So…I didn’t post much last week because…well, Brian took most of the week off and we spent a lot of time doing family stuff and getting ready for Thanksgiving. He was gone the entire week before in California, then I had a (super fun) night away with the girls so it was nice to be together for a good chunk of days (and a treat because he usually takes lots of time off around Christmas, but not Thanksgiving). I think there was one point around Wednesday where the boys literally did not take their pajamas off for the entire day…and they may have just gone back to bed in them that night (what!? we were cooking for the next day – ha). Brian was super productive around the house, fixed some broken stuff, winterized the back yard and cleaned out the garage. We hosted his family here for Thanksgiving and went to see a Christmas parade the next day. This week I’m busy busy working on Brady’s upcoming birthday party…more on that later.

For now, here are some pics from last week:

Brian let our turkey brine overnight in apple cider. Here is a picture of the boys watching daddy take out “Turkey Wurkey”. There is a funny video at the end of this post as well.

 

Look Ma (and Grams), I used the good china, crystal and silver. Oh and Denna, I used the napkin holders that you knitted out of wire – so cool!

While Brian and I got all the final prep done on dinner, Memaw had the boys make turkeys out of apples, various candies and toothpicks.

The finished products. Brady’s wasn’t quite looking turkey-like. He was much too busy eating the candy I think.

And here is your traditional “hand print turkey” that Logan made at school. He kept saying he had a surprise for dinner in his backpack. After we sat down, I saw him leave the little kids table, then come back with a piece of paper in his hands. He put it on his chair and sat on it. We got him to take it out and then passed it around the table. The only problem was that he wanted to pick someone to take the drawing. Mr. Indecision was mighty confused…he kept wandering around the table trying to chose someone. Fearing he was never going to actually sit and eat, I ended up suggesting that we make color copies. So we did…and everyone took one home. I kept the original of course.

Friday afternoon, we headed to a near-by Christmas parade. It was a rather chilly day and only 2 families from the neighborhood decided to brave the weather. Here are the kids crossing over the river towards the downtown area (they light up all the trees at the end of the parade which is the coolest)

Brady was wearing dog puppets instead of gloves (more on those puppets in another post!)

The kid crew! As soon as we arrived, the daddies set off to get hot chocolate. The line was so insane that they were gone for at least 1/2 an hour or more. Brady was having a hard time standing the chill…plus he had to pee pee. I think he and I saw about 5 minutes of the actual parade (while we drank hot chocolate) before we headed to a cute bookstore down the street to wait it out. We were planning to stay in the area for dinner, but it was too crowded. We ended up getting a pizza on the way home and eating it while the kids played and watched Toy Story 3.

I think this video is hilarious…especially Logan’s question and his corresponding “chop off the head” hand gesture. I’m not sure what Aiden’s question is all about, but I think he is talking about raising turkeys on a farm. Brady says nothing, but looks confused and disgusted. I stopped the video as Brian started removing weird stuff from inside the bird. The thing he pulled out right before the end was the neck (gag).

Inspired by daddy's departure to the Bears game, the boys have set up their own tailgate party in the living room. Looks like a lot of cooks in the kitchen!
Plastic hotdog or pizza anyone?

Today during a car ride, the boys and I got onto the topic of schooling, grade levels, why there is no grade 13, college and entrance exams. I was trying to explain that colleges choose YOU based on grades, tests etc. If you want, you can ask lots of different schools if you can be accepted as a student and, if more than one says yes, you can choose where you want to go. This led to more questions about choosing. I said you should chose somewhere that has good classes for your interests…ie: what you want to be when you grow up. The boys then thought about it and reported current career aspirations:

Logan – a builder…maybe of toys (mommy translation: engineering…of toys)

Aiden – a writer of stories. He suggested a zombie tale based on his favorite iphone game, plants vs. zombies (don’t ask…it’s actually a cute game…daddy showed it to him and now he’s like obsessed)

Brady – scuba diver (mommy translation: marine biologist)

This is a delayed post since I had other stuff to talk about last week :)

One week after Halloween, we had another very busy Friday. Encouraged by my friends, I have (happily) become involved in the Home and School organization for Logan’s elementary school (aka: PTA). On Friday, November 5th, they held their one and only fund-raiser for the school year – a fun run where all the kids run around outside or, as was the case this year, in the gym. They collect money before hand and all the money goes to the operating budget for Home and School (thank you oh wonderful people who do not make my kids sell wrapping paper etc etc). I volunteered during Logan’s scheduled time and served water to three groups of kindergarteners running around like crazy people.

Later that afternoon, I returned to the school (for the second day in a row) around 4pm to set up for the school’s Fall Festival which started at 6pm. This is a free event sponsored by Home and School (see paragraph above about raising money…some of it goes towards this event as well as a free Spring Event). Well…my darling neighborhood friends (crazy people that they are) somehow ended up planning last year’s Spring event and then this year’s Fall Event (ie: I’ll be doing the Spring Event with them later this year). We went with a Family Game Show night and 5 of us worked our rears off for at least 8 weeks getting everything ready. I was in charge of the Minute to Win It Section (if you haven’t see the show on TV, contestants have 1 minute to complete a given challenge to win money). I also took over poster duty and made at least 20 posters…which was fun, but time consuming :) The event was awesome – totally fun and everyone had a great time!

Pics from the fun run:

Logan streaking by like a maniac. He was red as a tomato after about 10 minutes! 

The Fun Run is sponsored by Famous Dave’s (a local, chain, BBQ restaurant). The kids got their picture with the Famous Dave’s pig after the event was over. Logan is in the back row, farthest to the left.

My other job, in addition to filling tiny water cups, was the cut and hand out freeze pops at the end of the run. brrrrr on the hands…but smiles all around from the kids! Just like after his classroom Halloween party the week before, Logan said to me, “Mommy…thank you for saying you would be here for this!” He was walking around telling the other kids, moms and teachers, “My mom is handing out the water!” 

And now for the Fall Event:

Minute to Win It Challenge: Stack Attack – the kids had 1 minute to stack the cups up like this then, using only one hand, slide the cups down one side, pick those up and put them on the top, slide down the next row and so on until the cups were in a pile again (kind of hard to explain…)

Challenge 2: stack three apples on top of each other and have them balance without falling for a count of 3 (on the show, I think they have to stack 5)

The Deal or No Deal Table. At every game, the kids earned stamps worth various amounts of money. They took their cards to a little “store” we set up to buy trinkets at the end of the night (like Chucky Cheese)

Our friend Connor doing the “defying gravity” game

Hallway decorations. Susan and I did the ceilings up and down the main hall on Thursday night. I was getting pretty brave with my ladder! That’s Logan pointing to the ceiling

Along with all the games (Family Feud, Minute to Win It, Deal or No Deal, Win Lose or Draw, The “Family Wed” game, Name that Tune, a ton of different Price is Right stuff, Bingo and a book walk), we also had karaoke (like American Idol) set up in the music room and a Dressing Room where the kids would get face painting, tattoos and painted nails.

Logan getting his face painted. A lot of the volunteers working the games and other things were recruited from the local middle schools and used this time to fulfill community service requirements for various classes.

It’s a shark jumping out of the water.

Bounce house in the gym

Culver’s came and sold hot dogs, chips and custard.

Some of the signs I made. All of the picture elements are made from sparkly paper that I found and cut out to make various things. My favorite is the shark :)

I'm really hoping that he outgrows this phase, but currently I am required to take Aiden into his preschool building every day, wait for him to hang up his coat and backpack in the hallway and then I have to "take him in upside down". He hugs my legs with his face burried in my knees and I flip his feet up over my head so he's facing out and hanging upside down. The kids already in the classroom DIE laughing every time (like literally you would think they haven't seen thise at least 20 times now). I then carry him over to the table where all the kids have their names written out on leaves (it used to be apples). Aiden finds his name upside down and then I'm allowed to let him flip back to up-right. This started last year when Aiden was feeling shy one day and hugged my legs outside of his 3's preschool class. I flipped him over and it made him laugh. I carried him into the room and to his chair which made all the other kids laugh. It was a one-time thing last year...now it's every day.
Thankfully his current teacher doesn't mind. It's my opinion that Aiden loves to make people laugh. Once he's gotten his first laugh of the day at school, he feels much more comfortable and ready to join the gang. If it makes him happy...I'll keep doing it...but I draw the line at Kindergarten!

This morning, Logan was cuddling with me in bed and told me that his teeth hurt. I investigated the source of the complaint (the bottom two front teeth) and discovered that one of them is lose! The look on his face was priceless – he was SO excited! We immediately called daddy to let him know. I have since informed him that it will probably be at least 4 weeks before his tooth actually falls out. I have also reminded him that losing teeth goes against my strictest house rule: stop growing up so darn fast! As always, he laughed at me… thinking I’m not serious about this growing up non-sense!

I’ve been meaning to do a post about Brady for a while. He is in such a fun stage lately…saying things that crack me up constantly. Well, it just so happens that Brady had 2 big milestones last week. Most impressive was that he finally gave up his pacifiers. This was in part due to the second big milestone, sleeping in a big boy bed! As I’ve already mentioned, the big boys got bunk beds and there happened to be a brand new twin mattress set in the corner of their room waiting for Brady’s big boy bed when he was ready (clarification: the mattress were there because Aiden needed it for one night in between the arrival of the mattresses and the actual bunk bed…hard to explain, but they were supposed to be moved into Brady’s room when he was ready…we were just too lazy to put them anywhere appropriate in the interim).

Anyway, every night at bedtime, Brady would say that he wanted to sleep in his “bunt bed” (bunk bed) in Logan and Aiden’s room”. I would tell him that he could only stay there if he slept without his paci. Well, after about 5 nights of trying to sleep there, then going to his crib, then back and forth and so on and so on, I finally decided that I was just going to lay there with him on the mattresses until he fell asleep. It took from 8 until 9:30, but he slept the night through without a pacifier. So…having promised him a big “party” when he was ready to get rid of the paci, I decided one night was enough and we were pulling the trigger! I pumped him up about a party. We happened to be hosting neighborhood playgroup so I told him everyone was coming over to celebrate. I gave him the option of mailing his pacis to baby Nathan (Denay’s new baby boy) or he could tie them to a bunch of balloons and let them fly away. He chose the second. I also let him pick out a new little something at the party store. He picked another stuffed dog, whom he named Sha Sha puppy.

Daddy happened to be in the area on Tuesday so he came home to watch the pacis fly away. Brady broke down several times before the big event…he fluctuated between saying, “I’m a big boy and I don’t need my pacifiers” and “no…I don’t want you to tie those to a bunch of balloons! take them off!” That night, Brian and I set up his real big boy bed IN the same room with Logan and Aiden (a situation requested by all three boys). His 2nd official night without the pacifiers was rough. He woke up in the middle of the night wanting them. When I reminded him that they flew away, you would think I actually told him I killed a puppy. Sobbing, wailing and crying, I rocked him in his room for about 45 minutes. It’s been better and better every night since, but no pacis really means no napping because it’s hard for him to settle down to sleep plus if he naps, he really can’t go to bed easily at night (ie: he was up until 10pm last Friday night!)

Here is the inside of the note we attached to the balloons. The outside said “Paci Fairy”. I felt really bad sort of tossing trash like balloons and used pacifiers into the world, but my good friend Karen thought a note might help clarify and anyone who found the bunch of balloons might toss everything into the trash for me.

I originally bought a small bunch of balloons that wasn’t going to work so daddy brought more home..plus a big lollipop – look how happy he is! That is Sha Sha in his hand. Sha Sha goes everywhere with us now.

Ready for lift-off!

Everyone counted 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and we all watched the balloons fly up into the sky. In case you’re wondering, Logan was being in Spiderman all day long. All the costumes at Walmart were 1/2 off so I bought it for the dress up bin ($6!). After we launched the balloons and after we couldn't see them in the sky anymore, we all went in and had cupcakes.

This post is getting long, but I have actually been jotting down funny Brady stuff lately so I am just going to add it here. Funny stuff Brady does and says:

tater tot = teeter-totter (like at the park)

can’t you = can you

boddin = bottom (as in “can’t you wipe my boddin” when he’s done on the potty)

“my brother called Aiden” when talking to other people about his brother or “my friend called AJ” when talking to me about his friends

Brady constantly says, in a sort of distressed voice, “mom?” then when I say “what Brady” he giggles and says, “I love you”. He tells me this at least 15 times a day, no joke.

Has learned, from Grandpa, how to raise his eyebrows up and down. It’s hysterical! He’ll do it on command when we say “Brady, do eyebrows!”

Argues with me constantly. One day I told him my favorite color is orange and he got all angry and said, “no it not! it pink!!” This is one example of MANY MANY that happen all day long

gallops instead of running, loves goat cheese, smiles with his eyes, can only think of 1 thing he wants for his birthday “another Thomas”…we have like 5 of them!

And finally, a short video of my special time with Brady…when brothers are at school and we’re not napping!

Halloween actually started, not on Sunday, but last Friday with classroom costume parades and parties. Brian was a LIFESAVER and took the day off so I could run around like a crazy person. He took the older boys out for breakfast while I ran Brady to “school”. Brady’s class paraded around with the 3 and 4-year-old preschoolers. Then, I took Aiden to school after lunch, watched his parade (no party for him this year…boo hoo) while Brian ran Logan to school. I circled back to the house, grabbed all the party stuff for Logan’s class and then walked over for the school parade and a party. Meanwhile, Brian napped with Brady :) and picked Aiden up from school. phew!

Saturday, we did 2 soccer games in the morning (well, I shouldn’t say we because Brady flat-out refused to leave the car and enter the cold day for Aiden’s game…so I took him home while Brian coached, Aiden played and Logan watched. For Logan’s game later that day, I just had Brian take him because I knew it was too cold for the other boys). Later, the boys went with Meemaw and Grandpa to a fun park district Halloween festival in the afternoon while Brian and I cooked, cleaned and got games set up for our adult Halloween party that night.

Sunday was more soccer (Brian and then Logan again for a make-up game). I started re-cleaning the house, getting the food ready and finishing up the games around 7:30am, the neighborhood crew arrived at 3:00 and we all left to trick-or-treat around 4:30. We ended the night at Chad and Anna’s for pizza. Then it was back home to divide our candy into 2 bowls: things to keep and things to take to the fire station and donate to the troops (Logan and Aiden made a card to send along as well).

While it was a hectic and busy weekend, I wanted to immediately press rewind and do it all over again. Sigh…goodbye Halloween!

Taken with my (fuzzy) iphone: Brady in his costume parade. Check out mini DJ Lance Rock in front of him! Too awesome! I was actually hiding in the back of the room because Brady had some separation issues that day. Anne was standing next to me and wanted to get a cute picture of Brady. She totally didn’t mean to, but she yelled over to him to look our way. When he saw me, we had yet another round of “hand screaming child to teacher and run”

Here is Aiden during his parade as Drago (a Bakugan…he’s basically a dragon)

Aiden’s class:

Logan during the school parade. Here he is saying, “Mom! Mom! I just saw Miss Anne and Miss Anna and Ashley!!”

Logan’s class. He is on the bottom row looking verrrry serious with his full mask on

During our adult party Saturday night, we had a couples “white elephant style” costume game. We told everyone to bring a costume in a paper bag (well, one costume per couple) Each couple then had to pick one person, husband or wife, to wear the costume they drew from the wrapped up bags. Here is the first round (Brian and I contributed the Popeye costume…Brian is the pumpkin)

Little did everyone know that there was a revenge round where the people who originally had to wear the costumes then sat on one side of the room and went around and around choosing various pieces from ALL the costumes and dressed their spouse. I ended up in poly-foam bliss with a pumpkin middle, Popeye arms and a flower lei. Hawaiian super pumpkin!

Here are the decorations I put up for both of our parties: 

Halloween day party checklist: spread of munchies – check!

Fun food for the kids: Mummy Pizzas – check!

Dad’s eating cheese dip and drinking beer – check!

Games and a craft – check! Here, the kids are playing a game called “A Gift From Mummy”. I wrapped “magic beans,” as my boys call them, into a roll of toilet paper. The kids had to pass the toilet paper around in a circle, taking turns wrapping their arm like a mummy until they reached one of the beans. Susan (pictured here on the right) was holding a witch cauldron full of warm water. The kids took their beans, put them into the cauldron and then came back a little later to find a Halloween sponge creature. We also did a craft/game where the kids made mis-matched pumpkins by drawing out various mouths, eyes and noses from the witches cauldrons and pasted them on orange paper pumpkins. I didn’t take any pictures because that was just madness with 18 kids and 10 glue sticks! Oh, and in the background of this shot: kids trick-or-treating at a house where at least 4 different families were handing out candy. Score at the 554!

Traditional front-lawn picture – check! (this was by far the worst picture to date…check out the awful shadows! I didn’t actually take this by the way and the person who did…a-hem…didn’t get a shot of just OUR kids)

This was the first Halloween where Brady actually “got” what was going on. he LOVED every minute of it! He would open his bag and say “happy Halloween” to get candy. This is his first official house!

Most of the kids thought that the trick-or-treating was a race. Here, Aiden runs to give me Logan’s mask before dashing off.

A rare, and very backlit, picture of Logan standing still

Hey look – 2 of my kids in the same shot!

I mean really…take a look at Ryan (Iron Man) – he’s like full on ready for a dash as he’s coming off the porch!

Brady wasn’t running so much…he was my buddy the whole time. He went up to Anne at one point and told her, “I’m happy!” Of course you are! He also told me, “I’m a baby candy monster!” He didn’t want to wear his cape.

Here are most of the kids in our group crossing the street – look how some of them are literally mid-flight!

Susan strikes again with her amazing treats! These are brownie pops frosted and made to look like witches brooms with pretzel sticks. The kids enjoyed these after trick-or-treating was over and while the moms and dads had some pizza.