Jack-o-Lanterns

When I have to physically break up the boys' wrestling, yell at them for burping at the dinner table, and hose them off after covering themselves from head to toe with sand from the sandbox, I am convinced I live with the most unrefined, rough-and-tough group of boys. But times like last night, when they refuse to help scrape out the pumpkins because they are "too icky," I wonder if my rough-and-tough boys are just a bunch of softies. So of course, the boys watched from the sidelines as Aaron scraped out and carved the pumpkins.

Don't be deceived, I literally had to bribe the boys with an M&M cookie to get them to just put their hand inside the pumpkin.

Check out Max's incredulous expression when Aaron pretended to eat a spoonful of the pumpkin guts.

Of all the pumpkins, my favorite is the cute one in the middle.

Pumpkin Masterpeices!

A-dor-able

Look at my big boy with his big boy haircut....a-dor-able.

Hotel Getaway

Who doesn't love a good surprise? We pulled off a huge surprise last weekend when we packed up a change of clothes, grabbed a couple Happy Meals to-go, and spent the night eating junkfood, splashing in the pool, watching movies, and staying up way past bedtime at the downtown Marriott (thanks for the free night, Marriott!)

Not the best photo, but you get the idea: we partied, we snuggled, and we vegged out.

My boys usually aren't big risk-takers, so I was surprised that they were so fearless in the water. We had to tear them out of the pool, pruny fingers and everything.

Visit to the Pumpkin Patch (wink, wink)

I'm glad the boys love the rubber ducky races, the bouncy rides, and the petting zoo so much because otherwise they'd see right through our trip to the pumpkin patch for what it really is: an excuse to sneak in a family photo-op! Oh, and pick out a couple pumpkins. This year, we visited the pumpkin patch a little early because 1) we decided to capitalize on a brief window of sunshine, 2) Nana and Papa Z came to visit and who doesn't love the pumpkin patch? and, 3) we're just crazy like that.

Makeover Max

Getting Max's haircut is a hysterical, hair-flying, tears/drool flowing, mess. Trust me, its an unpleasant experience for everyone involved. But when Max tried to pull-off this wack-a-doo hair-do at church on Sunday, I had to draw the line:

Ahhh, so much better:

What a stinkin' cutie!

Add it to the Resume

Now, just so you know, I did think long and hard about whether or not I should post this little nudie picture on the blog, knowing that photos are stored on the internet forever. Well, let me just tell any future prospective employers that may be finding this photo during a background check: Max is the bomb!

I put off potty training this little boy, anticipating a full-on knock-down, drag-out battle, but this kiddo surprised me and turned out to be a potty training champ! I plopped the portable potty chair in front of the tv, threw in a movie, and kept the juice flowing until Max was floating....and voila! Instant success! Max is no dummy--as soon as he figured out that all he had to do was pee in the potty to get his reward skittles, we were in business! Oh, to think of all of the diapers I could have saved by training this kid a long time ago!

Autumn Fun

It literally pains me to see summer fading into fall, but these past few days of crisp autumn weather have been too beautiful to not celebrate.

The boys love their fireman rain jackets--they wear them rain or shine, in fact! On this afternoon, we took a really laid-back nature walk....collected leaves, sampled blackberries, heckled the cows, and tossed rocks into the river.

Doesn't nature make the perfect playground?

On Saturday, I had to pull teeth to convince Aaron to join us for our family-on-wheels cruise down the trail, but once Aaron strapped on his rollerblades he loved it! We made quite the sight: Aaron and I on rollerblades pushing Ben in the stroller, Hank riding his bike, and Max trying to keep up on his scooter.

This afternoon, the boys and I got crafty and made these fun little Halloween spiders out of egg cartons and pipe cleaners.