November 3rd and I am JUST posting Halloween stuff!! It was one crazy weekend and I just haven't had time quite yet! We hosted the first 1/2 of a neighborhood Halloween party (the pre-trick-or-treating part) at our house on Friday afternoon. The kids ran around, had hot dogs & mac 'n cheese, played with some cheapie toys I bought from Oriental Trading company and then headed to the front lawn for group pics before striking out on the candy trail.

Goodies for the kids to play with: jack 'o lantern punch balls, jack 'o lantern shooter things and a variety of rubber duckies dressed as vampires, ghosts, mummies and pumpkins....for the babies of course

Plates and utensils (I made the utensil holder look like a mummy....well....that's what it's SUPPOSED to look like anyway!)

My neighbor Susan made this adorable "witches hat" treats with crescent rolls and pepperoni. They were SO yummy (Brady even had three of them! I gave him one, Brian gave him one and Memaw gave him one!)

Brian models the RockBand shirt that game with RB2 (see the little symbols??)

This is the BACK of Brady's bib. There is black ink all over it from the shirt transfer! I think there must be something in baby drool that makes those things run! Oh....and see what he has in his little hand?? A witch hat!

AJ and Aiden (guitar and drums receptively) rock it out with some crazy spiked hair!

So...I made the mistake of buying Logan a race-car driver outfit (on sale) a couple days before Halloween. He changed his costume 3 (THREE) times during the party. He WANTED to wear the race car driver, but we said no. Daddy even put it up on top of his tall bedroom dresser and sent our little man back downstairs as a guitar player. Well....one of the neighborhood girls showed up as a cheerleader, which prompted Logan to run to me and say "mommy mommy...Sarah is dressed as a cheerleader! I need to go get on my soccer jersey!" He went up to his room, destroyed his dresser, and found his shirt/shorts soccer uniform. He wore that for a while and then decided it was time to be a race car driver. He managed to get that outfit and put it on over the soccer uniform. He was spotted standing by Sarah saying "look cheerleader....look at my race car outfit! Look...it has a white top (points to top) and GREEN pants (lifts leg to show Sarah and almost falls over). Anne and I were joking that his costume was: a soccer player who likes to race cars and play the guitar...and who had a gig later that night. On another note, I have to add that I tried to get the boys to call the mini-van (normally dubbed "the super van") the "tour bus" all day....they didn't really get it and wouldn't humor me.

This is the girl Brian has picked to marry Logan. 1. She's ADORABLE 2. She loves to play with trucks. I mean really...how cute is a little tinker bell pouting because I made her stop playing with a monster truck to get her picture taken?! (I'm not kidding....she wasn't happy with me, but stopped to pose and then ran on her merry way with the truck....she had been in our house for about 2 minutes at this point! She ran straight to the playroom and found herself a truck!)

Everyone loads up on food before we head out to collect massive amounts of sugar - yeah sugar!
All the kids on the lawn. You can't tell, but the tree they are standing next to (in the foreground) is covered in orange lights and looks really cool at night. The day after Halloween, Brian ran to Target AS it opened to get more lawn goodies at 1/2 off for next year. He got: another tree, a gate, a "welcome" sign and some other piece of fencing. I love my husband!!!

I think this is the best picture of the night! Here are all the parents taking pictures of the kids. You can almost hear us all saying "(kid's name) SIT down!" or "(kid's name) look over here honey" or "(kid's name) move over a little" or "(kid's name) stop eating the grass!" <--- oh...that kid's name was Brady! :) Look at Anna in the background darting in to execute some costume adjustments!

With a group this large, crossing the street was an ordeal. The dads all orchestrated a line on one side and then let them cross quickly to the other side....

...Aiden was quite the little straggler getting across the street.

Nothing cuter than a bunch of dads pushing strollers.

I got lots of pictures of Aiden trick or treating. He was with us pretty much the whole time.

Once his bag got too heavy, he decided to put it in the stroller. He would go to each house, collect the candy in his hands, run back to the stroller to make his deposit (as shown below) and then run up to the other kids heading for the next house.

Logan, on the other hand, was harder to photograph. That's him in the distance...sprinting to the next house!

I actually did get him to stand still for a couple of minutes (reluctantly!)

Brian had a brilliant idea the morning after Halloween....use some of the chocolate to make banana split pancakes! As if the sugar from the previous evening wasn't enough, we put bananas (good) into pancakes (pretty good) and then let our kids cover those pancakes with strawberry syrup (not so good) and m-n-ms (bad! or was that reeeally good???)

Wow....who said we should breed?! Look at what we let them eat! hahahaha

Aiden was, not surprisingly, overjoyed by daddy's concoction! (pardon the PJs....he doesn't even like Thomas....but he gets the hand me downs of course....)
That night, it was time to "fall back" so we thought maybe we would let the boys stay up late to watch a movie. We all cuddled in our blankets on the couch and watched most of Alvin and the Chipmunks (it was the only decent thing they had at the quick check out kiosk...we didn't think to do battle at Blockbuster...being NetFlix people and all). By the way, our little plan didn't work....I was up at "4:30" the next morning (5:30). Boy was that a long day....

....which began with a little art work. First....Aiden climbed up onto the kitchen-area desk and found the sharpie marker I had (stupidly) put there on the night of Halloween. He marked all inside the wood cabinet door and on the shelves. Next, we had some coloring time with CRAYONS. I started my picture, but then left to put some laundry in, clean the kitchen and straighten up other stuff. The older boys got bored and requested dot art (think inky bingo markers in all different colors). I never got back to this picture because....

...Aiden dot-art-ed himself! If asked, he will tell you (seriously and maybe even with a finger wag) that "you only color on paper". Why then, my child, did you mark up a cabinet AND yourself within 1/2 an hour?!

Coming soon: more pictures of the day, a video, and blanket fort pics in a post to be titled "the games boys play"

Yesterday was dress up day at Logan's preschool. While he was gone, Aiden played with the paper and stickers nana and papa sent him for Halloween. He even made a little card for you guys.
We returned to the school around 11 to see the "costume parade". It was sort of strange. The kids came through the lobby, then out the front door, then back into another door, down a hallway, out another door to the back of the school and then through the middle doors. I just sort of stood in the hallway with my double stroller and looked as clueless as I felt. A bunch of the other moms and dads seemed to know exactly what was going on (did I miss a note in Logan's backpack about this parade non-sense?) Anyway - it was adorable except that Logan didn't want to do the parade once he saw us and then got really upset when he missed going outside with his class the first time. He had a major meltdown and didn't feel better until the class paraded by on one of their loops and Mrs. Jenn took his hand for the rest of the journey.

Aiden, at home, playing with stickers. God bless him....this kid can play for up to an hour all by himself with a stack of paper and things that will stick to it or draw on it.
Here is the sticker masterpiece Aiden made at Memaw's the other day. I swiped it for fridge decor :)

Aiden enjoys playing with the magnetic table in the lobby of the park district building while we wait for Logan's costume parade.

Here they come! Aiden ran up to say hi to Logan. He's not wearing his sunglasses and his rocker shirt is covered so he just looks like he's being that kid who is too cool to dress up for Halloween!

Here's the whole class and the parental paparazzi.
Here are Logan and Mrs. Jenn parading around outside. She's so sweet to him!
Back in the classroom, the kids each got a big bucket with their name on it filled with tons of Halloween stuff (a pumpkin straw, goldfish and pretzel snacks, rings, stickers, play doh etc). I'm hoping I didn't miss something about contributing to the buckets!!

Our happy rocker boy...on his way to the car with his bucket of goodies.

We have been so busy this month, that our annual pumpkin farm outing almost didn't happen! Brian and I looked at each other last Sunday and said "we have to go to a pumpkin farm FOR SURE next weekend!!" So therefore, despite the very windy and cold day, we set out for Bengtson's Farm late Saturday morning. We had never been there as a family before, although the older boys went last year with Memaw and Grandpa when I was super preg with Bray. We usually go to a place that has a petting zoo, giant blow-up jumpy things and a few rides. Bengtson's was so much better!! I'm not sure why, but the big draw for Brian was the pig racing. Really? I thought maybe it was a midwest-raised-boy thing. It was pretty funny though! I just had to laugh because, when we arrived, it was 12:30. The pig races were at 1:30 so the entire first hour of our time at the farm was carefully planned to assure that we did not miss the race. It went a little like this
B: What time is it?
Me: 1:00
B: Ok....you take Aiden and Brady to get them some hot dogs. I'll take Logan through the haunted barn then meet you back here. The boys can eat and then I'll get us something to eat.
Me: Got it
B: Ok....we have 20 minutes - GO!

Anyway, we all had a blast (most of the time!). Here are the pictures!

Since we got such a late start (Brady's early nap, Brian's need to read the paper, my compulsion to wander aimlessly through the house picking things up), the boys took their nap on the way to the farm. Sadly, they watched a movie for about 30 minutes and finally dozed off just in time for us to reach our destination....we drove around for a while looking at the corn fields and let them finish a quick snooze.
Logan and Daddy get in line to pay (a completely outrageous amount of money for 2 adults and only 1 child over the age of 2) wearing their matching, brown puffy vests. Too stinkin' cute.

Aiden has become a little bit of a mama's boy lately. Here, he pauses in the line to the little train ride and debates going with daddy and Logan or staying with me.

Logan, on the other hand, rushed to the ride, hopped in the front car and proceeded to ring the train bell over and over.

Here they are, making the first round of the ride....Aiden looks less than thrilled.
This was the coolest thing...a pumpkin totem pole that was at least 8 feet high. I contemplated buying a bunch of small gourds and pumpkins to dress ours up like this at home.

After the train ride, we went to check out one of the many mechanical displays they have around the park. This is "The See-Through Band". The skeletons moved, sang and played instruments. Even the four heads up on top sang along.

After the train ride, Aiden needed a little mommy cuddle time and wouldn't let me put him down for a while.

Brady enjoys the view from the stroller

Here they are, watching more of the fun sights. Logan had to climb in and give his baby brother a cuddle.
After Logan and Daddy went through the haunted barn (and after I scored some hot dogs), Logan returned to tell us all about it. I'm going to do my best to remember what he said:

"and Aiden...there were these monsters that POPPED up out of everywhere, but I wasn't afraid!"
"would you be afraid of monsters Aiden??"

"because they were kinda scary, but I was a big boy and I wasn't afraid! You should go too!!" Here, Aiden is actually looking back at the haunted barn thinking "um....ya...no". I did take him through it later (carried him the whole way) and I found it a bit scary for little kids. I had to make up some silly stuff along the way. Example: three scary figures with crazy hair were sitting around a table in one of the little rooms that you look into as you walk through the barn. There was a crystal ball on the table and taro cards in front of each figure. The table was floating around and the characters were all shaking. I said "oh look - how silly....they are playing 'Go Fish!'"

Here, Brian and the boys axiously await the pig racing.

The little show they put on was pretty funny and the pigs were hysterical...particularly the pot-belly ones that mostly refused to race anywhere. All the pigs had funny names like "Linsey Lo-Ham" and "Britney Spare-Ribs"

This, my friends is the most delicious carmel/kettle corn I've ever had. I'm going to have to remember to get more next year. There was one problem though. We all ate it by the handful as we walked to the car, but how do you share such a treat while driving home??
Solution: make paper hats....
...and serve it up with a little movie for the car ride home.