Playground, Birthday dinner and costumes

I'm trying so hard to get caught up...

I found these pictures on my little camera and had to post them. So, here are just a few random pictures from October:

Cole is quite the mover! He's crawling everywhere and is now cruising along the furniture. I don't think it will be too long before we have a walker on our hands.

One of his favorite places to be is the little park inside our mall here in Charlottesville. It's a tiny little place, but it's perfect for him. He spends the whole time crawling around and trying to climb up on everything.

I took his socks off and he took off right up the little "Declaration of Independence" slide.

I love that he thinks he's so big and can keep up with the big kids.

Although, with Jude and Lance to show him the way, it's so surprise Cole is a climber.

Jude is quite fearless when it comes to climbing and jumping. He climbs over just about everything, even the fence that surrounds the little playground.

Jump!

Okay, funny Cole story. Cole is intent on being wherever he thinks other people are and will not wait for someone to come get him. One day we were all coming in from the car and I set Cole down inside the living room and went back to the car to unload some groceries. I come back inside, close the door and start putting away the cold groceries when I realize I didn't see Cole when I came inside. I asked everyone and finally Jude volunteered, "He's outside." What? I open the front door and look around--no Cole. So I walk over to the steps that lead to the parking lot and there he is, making his way rather fast up the stairs. He was on the landing between the first and second flight when I finally got to him. I had to laugh and almost cry--what a funny boy, but how scary that he could have potentially crawled away without us knowing. Glad Jude was keeping tabs on him. We've been VERY careful since to make sure we watch Cole just a touch more closely. He is such a stinker already!

Every year for Lance's Birthday he gets to pick out a special place to have dinner. His Birthday was in September, but with George's schedule being so busy, we weren't able to do his Birthday dinner until October. He chose Hibachi Grill, an asian-style buffet that he LOVES.

Eww. Crazy face.

Hibachi Grill combined with our old favorite China King Buffet. I'm still not convinced the new place is as good, but it's a fun way to spend the evening and everyone does a good job eating a LOT. Especially Lance. 

This year for Halloween, Lance wanted to be a Baneling. Yes, a Baneling. Do you have any clue as to what a baneling is? Because I sure didn't until about two weeks before Halloween. It's a character in a computer game called StarCraft II that Lance plays with his dad.

Wanna see a picture of a baneling? Here you go:

You want to be that? How on earth am I going to make a costume like that?

But trying to earn good mom points, I said okay and set to work. At least Jude wanted to be a crocodile.

Homemade costumes require several trips to the store.

Luckily, these boys were good sports.

It took me a while to figure out exactly what direction to go with the costumes, but here are some pictures of them coming together:

Jude wanted to be a crocodile and I couldn't for my life find a good costume, not even online, so I made his, too.

Here is his hat starting to take shape:

Whew! It was a long couple weeks and not enough sleep, but the costumes turned out better than I thought. Stay tuned for pictures!

Painting pumpkins

Carving pumpkins is usually an activity for adults. I mean, sure the kids can help hallow out the "guts" as my boys like to call them, but really most of the time is spent with the kids watching the adults carve. 

In an attempt to help the kids get involved, we painted pumpkins this year. We did it a couple years ago when Lance was 5 and Jude was about 10 months old (only 1 month older than Cole is now) and it was lots of fun, so for Family Home Evening before Halloween, we broke out the paint and brushes, stripped the boys down to their skinnies and let them go.

Cole was very excited about the paint, but couldn't decide if he liked it better on the pumpkin or on his face (and in his mouth... yuck!)

Jude worked very hard to paint his pumpkin just right, although every time I asked him what he was painting I got a different answer. "Mmm. I'm painting an apple." "I'm painting a face." "I have no idea."

Lance had a vision in mind before we even started. He's been loving himself some mantra rays after riding the new Manta ride at Lego Land this summer with his dad, so it was pretty clear what he was going to put on his pumpkin.

Cole thought it was fabulous. He couldn't stop smiling and laughing. (Can you see his four little teeth coming in on the top? That makes 6 teeth all together so far.) Just ignore the green paint all up in his mouth.

It reminded me of Jude two years ago when we did this with him:

I'm not sure what the little guys see in the taste of paint, but whatever it is, they love it.

I'll paint my hands! This feels amazing.

Pumpkin. Paint the pumpkin. Okay, got it.

And now back to my hands. At least it's not his mouth this time.

And with that, it was bath time for everyone! 

After the kids were all clean, we took a group shot with their pumpkins.

Jude still couldn't decide what he had painted on his pumpkin. Whatever it was, it was colorful and very gold. Lance on the other hand was very meticulous about his painting. He painted a manta ray chasing a fish on his pumpkin. He did a great job! Lance is really budding into quite the artist.

Painting pumpkins? Check!

Happy Birthday Melissa!

As you know, our good friends the Elmers recently moved out of Family Housing and into a single family home about 5 miles away. We miss them so much, so we take every opportunity we can find to go visit them.

Melissa's Birthday was the end of October, so Jamie and I got some pizza, brought a dessert and headed over to the Elmer's house with the kiddos to celebrate in true family style.

Can you tell who the kids were most excited to see?

Pizza!

Jamie lighting the candles on the brownie/chocolate chip cookie dessert I brought.

"Happy Birthday!"

Most of our group that night:

We were without husbands (all were either working or out of town for interviews). It was so fun to let the kids play and have a girls' night with some of my very best friends.

Happy Birthday, Melissa! We are so lucky to have your and your family in our lives!

Wanda Witch's Halloween Scavenger Hunt

A few weeks ago we got a note on our door inviting us to do a scavenger hunt, hosted by "Wanda Witch". It sounded like a lot of fun, so George and I RSVP'd. We were not disappointed!

A girl in our ward put together this elaborate activity for several young families in our area. We were divided into teams and given clues that led us to new clues. At each location there was an "ingredient" for our "witches' brew" and a new clue for the next location.

So, on October 20th, after Lance soccer game and our lightening pumpkin picking session, we rushed back home to meet up with our team for the hunt. It was such a blast! We were with the Elmers and the Robins, but with 6 or 7 other groups running around we were able to see several other friends as well.

Finding a clue. You had to stick your hand in a bucket of squishy balls covered in maple syrup to find the key to the box that held our next clue.

The kids all though that was fabulous and we walked away from this location with sticky fingers and kiddos that smelled like pancakes.

The next clue!

The clues took us all over Family Housing and UVa's Law School which is located right behind Family Housing. Each one was hidden somehow, or we had to solve a  puzzle--like plugging in Edgar Allen Poe's birthday and some other number to find which book in the Law library held our next clue. 

 

 Jude saw Lance walking along this wall and wanted to do it, too. Lance was off and running the entire time with his buddies Killian and Kendall, so I don't have many picture of him.

I can make it!

I think this tree is gorgeous. It's like a fall rainbow. I love how colorful the fall is in Virginia!

We also got to hang out with this little guy again.

The Elmers brought their little puppy Hershel along for the fun. It definitely kept the kids busy and attracted a lot of love from the other groups as well.

We finally made it to the finish and found out who had planned it all. Sara, another girl in Family Housing had put it all together. I couldn't believe how much time, effort and money she put into this event.

The whole group. I don't know if you can see, but Lance is sitting next to George with his shirt off.  It was cold, but he wanted to warm up Hershel (the puppy) who was shivering. Sweet boy!

Thank you, Sara, for putting this all together and giving us an opportunity to be with some of our favorite people! It truly was the most fun Halloween activity I've ever done!

Apple and Pumpkin picking

Most of the past years our family has gotten our pumpkin from a pumpkin patch up in Northern Virginia. This year with George's schedule we weren't able to make it, so we decided to get our pumpkin from our favorite apple orchard in Charlottesville, Carter's Mountain.

Lance just had a soccer game and we had an activity planned for 5 p.m., so we were a little crunched for time. It took us about an hour to get up the mountain because it was the Fall Festival AND we had to park on the next mountain over because of all the people, so we were left with about an hour to pick apples, pick a pumpkin and get back in the car. Not much time to enjoy, but we tried to make the most of it.

We had to hike a long way to get to some trees that had apples. There were hundreds of other people there that had picked the trees closer to the barn clean.

Lance discovered how much fun it is to destroy the rotten apples. Boys!

And Cole loved chewing on his own little apple.

We attempted a family picture...

...but the sun was shining right in our eyes. You can see how pretty it was up there, though.

Hiking back down with our haul of apples.

What cute pumpkins!

They had HUGE pumpkins and pie pumpkins, so you guessed it...

We picked a huge one!

Everyone was a really good sport about the limited time we had and the insane amount of walking we got to do. We took a shuttle back to our car (thank goodness!) and made our way as fast as we could home, just in time to start a scavenger hunt activity with a group of friends.

Soccer

Lance continues to plug along at soccer. He has some really good days where the energy level is up and he's having fun, and then there are those other days. I guess Lance's sport just isn't soccer. Oh well. If I recall, I was more interested in the grass and talking to my friends than actually playing the game when I played soccer at this age, too.

A few Saturdays ago (October 20th, I think), we attended Lance's game with the Elmers.

 

Lance and Killian were doing a good job, especially considering the distractions from the side lines:

This little guy made his way to the game with the Elmers. His name is Hershel and he is the cutest little boxer puppy I've ever seen!

My boys were in doggie heaven. They want a dog so badly.

Lance tried to make his way over to meet him during the game, but was ushered back to his team by an unimpressed coach and a strict mom.

Sorry, Lance! Your time will come!

Meanwhile, Jude kept trying to play with the parents of another player by knocking them over and jumping on them. They were very good sports about it, but I wasn't too comfortable with my child tackling complete strangers.

George tried to keep him entertained by kicking the ball around with him and racing around the field.

Jude loved it!

Hershel was convinced Cole was a puppy. It was so cute to see them play together.

Finally Lance got his chance to meet Hershel. Don't worry, Lance. We'll be seeing a lot of that sweet puppy. 

After the soccer game, we loaded up and drove to Carter's Mountain to get our family pumpkin.