Halloween Costumes

Here are photos of our very festive Halloween costumes!

She is a witch, not a princess and was happy to point that out to everyone who made a mistake. 

His costume is a bit more obvious.

I wanted blue hair. No costume, I just wanted blue hair.

Here they are ready to go trick-or-treating.

Jack-o-lanterns

It's time to carve our annual jack-o-lantern! From the time they were babies they have been feeling the seeds and "slime" inside and now they aren't even squeamish about it.

Cleaning out the pumpkin

Here are some seeds

Helping with carving

Our pumpkin faces!

Wordless Wednesday

Making their own ranch dressing at a Halloween cooking event

Visiting the pumpkin patch

I love that we living walking distance to a pumpkin patch. We tend to go a few times each year but somehow we didn't end up with many photos this time.

Look at the two cute, smiling, posed kids.

That's more like it!

Pumpkin Ball

This was the cheapest and easiest thing I did this season that was a huge hit. I made pumpkin balls for my kids and my students at school. You can get the streamers 2 for $1 at the dollar store. I bought random things to put inside them - toys, candy, juice boxes, crackers, etc.

Here they are assembled. Don't worry if they are lumpy, most pumpkins are.

The kids start unwrapping them and every once in a while something falls out.

The more they unwrap the more they find.

It's like a scavenger hunt in a pile.

We did end up with streamers all over, but they were easy to clean up and the kids loved it. It was even a hit with my high school students and how many things are popular with 4 year olds and 17 year olds? They were cheap, easy, and I think we just started a new tradition.

Football!

My kids love going to football games. However their favorite game every year is the game with all the mascots. Here are some photos.

Sweet Daughter with a tooth and tooth fairy.

Peruna!

Um... Wolf? Cat? I have no idea, but my kids are willing to cuddle.

A Green Bee?

Of course the game isn't just about the mascots. They also like to run like crazy. That is Sweet Son running around waving his hat in the air. He did that for 30 minutes at a time more than once during the game. Then he slept at night. ;)

Things Kids Say (October)

There have been so many things recently that the kids have said that are funny or profound in some way. I'm going to try to remember a few.



Son: "Ruby Bridges went to a gray school."
Me: "Huh?"
Son: "It was mixing black and white at the school."



Whiny 5 year old, the world is ending voice Sweet Son: "Mommy I need your help. Mommy, help me. Help me Mommy."
Big sigh, Me: "Yes? What do you need help with?"
Sweet Son: "I need more present tense words."
Me: "Huh? What did you say?"
Sweet Son: "I'm writing words and I want more present tense words."
Me: "Of course you do."



Sweet Daughter: "So since you mostly vote for people, we aren't a real democracy are we?"
Yes, this led to a long discussion. Because what else would you discuss in the car?




Sweet Son: "N (boy at school) hit the tree and I told him to stop because trees give us oxygen. Then N said trees can hurt us, but I told him we need trees to breathe. It's not food, water, and shelter, but it helps provide us with all of those things if you really think about it."




Son: I don't know how to do this. Can you help?
Daughter: My brain knows how to do it, but I don't.
Son: Aren't you using your brain?

Wordless Wednesday

A bike ride to the "spinning" park is a favorite activity.

Science Conversations

Sweet Son has this habit of asking vague questions such as "How does it work?" When I don't know what "it" he is asking about. This just leads to frustration. One day after 20 minutes of trying to figure it out, I gave up. I told him I had no idea what he was referring to so I couldn't answer. About 15 minutes later (we had all moved on and were doing other things), Sweet Son comes up to me and says, "Mommy, earlier I was referencing the sensor on Daddy's car that tells it when to turn on the windshield wipers." Then I could answer the question. I was impressed with the word reference though.


I have a refillable air freshener in my car and the kids told me it needed to be changed. I changed the sugar cookie scent for watermelon lemonade. Sweet Daughter ask me what makes it smell. I explained that it was called an aromatic compound. She wanted to know what's in an aromatic compound. Naturally, I explained that most aromatic compounds are based off a benzene base. Sweet Son asked what benzene is, so I explained the circle of 6 carbons with alternating single double bonding where one or two hydrogen have been replaced by something else in order to make it aromatic. Then of course we got into carbon being the basic building blocks of everything, the varying strength of single, double, and triple bonding (as related to legos being building blocks to make everything and some connections stronger than others depending on how many circles are hooked). You know, typical car conversations. I'm just waiting for this to come out at school or in music or someplace.

A Tale of Two Beds, Part 25

Once again, here are the links to the previous tales. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Frustration, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part22, Part 23, Part 24.

This is getting more than just a bit ridiculous. When will this series end? Also, when it does how much will I miss it?

I mean you could use the entire room you have to yourself. OR you could section off a small area at the door and leave the rest of the big open room empty, except for the bed frame.

Beds, what are they good for anyway? I mean clearly we have very comfortable carpet.

Twins in separate rooms who clearly appreciate symmetry.

Look at that nice bed. It comes with a pillow, water cup, stuffed animal, and blanket. 

They are great for sleeping next to.

Sometimes it's just easier to sleep if you line up an audience to watch. Right?

Decorating Pumpkins

I saw a new way to decorate a pumpkin and it is awesome! This is my new favorite way to decorate.

First you glue some crayons around the top - some people can get them to balance, we couldn't but the glue doesn't show.

Then you use a hair dryer to melt them down over the pumpkin. A white pumpkin works best, but anything would work.

The box helped contain most of the splatters, but you can see here just how cool it looks.

Sweet Daughter painted this at school.

Sweet Son painted this at school.

Zoo Animals

The kids both had an assignment to create a new animal and write a sign (fill in the blank) that would go near it in the zoo to explain it to others.

Sweet Daughter: This amazing animal is called a Gij. It can be found in the ocean. Its body is fur and tail. In its natural habitat, it eats fish and insects. For shelter, the animal is in water. The Gij is classified as a mammal. If you ever meet a Gij be sure to pet it.

Sweet Son: This amazing animal is called a Beubs. It can be found in the sand. Its body is slimy feet and big puffed up antlers. In its natural habitat, it eats bugs and pirates. For shelter, the animal goes under sand. The Beubs is classified as a mammal. If you ever meet a Beubs be sure to pet it.

Wordless Wednesday

They love visiting Daddy at work!

Ice Hockey (part 2)

More of our introduction to hockey class! You can see just how much fun they are having.

Another day, another game

Break away and go after the puck!

There's Sweet Daughter checking someone twice her size... It only took her a few weeks to figure out how to do it effectively rather than just bouncing off of them. (No, they are not supposed to check at this age.)

Go for a goal!

It's like watching little kids play soccer only much, much funnier.

Ice Hockey (part 1)

The kids love the Little Rookies program. I mentioned it last month when they started. Here are some photos from the end of the 4 week session. You can really see just how far they have come.

Ready to go on the ice

That looks difficult

Everyone this way!

Time for a hockey game

There is a feeling of pride when your kid is the only one standing at any given moment.

Switching stations to keep it interesting

Fall Festival

Every year Wonderful Husband's work has a Fall Festival. This year they decided to do something different. They rented out a ball park. There was free food, bounce houses, a big playground, and once it got dark they played the Lego Movie on the big screen.

 Meeting the mascot

We sent the kids across the field to get us all some popcorn. They loved the responsibility. We loved being lazy.

Here we are waiting for the movie to start. Once it started the kids were given glowing necklaces and bracelets. One child spent the entire movie throwing or rolling them around and chasing them. The other child spent the entire movie twisting and rearranging them to create various items. They still have no idea what the Lego Movie is about. This is why we don't pay for movies.

Birthday Balloons

Remember our tradition of birthday balloons filling a room? Well a few weeks later and they are almost all still around. We needed to get them off the floor if nothing else - they are all over the house.

 This certainly looks more festive.

A few extras that didn't fit.

I love when they play together so nicely. This also shows their hair cuts clearly. His is still longer, but not by much.

Eventually we had to pop them. She was very enthusiastic about this.

Wordless Wednesday

Don't worry, she assured me she's not tired just moments before this...

Organizing Legos

The kids decided to sort all of their Legos by color. After about 30 minutes, I brought out the egg cartons for them to use to help sort. They kept going and going. We have a ton of Legos (figuratively).

They spent hours and hours working on this. Then with less than 100 Legos left, they quit. I finished the last group for them. Then we had to find a new storage solution. Wonderful Husband put dividers into cardboard boxes so they could stay divided into the 14 different sections (the people/animals were in a plastic container). I know what you are thinking, how long could they possibly leave them sorted? We are talking about a couple of 5 year olds after all.

I keep this blog a year behind real life for privacy reasons. As of a full year later, they are still sorted. They are still played with daily and we now have even more Legos. It's crazy that they can leave the floor so covered in toys that you can't walk through, but the Legos, those get sorted.