New Look for November

Wow, I didn't change my blog layout for over a year...and here I am changing it with the seasons. "Welcoming Autumn", those pumpkins...now this. It's easier to change when I don't feel like I have to do a bunch of complicated stuff myself. Thank goodness for websites with cute templates for free! :)

And speaking of cuteness...it's time for some pics of the kids. Why else do you come here?

Here's some snow day activities I hadn't gotten around to posting yet...we played games while keeping warm inside those two days...Backyardigans Memory:


And Dora dominoes:


When we get out the dominoes we always like to set them up for "domino effect" fun as well:




The boys weren't always inside keeping warm. They played outside both days. Here they are on the second day (which you hadn't seen yet):


Dalton found it too hard to walk because it was so deep so he didn't last long. But Jason was able to join Easton for a long long while. The snow was deep enough that J could just toss E and know he'd have a nice padded landing:


And he pulled him on the toddler sled:

What a fun daddy!

Friday we were able to venture out again. That was our day of festiveness and so we went to the grocery store in the cold cold cold. Autumn got to stay nice and snug:

Even though both the boys were born in the winter, we didn't have one of those cool covers for them. This one we inherited (gladly!) from Ember. She's given us all kinds of cool gear we never were nice enough to buy for our kids. :)

This is before lunch when Jason called:

The boys have both taken to answering my cell phone when it rings. I've been upstairs in the middle of a huge discipline-fest with Easton, only to have Dalton come walking up the stairs chatting with his dad on the phone. I think they'll only answer it for Jason's ring tone...we'll have to see. You can lock a phone to prevent them dialing, of course, but you can't lock them out of answering. Not that I've tried to discourage them. It's just been a surprise that Dalton knows just what to do. We've never even had a land line in his life time...that would be a whole other mess! At hotels we just unplug them. :)

Saturday was, of course, Halloween. Jason wanted to get a picture of me and my Mini-Me but he was annoying me (hence my expression):


I made more of those breadstick bones...this time coated in cinnamon and sugar. While they baked we found the boys cozied up to watch their show:




Then we sat down to breakfast. This is when I ended up laughing so hard at something that the hot chocolate I was drinking shot out of my nose. It was all over me, the floor, and even Autumn in her swing! What a mess! I took pictures of Autumn, of course:



Silly me. No one else was even laughing to begin with. Just me.

Oh well.

After breakfast was over and we were all cleaned up and such we headed to a Halloween party at J's officemate's house...that would be Rob so this was Kaiden and family's party. The boys played toys in the basement:



"Monsters, Inc." was playing down there but Easton will not admit to watching any of it. I think he was scared. He kept saying he was just looking at the toys. He wasn't. :) It's not one we've let him watch at home but what can you do at a party like that?

Autumn and I post-nursing:


We came home after awhile and while Dalton and Autumn napped, Jason and Easton set to work carving the pumpkin you can see in the post below this one:



I roasted some of the seeds with just plain salt. I had used up all the rest of the sugar in the house when I made the cinnamon and sugar bones for breakfast. But they were good. Even Easton liked them a lot!

That night, of course, was trick-or-treating. Easton did great. He's not scared of Halloween stuff so much. We rushed him once and he ended up falling in some snow :( but we had spare gloves and the rest of him was so bundled up that he never knew his costume was wet. Dalton's got the biggest treat bucket and it got too heavy for him to carry. We had to pour some out of Easton's (into Autumn's) twice because it was overflowing. They did well.




Eventually we came home to hand out candy. The boys had a blast with that. Easton was so cute telling kids, "Oh, I like your _____ costume". Mr. Polite. In between handing out candy, they'd eat some of their own. Dalton kept choosing things I knew he'd hate but I let him try so that we could throw it away. :) Too much candy!


The boys found it amusing to switch up their costumes with one another:




At least that means they're good at sharing (sometimes), right? :)

Before the day was completely over, we remembered it was also the day we celebrate Blitz's birthday so the kids sang to him and we gave him some canned food as a special treat:


Sunday was the time change and the boys didn't do too badly. They're usually up at 7:00 which would've been 6:00 on Sunday. They made it till 6:30 or so. Not bad. It always takes them some time. That "extra hour" has never meant anything since I became a mom. We did think we should be plenty on time for church, however.

Plenty of time to get Miss A extra fancy in a little dress and tights:


People don't really dress up at our church but if I didn't put Tum Tum in dresses for church then she'd never wear them. It's sorta silly that she has to change clothes when she gets home from church and the rest of us don't. :)

After church and lunch, Jason and I actually got to have a little afternoon date. He arranged it with my mom and told me about it on Friday. He knew I'd need to plan ahead a bit for Autumn and milk and such. But yay! Our first time away together without any kids. When Jason had his vasectomy (and drugs), Autumn was asleep in the backseat for the drive and Jason was saying how it felt really nice to be away together again so we could chat. :) And I guess that's what he had in mind for yesterday as well. He didn't want to do a movie. He just wanted to hang out kid-free. So we did quite a lot of shopping, actually. Much of it for the kids, of course.

Our first stop was to the jewelry store to order me a new Mommy ring with Autumn's birthstone. While we were there I gave them my other stuff to inspect and they found I had a loose diamond so we left it there to be repaired and went to some other stores and eventually the mall. J got new sunglasses. Easton got new pants. We sipped lattes and strolled in and out of stores without having to keep track of anyone or take anyone potty or push any strollers or stop at any play areas. Not that I don't love my life day to day. I do. I really really do. But it's nice to just be with my husband too.

From the sounds of things, it went great for Gramoo and Lauren here at the house with the three munchkins. Of course the boys did great. Sounds like Autumn did too. She didn't sleep a ton but that's okay. We took my mom and Lauren out to eat last night to say thanks for babysitting and when we came home the boys were sooooooo worn out and grumpy (time change). They went straight to bed and were both asleep by 7:35. Autumn nursed at 8:00 and went to sleep until 5:45 this morning! That's nearly 10 hours between feedings. That's a long time!

The boys even made it till 6:45 this morning. We're getting closer to 7:00 again. Easton had school today. His school pictures came back and he looks so cute. My little stud! He saw them sitting on the kitchen table and posed next to 'em:


While he was at school, the other two came to Wal-Mart with me. Autumn is looking pretty darn cute once again:

I feel horrible but I can't remember if that cute turtleneck is from Julie's girls or Molly's Izzy. Oops!

Anyway, it's making me sad, but Autumn is really starting to outgrow some things. Sure I had to pack some stuff away for the change in seasons, but it would've still fit her. Now, she's starting to outgrow some of the 0-3 stuff and certainly the "NB" sized things. Wah! I mean, sure I'm glad she's growing so well on my milk and all...but it's just so fast! I tried and tried to shove her feet into some of Kaiya's old little denim tennis shoe looking things and they didn't fit her anymore. She was crying with me trying to shove them on. :( But she only wore them, like, 2 other times. Bummer.

After we picked up Easton we snagged today's free Redbox. We got the new Tinkerbell flick. Dalton brought down his sock monkey to cuddle:


Then the boys snuggled in under the quilt for the movie:

Easton just asked me to turn it off, though. Something was scaring him. Oops. Usually I try to at least watch things with him or watch them first to see if there's anything scary or inappropriate. This time I didn't because I'm sitting here blogging instead. I just looked at a review and see that there are "scary scenes" and now I'm feeling like a slacker parent for sure. Guess I should go snuggle those boys and talk them through those scary parts because they've already invested quite a bit of time watching the beginning.

Must go...