October This & That

The first couple weeks of October kept us all busy. We had several weeks left in our apartment, but decided to move into the house right away and get settled. It was an easy move, and we quickly unpacked and got ourselves organized. We had beautiful weather and took advantage of the warm days to pull up the remnants of the garden left by the last tenants, and get it ready to be planted in the Spring. 

The middle of the month is a blur. I'm certain there was plenty going on to keep us busy. Towards the end of the month I enjoyed a lovely birthday with lots of my favorite people. Darius and the boys took me out to breakfast at the Park Cafe. It was our first visit there, and we all loved it. Afterwards we hit a few thrift/antique stores, and I found an awesome coat tree and a few other knick knacks. My dear friend Brandi came over for a visit with her son Jonas, and then my sister Carrie organized an aerial yoga party for me. Joining us were Kylee, Joy, Connie, Clair and Michel. I wasn't too sure about what we would be doing, but it turned out to be so much fun! I'm all about doing it again. It was a great day...just wish I had taken photos!

Halloween wrapped up the month, and I was happy to get that holiday out of the way. The boys got a little crazy leading up to it, and I was happy to be done with all their pre Halloween sass. Carrie brought the most adorable little dino over for a quick visit, and then we Trick-or-Treated in Joy's neighborhood which turned out to be great, nice and laid back. 

"Dark Mater" & Pirate

We started the Halloween fun a week out with Trunk-or-Treating at the Strate's church in South Ogden. Elisabeth took the boys to all the trunks, and Zach informed me after three trunks that he had enough treats and was all done, very unlike him but I wasn't going to complain!

Karissa, Jarom, Kylee, Elisabeth, Brenton, and Zach

After the trunks, we enjoyed choosing from a wide variety of chili with warm fry bread and honey butter. It reminded me of a meal my mom would make for us when we were kids at this time of year. Following dinner there were fun games for the kids to play. The big hit was the fishing game. I lost count how many times Ben went through the line. It was a fun night for both the kiddies and the adults!

Last night we were a little disorganized and didn't know where we were taking the boys to Trick-or-Treat. We ended up in Ogden to visit Connie at work so Joy could retrieve her giant bear head, and while we were at it we got the boys stocked up with winter clothes. Since we were at the mall, Joy took the boys to T-or-T at the stores while Darius and I shopped for their clothes. I knew people visited malls to T-or-T, but I'd never actually been to one to participate. It was fun to see all the costumes in a well-lit area.

As we headed out, we got in touch with Clair and met up with him and his girls and the girl's cousins on Stacey's side. It was fun to walk around their neighborhood with a group. The boys definitely love to T-or-T, and it was very amusing to watch them and their cousins run up to doors and see how excited they were when they'd come away with a treat. Zach was his usual outgoing and very un-shy self and a number of times he'd invite himself into houses (probably to scope out the toy situation). Ben's highlight of the night was the set of vampire teeth he got from one house. He had a pair from the Trunk-or-Treat the week before and unfortunately dropped them in the toilet while doing his business. He was upset to say the least when they promptly got tossed.

 

Sarah was the cutest little witch!

I forget what Hope was, but I loved her costume.

Growing up it was the norm to have snow on the ground by the time Halloween rolled around. I remember being disappointed that we'd have to wear winter coats over our costumes. This year the snow hit last week, so I thought it would be no different for the boys. We were all surprised with a very warm and mild Halloween. It was definitely a treat!

 

A Spider, Dinosaur and Ninja.

Halloween finally arrived after much anticipation from the boys but mostly Zach. He loves everything to do with Halloween from the decorations, to the costumes, to the candy! He's been in and out of his costume for nearly 2 months now, and he and his brother had a blast trick-or-treating with Dylan tonight.

I'm not sure how it started, but Zach has been on a Darth Vader kick lately. He's never seen Star Wars, but I guess because Darth resembles a robot to some degree he immediately became hooked. Out shopping earlier today, Zach saw a Darth Vader pillow and begged us for it.

The funniest moment of our walk through the neighborhood tonight actually involved Darth Vader. There was a man dressed up as Darth sitting in front of his home with a light saber and a bowl of candy. He didn't budge an inch, and at first I almost mistook him for a dummy. Zach, Ben and Dylan made their approach. Zach was super excited and talking up a storm, but the man remained absolutely still. Finally 10-20 seconds later he moves his light saber across his body and asks the boys if they want candy. I've never seen a kid do a 180 and split as fast as Ben did! Obviously not funny to him at all, but the rest of us were howling. Here's the look on Ben's face as he turned to run....

Later when we all got back to the Bacon's house, we passed out candy to a group of kids and mentioned something about the man dressed as Darth Vader in the neighborhood. One of the little girls in the group piped up and told us that was her daddy. They got a good laugh out of Ben's reaction too.

How fun it was to trick-or-treat around the neighborhood with the Bacon's tonight! And how awesome is it that the boys could go swimming a few hours beforehand?! It's great to be back!

Knock Knock

The sound of Ben & Zach's soft little knocks on doors tonight was as adorable as their Trick or Treat calls. Tonight was their first time Trick or Treating, and they had so much fun. They walked up steep hills, steep staircases, and through lots of puddles in their seek for treats. We lucked out and the weather was actually very nice tonight. We enjoyed our walk around town, and the boys got the hang of things pretty quick. Towards the end of the night we heard Ben say "door" whenever he wanted to stop at a house. Zach loved seeing the other kids' costumes and got extra excited about monsters and robots.

Zach loves getting dressed up in costumes, but it's all we can do to get a costume on Ben. We didn't think he would cooperate tonight, but he surprised us and wore a spider costume without much complaining. The robot costume was outshined as soon as the spider costume arrived. Zach still loves robots (even took M-O with him Trick or Treating) but the past few days has been all about spiders. I'm actually surprised that Zach picked monster Mike to wear out tonight.

The boys got a little crazy before we rolled out....

Happy Halloween!

Buzz & Woody

During my brief stay in Florida last month, Patti and I found hooded Buzz and Woody towels on clearance. I thought the boys would love them. I was so wrong. The first time I broke them out they would have nothing to do with them, and they've been sitting in the linen closet since. The boys' usual bath towels are in the laundry, so I thought I'd give them another try last night. Big difference this time around. They loved them! They ran around chasing each other, and Zach insisted on sleeping with the Buzz towel on over his pajamas. Zach wound up in bed with us before morning still wearing his towel, and Darius finally took it off. Half asleep Zach was pretty mad.

When we got up this morning the first thing Zach wanted was his towel back on. Ben was right behind him and wanted the wear the Woody towel. I've been trying to figure out Halloween costumes. I'm thinking these towels will be a good backup plan if I can't come up with something else.

On a side note. Zach is still going strong with his robot obsession. You can see he's holding one in the photos. He now alternates between 3 robots:

M-O from WALL-E, Rodney from Robots, and a random green robot. Since Rodney lost his leg Darius checked out eBay to see what a new Rodney was going for. It turns out that Rodney is kind of a collector's item. The lowest price he found on the exact same one he has now was $40! Good thing Zach doesn't mind Rodney's handicap.

On the Bayou

Darius’ vacation time got switched from Dec. to Oct., so we visited Louisiana earlier this year than we had planned. It was mine and the boys' first trip there, and it was nice to see where Darius grew up.

We stayed with Darius’ mom and her husband Alfred (Nini & Papaw) in the same house which Darius lived in growing up. I got a kick out of looking through old photo albums. It was fun to compare Darius’ features from when he was young, with those of Ben’s & Zach’s.

The boys immediately made themselves at home. Zach found a Tonka ambulance that he immediately took ownership of, and Ben made quick friends with Papaw.

Margaret saved several things from when Darius was young. She has his old rocking chairs, Dapper Dan doll, rocking horse, and GI Joe doll and Jeep. Ben and Zach had fun playing with all of their daddy’s stuff.

Darius has a lot of friends that still live in and around Monroe. Unfortunately we didn’t get around to see everyone we wanted to. Sorry to those of you we missed! For the friends we did manage to see...thanks so much to all of you for having us over in your homes, or taking the time to meet us out, under short notice. We really enjoyed seeing all of you!

Darius made sure we took advantage of the shopping and eating options that were available to us. Margaret and Alfred were wonderful to watch the boys for us, while we got the shopping we needed to do out of the way. We ate great food from some of Darius’ favorite places. We must have had pizza/muffulettas from Johnny’s Pizza at least three times.

In Darius’ backyard there are three huge pecan trees, and we came at just the right time to gather the pecans that had already fell. Darius’ old hunting buddy, Barkley, kept us company while we picked up the nuts. Darius had told me before that his dog liked to eat pecans, and sure enough we could hear him cracking hulls as we worked.

On the last day of our trip, Margaret and I took the boys to the Louisiana Purchase Zoo. It had rained just before we went, and when we got to the zoo, there was only two other people that we saw there besides the zoo employees. It was so nice to have the entire place to ourselves, and it was the perfect sized zoo to get in and out before the boys lost interest. The boys enjoyed seeing all the animals…especially all the monkey exhibits.

After the zoo we stopped at a pumpkin “patch”. The boys had fun trying to move the pumpkins, splashing in the puddles, and playing with the wagons. We had hoped to find small enough pumpkins for the boys, that we could take home with us, but they were all sold out.

We had a nice stay in Monroe. Margaret & Alfred, thanks so much for all you did for us to make our stay comfortable. And thanks for watching the boys for us when we had shopping and errands to do…what a difference it made to be able to get things done in half the time.

Our trip home went well right up until the end. The boys did really well on all the flights, but unfortunately I picked up a bug along the way, and it wasn’t until yesterday that my voice came back and I started to feel human again. The boys ended up sick with me and we all missed out on Halloween. I did make an effort to make their costumes, but it was just one of those days that nothing would go right. It’s too bad…they would have made a cute Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum. I’m lucky that they’re still young and didn’t know what they were missing. Sorry little guys!