January 2011 - Continued

Our favorite thing that we did in January was taking a trip to Great Wolf Lodge with my parents and my sister's family! Grandpa and Grandma rented a 15 passenger van so we could all ride together and the whole weekend was TONS of fun!!

Reuben was so excited he couldn't even nap...
until about 10 minutes before we arrived.

The backseat boys!

Reuben checking out the cabin he and Levi got to share.

The best part - the waterpark!!

Happy New Year - January 2011

Continuing on with my blog re-cap...

Levi & Reuben during a moment of brotherly love

The boys' first trip to the public museum.

Even Matt took a turn on the big bike!

A Big Day

Today was a special day at our house for a couple of reasons.

Matt turned another year older today! We helped him celebrate with our traditional birthday sundae at Red Robin.

Happy Birthday, Honey
Wishing you a wonderful year to come!

I love Reuben's eyes in the picture - eyes on the prize!

This morning was special for Levi, too. Levi had the opportunity to sing with some of his friends at church while the Advent candle was brought to the front. It was quite a big deal for the quartet of 4 & 5 year olds! This week's candle was peace, so they sang "Light One Candle for Peace". They did a great job! Levi told me that he was a little scared to stand up there during church, but he was willing to do it again some time.

Levi with his friends - Natalie and Micah

Getting some instructions during practice.
Check out "Joe Cool" in the middle - hand in his pocket!

The whole group practicing their song.

This video was during practice - I didn't want to make Levi nervous during the service.

Happy Halloween!

The boys had plenty of opportunities to wear their costumes this year! We started on Friday night at my parent's house and then on Saturday we went to a church "Trunk-or-Treat", as well as some trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. Here are some pictures from our Halloween activities:

Levi was The Cat in the Hat
Reuben was the Fish (from The Cat in the Hat)

The fish in his fishbowl

Gotta love that cat!

Trunk-or-Treating with Larry the Cucumber (Henry) and Bob the Tomato (Meleah)

Matt & I joined in the fun on Saturday
(Thing 1 & Thing 2)

Another picture of the Dr. Seuss Family

The fish minus his fishbowl

Off to some more houses!

Trick or Treat!!

Thing 1 got a little creative with his costume!

Carpool Conversations

The route we take from preschool to Katelyn's house passes by a small cemetery. On our drive today, Levi and Katelyn got into a bit of a "discussion" about what it is.

I think it was Katelyn who thought it was a place to go camping and Levi thought it was a place to go dying. After a few times back and forth (camping, no dying, no camping, no dying...), Levi declared that they were both right. He said that it was a place to go camping and then you die.

He went on to say that when you die, they dig a hole and put you in the ground and cover you up with dirt. Then, he continued, you get a new body with new skin. Finally, he said that when he gets his new skin, it is going to be bumpy and scratchy like his dad's.

It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud!

Carrying on Traditions

When I was growing up, my mom always made applesauce in the fall. About 5 years ago, I asked my mom to teach me how to make applesauce, so I could carry on the tradition with my own family. Last year was the first time I made a few batches entirely on my own (no help from mom) and I tried canning it - my first attempt at canning anything. It went well enough that this past weekend, my sister and I got 3 bushels of apples for making and canning applesauce. We started around 4 PM on Saturday and finished up around 11:30 PM. We ended up with 49 quarts of canned applesauce and roughly 10 quarts to freeze or eat fresh.

We had two very interested "helpers" this year!

Levi was very focused when he got his turn at the masher machine!

Even Reuben took a turn crankin' out some sauce!

Indian Summer

The weather the past week or so has been absolutely gorgeous! In spite of our colds, we've been trying to get out and enjoy the nice weather while it's here. After lunch today, the boys and I headed outside to play for a bit before nap time.

Here are some of the pictures I managed to take in and around our backyard (my subjects were more interested in playing than posing!):






The boys don't like to pose together, but I love their similar looks of disgust in this one!

8 Years!

Last week, Matt & I celebrated our 8th anniversary! Tonight we finally got around to taking our annual "anniversary photo".

This year, our picture was taken by a budding new photographer - Levi! He was hilarious with posing us: "Is this going to be a family picture?" "You'll need to get in close to each other." "Oh, that's a good one!"

I'm thinking he might have a future in photos! See for yourself:

Carpool Buddies

Today, Levi had his preschool friend, Katelyn, over to play for the afternoon. We carpool with Katelyn's family and the two of them have become fast friends. They had a fun-filled afternoon playing Legos, pretend and playing in the backyard. I'm pretty sure that Katelyn will be a frequent (and very welcome) visitor at our house!!

Curious, like Curious George!

Tonight, Angie and I braved the ArtPrize crowds and headed downtown with the kids to the Children's Museum to check out the Curious George exhibit before it left. The kids seemed to have a good time and they didn't really want to stop and smile for pictures.




I got the best smiles at the space ship display:

We did get to see some of the ArtPrize entries while we were downtown - including this set of elephant sculptures right outside the museum. We'll definitely have to head back downtown to check out some more of ArtPrize!