinks he is cool.

Elf on a Shelf

Susie the elf has shown up at our house again. Every morning, Charlie stumbles out of bed still half asleep to find her. 

She has already found some unusual places to hide. One of the first days, she made a snow angel in some flour on our counter. I forgot to take a picture of that one.

Another day she needed a shower:

This morning she was way up on top of the clock:

Thanksgiving

We have so much to be thankful for! Especially these 2 boys:

We hosted Thanksgiving at our house this year. It was wonderful to not have to travel. Yes, I had to clean and prepare food, but it was worth it. We only hosted our parents, so we didn't have to prepare to much.

Here is the table all decorated and ready to go:

After lunch, we were able to relax and take it easy. Grandma Cindy brought the boys reindeer antlers. Hudson had a blast with them.

Halloween

One of the boys always seems to get sick at Halloween. 

Wednesday was a very busy day. Charlie had a Halloween party at school. Then they were dressing up at daycare. When I picked the boys up, I found out Hudson had screamed all through his nap and never fell asleep. He had also started running a temp.

We decided to keep it low key for Halloween. I didn't want Hudson to miss it, so we dressed him up, took some pictures, and went to 5 houses. Then Mommy and Hudson came home and handed out candy while Charlie and Daddy went to a few more houses. 

Spiderman

The unhappy duck:

Which picture is better? The one where Hudson is not looking, or

the one where he is screaming his head off?

First stop of the night:

Charlie and his friend Aaron

Hudson is happier now that he has candy!

Carving Pumpkins

We have been looking forward to carving pumpkins for awhile now. Charlie has been asking every day, and Hudson loves playing with the pumpkins. We had been waiting so they would still be good for Halloween with how cold it is now.

We started by making apple cider to drink and popcorn to eat while we were working. Hudson found a creative way to drink his cider.

Here are the pumpkins they picked.

Waiting for Daddy to take the tops off so we can start scooping.

Charlie loved scooping the guts out. He kept calling them zombie brains.

Hudson was a little freaked out by the inside of the pumpkins. He didn't want to participate at first.

But then he found his saw and thought he would try that.

Here are the finished products :

Beautiful Weather

We are loving this warm fall weather. Fall gets really busy for us, so we were fortunate to be home for the weekend. We tried to spend the afternoon outside.

Spiderman has been at our house for a week now. We picked up Charlie's Halloween costume on Monday, and he has put it on everyday since. His friend that lives a few houses down has an Iron Man costume, so they have been keeping an eye on the neighborhood. Today he included a sword to help fight the bad guys.

Or maybe just the trees!

Hudson is happiest playing in his sandbox. 

Corey couldn't just relax, so he started a new project. Pictures will follow when finished!