Halloween 2011

Happy Halloween! The boys had so much fun trick-or-treating tonight, and the weather was beautiful! Logan stuck with his vampire costume that he wore to the Fall Festival at our school last week...he was so proud of his fangs! Landon wore his Hawkeye football player costume to his school party today, but decided that tonight he would be a Green Bay Packer football player instead! The highlights of the boys' night were: going to Great Grandma and Great Grandpa's house for lots of treats, visiting Grandma and Grandpa Umscheid's house and hanging out with Uncle Ben, Aunt Alyssa, and Cousin Eli for a bit, going to the "Sugar Shack House" and picking from all of their awesome candy, and going to the "toy house!" The toy house had like a 10 minute wait in line, but you get to go in their garage which is set up like a haunted house, but for little kids so not real scary, and then the kids get to pick a toy rather than candy. Both boys picked out toy bats, which they were THRILLED about! I wasn't thrilled with how real they look, but it made their night! So after the adrenaline rush of trick-or-treating, and then the sugar coma from eating too much candy, the boys have crashed for the night! And I'm pretty sure they have plenty of candy to last the next 364 days!

Pumpkin Carving Fun!

We had a lot of fun tonight carving our pumpkins for Halloween! We let the boys each design their own (of course, Landon had a little help) and they turned out pretty good! Logan is very into vampires, so he had to make sure his had fangs and looked mean. Landon just wanted his to have silly eyes with lots of shapes, and he wanted to make sure it had an "x" on the cheek. Jeff put his drawing and carving talents to use by making a Hawkeye pumpkin...of course...what else would you expect from him?! And Mommy got to make sure no body cut a finger off and then I got to clean up the mess! :) Now the boys are super excited for Monday to get here so they can go trick-or-treating!

OES Fall Festival 2011

Last night, the boys had a little pre-Halloween fun with their friend, Grace, at our school's Fall Festival! They got to dress up in their Halloween costumes and go trick-or-treating at school! After that, we had pizza and watched the scarecrow building contest! It was a fun night, and the boys always enjoy their time with Grace!

My Kids of Character!!

Jeff and I are pretty PROUD parents today! Logan and Landon both received a Pioneer Pillar award from their teachers today!! A Pioneer Pillar award is given to kids who show good character. Both of the boys' awards stated how kind, hard-working, and what good role models the boys are to and for their classmates. Although they drive us MIGHTY CRAZY at times, we are really very blessed to have two wonderful boys, and we wouldn't trade them for anything! I pray that they continue to be kids of character throughout their lives and that Jeff and I can be good role models for them, too!

Farming with Grandpa Mick!

Thanks to a local farm family that hires my dad each fall to help with field work, my boys got to go out and spend a little time with Grandpa Mick in the tractor today! They have made this an annual event and they look forward to this every year! The boys LOVE their time "farming!"

The Boys of Fall!

Well, I'm not super pleased with how our fall pictures turned out this year, but considering the nightmare it was to get these few good ones, I'll settle for them! Ugh! The boys weren't real thrilled to get their pictures taken, but they were SUPER kids through this whole deal! We started out by taking about 75 pictures at 2 different locations, when my camera stopped working. When I finally got it working again, ALL of the pictures I had taken were GONE! I had to go to WalMart and get a new memory card for my camera, then we went BACK to the places we had been to RETAKE the pictures! Like I said, the boys couldn't have been better about it! I think they saw how mad I was at my camera, and they feared making me even madder! LOL! I guess when it's all said and done, I got to spend lots of time with the boys, they behaved for me, and we did end up with a few "good" pictures! Even though I had a list of things a mile long to do afterward, I took time to take the boys to one of their favorite parks to play. They usually do not cooperate with me so well, especially for pictures, so I wanted to show them my appreciation!

Fall Pics - Landon

Fall Pics - Logan

World Day of Communion

Today was World Day of Communion at our church. Everyone was to dress to represent another country. Our family chose to represent Mexico and/or Spain (thanks to my former Spanish teacher who hooked us up with sombreros and soccer shirts for the boys from Mexico and Spain). The boys and their Sunday School class sang at the church service this morning, and they sang a song in 3 different languages! I was able to get a pretty good picture of the boys, but my picture of their class singing in church did not turn out so great. They did a great job, and I'm just proud of the boys for getting up there with very little anxiety!

Bow Shooting with Grandpa!

After our fun time at the pumpkin patch today, the boys were welcomed home with a surprise from Grandpa Mick! He was out practicing shooting his bow, and asked the boys to join him! They were QUITE excited to be able to do this! My dad had some bows there for younger kids, and while they were still difficult for the boys to pull back, they both tried as hard as they could and were THRILLED when they actually hit the target a few times (although the poor garage, wood pile, and even the ground took most of the shots - LOL)! The boys enjoy times like these when they get to do "man" things with their favorite men! Thankfully, Grandpa, Uncle Ben, and Daddy all enjoy doing those "man" things, so the boys get plenty of opportunities for times like this!

Pumpkin Patch Fun - 3

It's Pumpkin Patch time again, already! Today, my mom and I took the boys on our annual trip to Poppe Pumpkin Patch in Lakefield, MN...about 30 minutes from here. There's so much fun stuff to do there, such as: fun playground equipment, barrel train rides, hay rides to the pumpkin field to pick our own pumpkins, farm animals to see (goats, a cow, pig, llama, chickens and rabbit), trike racing track, Storybook Land, a graveyard (fake of course) maze, and a corn maze...and I'm probably leaving things out, too! This was our first year to go through the corn maze, and we had no idea how long of a walk that would be! The boys picked some pretty big pumpkins this year and cut them off the vines by themselves! Of course, after picking such huge pumpkins, I was the lucky one that got to lift them onto the hayride! After having lots of fun, we ate a quick lunch there in their neat little cafe, and headed back home! This is always such a fun time of year, and something we look forward to doing each year!

Pumpkin Patch Fun - 2