Happy Halloween!!

Well I think Carter has a new favorite holiday. I'm sure it will all change once Christmas/birthday time rolls around again, but for now, he just cannot believe he got to walk around the neighborhood collecting candy! We had a really fun Halloween - I'll show you the photos from last night in this post, and then try to get back here in the near future to share all the fun things we've done leading up to Halloween!

So did you have any doubt about what Carter would want to go as?? Of course, he's Thomas the Tank Engine! Actually, the little smarty, because the hat came with the costume, he pointed out that he's both Thomas *and* Mr. Conductor at the same time. :-)I asked him if he could open his eyes a little wider for a photo... and he did! LOL!Here's our sweet little Dorothy! I wanted to get her to stand & pose for a photo like Carter did, but she wanted none of it. It was mostly because her shoes were bugging her. I already had these hand-me-downs from Rachel, and thought they'd be good enough for one night. Well, they are size 8, and Courtney only wears a 5 and a half. She was not thrilled with how they fit, despite my efforts to stuff the ends with cottonballs!Here's Carter, Daddy and Courtney posing for the camera. I had on a fun witch hat, so we had to find a funny hat for Daddy to wear too!In the wagon, ready to head to the park for the neighborhood Halloween party!Oops, Mommy goofed! The party was 3-5pm - Mommy thought it STARTED at 5! Oh well, we had fun playing at the park instead. The Thomas costume is having a short rest - too hard to seesaw while wearing it. :-)Notice the ruby slippers are officially gone at this point.Finally the trick-or-treating begins. Here's the first house they went to. Carter loved ringing the bells and yelling TRICK OR TREAT as loud as he could. And everyone told Courtney she was the cutest little Dorothy ever. She couldn't figure out why everyone kept calling her Dorothy! :-)Trick-or-treating is finished and we're heading back home. They couldn't wait to dive into that candy!Once we were home, Carter got super excited every time kids came to OUR door to get candy - he'd grab out candy bowl and hand it out to the kids and tell everyone "Happy Halloween!" It was cute. Now I'm faced with the challenge of keeping C &C OUT of the candy they collected - I turn my back for a minute and they have suckers in their mouths! This morning Carter actually tried climbing up on top of the fridge to get at the candy, while I was changing Courtney's diaper. For now it's hiding in the microwave - sssh, don't tell him! :-) I hope you all had a very Happy Halloween!!

Rainy Day Fun - Making Crayons!

After a long, hot summer of complaining about the lack of rain, I'm now on the verge of complaining about too much rain!! Boy, we sure have had a lot of it lately! But then I drive past Lake Travis, and see all the "islands" that are still there, and remember that rain is good. Especially when you have fun things to do with the kids on those rainy days - like this idea that I got from my friend Jenn! We turned Carter's old broken crayons into funky new round crayons!! Here's how:

Step 1: Remove papers from the crayons and break into small pieces. Carter was such a great helper!!Step 2: Fill a mini muffin pan, sprayed well with Pam, with the crayon pieces. Fill each cup all the way to the top.Step 3: Bake in a 400 degree oven for 5 minutes. This is how they looked when I first pulled them out - VERY melty!Step 4: After cooling completely on the counter, pop them into the freezer for a few minutes so they come out of the muffin pan easily. Voila! Funky new round crayons!! :-)

A Day Out with Thomas!!

So you all know that Carter is a little Thomas the Tank Engine fanatic, right? Well today we did something very exciting - we drove up to Burnet, TX for a DAY OUT WITH THOMAS!!! The weather did not cooperate, it was fairly miserable - cold and rainy - but that didn't spoil the fun! And as long as nobody ends up with pneumonia (!!) it was all worth it. :-) Here's the photos...

First stop was waiting in line in the rain......to meet Sir Topham Hat!Next we headed down to Imagination Station - a tent filled with fun activities for the kids. Once Carter saw this great big train table, there was no getting him to move for a while!But Courtney tried some of the other activities, including coloring......and the Lego table!Finally it was time to ride the train!! Courtney saw Thomas coming down the line...Here he comes!Carter had his ticket ready to he could board the train!Carter was so excited to be riding on Thomas' passenger coach! He did, however, point out that the coaches didn't really look like Annie or Clarabel - but, he was ok with that. :-)Carter enjoyed a snack as he rode on the train.Grandma was happy to be out of the cold and rain for a little while!!After the train ride, Carter got his photo taken with Thomas himself!And Emily...And Murdoch!There was a pen of sweet little farm animals.And a maze, although Carter was more interested in walking on the "walls".Carter watched a Thomas video for a little while - because, you know, we can't do that at home (HA!).Our last stop was listening to Cowboy Sue sing and play her guitar for a bit - Carter and Courtney both had so much fun "dancing" to the music (aka running around in circles!).When I bought the tickets, I assumed you needed them to get into all of the activities. But it turns out, they were only really needed to ride the train. But as we drove home, I asked Carter what his favorite part was, and he said "RIDING ON THOMAS!!!". So, I'm glad I bought the tickets. Fun day!! :-)

Michigan Trip

I realized today that it's been a couple months since I updated this blog! Oops!! Boy time sure does get away from me sometimes. Ok, all the time!! I'm going to do a few posts this week, catching us back up to the present. First up, our trip to Michigan back in August. I had originally posted this on my stamp blog, and meant to copy it over to this one but I guess I forgot!! So here we go...

We spent a week in Michigan in mid-August, which was wonderful - got to see family while enjoying cooler temps - just what we needed after the ridiculously hot summer we had here in Texas!! The main purpose for our trip was our niece Gina's wedding. Here's Courtney looking so sweet all dressed up!Immediately following the wedding we headed Up North, where we spent our week in a rental house on Lake Louise in Gaylord. The kids had so much fun playing in the sand...and swimming...Carter went out fishing for his very first time with Daddy, Grandpa & Papa!He was sooooo excited when he caught his first fish!!Of course a highlight were the evenings we sat outside around a bonfire. Is there anything better than that during a Michigan summer Up North?? Here's a family photo:Carter helped Mommy toast marshmallows and tried his first s'more! He was absolutely CRAZY about them!! (LOL - this is such a goofy photo of him!!)We went on a couple day trips from the cabin, first over to Traverse City for some of my very favorite thing, Black Cherry Ice Cream!! Yummmmm!We also went up to see the Mackinac Bridge (aka "The Big Big Bridge" as Carter calls it, after one of his Thomas stories!)Then over to Mackinac Island, where we rented bikes to ride around the island. Such a beautiful place for a bike ride!!One night we went out driving after dinner looking for elk. We found a majestic herd out in a meadow, can you see them? The zoom on my camera isn't great, but we had binoculars with us! (and clicking on the photo enlarges it, fyi!)Later we found out that the city of Gaylord maintains an elk herd of their very own! Although I prefer to see them out in the wild, this was fantastic for the kids, they got to see them right up close, and Carter even fed them some hay! They were up in the pen area for feeding time, but they also had a huge meadow they could wander out into.Grandpa celebrated his 75th birthday at the rental house, so Carter and I made him some cupcakes.Courtney couldn't believe I let her try some! :-)Our final full day in Michigan was my birthday, and we spent it at my parents' home down in Clio. The kids LOVE it there - so much space to run around in, animals to see, tomatoes to eat right off the vine...! My dad has an AMAZING garden - here's Carter sitting on the crazy-huge pumpkin Dad had growing...!!Here's my parents, or Grammy and Papa as they are known.Courtney enjoyed smelling the flowers. Although if you look closely, she is actually trying to EAT these cosmos...!There isn't much Carter likes better than a birthday, because he knows birthdays and cake go hand in hand! He sat ready to begin dinner before dinner was ready...! But for my birthday, my own Gramma made me a YUMMY berry cobbler. Carter wasn't thrilled, but then he realized there was ice cream... :-)All in all, a fabulous trip! When we left Gaylord Saturday at lunchtime, the car said it was 57 degrees outside. When we landed in Austin on Sunday at lunchtime, the car said it was 97. Back to the land of the scorching temps... we miss you Michigan!!