Halloween

Since Dad was out of town before Halloween, I didn't want to carve pumpkins (I make him clean them out. Gross!) I wouldn't have even bought pumpkins this year but they were giving away free ones at the Broncos Bunch event the weekend before Halloween. So, instead I had the kids decorate their pumpkins with stickers from a book we had. I know, mean mom.

Halloween is an all day event out here. It starts in the morning for school parties. Since Daniel only goes in the afternoon, we all went to Josh's class for his party. 

They have snacks and games set up for the kids. 

After the party, they have a school-wide parade that goes around all the classrooms and outside. So we took the two little ones (with some of the snacks) outside to wait for the parade to start. 

Then we left Josh to finish up his school day and we headed home for lunch. 

After lunch, we came back for Daniel's party and parade. 

They made spiderwebs out of paper plates and yarn. What a great idea for this age group to work on their hand-eye coordination. I was impressed.

Patrick even had someone to play with. One of Daniel's classmates has a sister that was born two days after him. They are good buds.

Daniel thought the parade was pretty cool. Some of the older kids came out to watch them walk around (including Josh's class). Daniel was giving everyone high fives like he was a real race car celebrity. 

Patrick was practicing showing everyone his muscles.

After school, the boys came home, ate dinner, and were ready to go out Trick-or-Treating in the neighborhood with Daddy.

They were very excited when they got home. 

Happy Halloween!

Mountain Vista Trick or Treat Street

Every year, the night before Halloween, the local high school hosts a Trick-or-Treat Street that the boys like to attend. They have all the hallways decorated as different themes and the high school students dress up and pass out candy. It's free and the kids get a ton of candy. 

It's always fun to watch the boys different reactions. Patrick knew more what was going on this year and was ready with his bag for candy. Josh kept his distance and Daniel would always try to get more than he was allowed. 

Its a fun event every year.

Broncos Bunch Trick or Treat Street

For his birthday, Josh got a membership to the Broncos Bunch from his aunt and uncle. It includes different activities throughout the year including a Trick-or-Treat Party at the stadium. So, after his football game, we jumped in the car and headed downtown. We didn't know what to expect but were very excited to get to walk around the stadium. 

You got to walk all around the stadium. Even through both locker rooms and the media room. 

And of course, photo ops right on the field.

The had some other photo ops set up including these mock lockers for Peyton Manning, Demaryius Thomas...

...and Von Miller. (I had to get in on the action, too).

It was a fun event. We will definitely go again next year.

Patrick/Mommy Day

Daniel got to go on his first field trip at school today. It was an all day event which meant, Patrick had me all to himself for the entire day, which never happens. So I decided to make it a special day. 

After some errands (sorry, dude!), we stopped at Treehouse Discovery to play. It is really an indoor playground. He loved it. He was running around, pulling my arm saying "Come play, mommy. Come play."

After over an hour at the play place, we got a special lunch at Steak and Shake. He got to pick out an M & M shake for us to share. 

It was nice getting to spend some one on one time with this little one. It was a pretty special day.

Visitor

One morning when we were outside decorating for Halloween, we stumbled upon this guy trying to climb up a post on our porch. 

We saw a wolf spider in this same are a few years ago. It must be a hot spot for bugs. This was cool. I had never seen a praying mantis up close before. We were outside watching it for a decent amount of time. It was very interesting.

Long Weekend in Iowa

With the boys on Fall Break, we decided to make a trip to Iowa. Joe flew in and met us there. The boys and I drove out after school on Thursday and arrived shortly before 3am. After a few hours of sleep, we started a busy long weekend. 

The boys' cousin, Olivia, was still on her fall break so we got to spend some time with her. Grandpa got out the Corvette and took the kids for some rides. 

On Saturday, Joe and I drove up to Ames to meet some friends for a football game. It was great weather and a great day for a game. 

It happened to be Cy the mascot's 60th birthday. Looking pretty good for 60. 

Our tailgating crew.

Iowa State pulled out a win against Toledo. It was fun to see them win in person. 

We made it over to Grandma and Grandpa Strutt's house to help celebrate Grandpa's birthday a few days early. Of course, the boys were up and down the ladder. Even Patrick.

And Daniel convinced Grandpa to "read" him a story, which usually ends up with Daniel telling Grandpa how the story is supposed to go while acting it out with cars.

Later in the week we made it over to the Science Museum and got to see their new dinosaur exhibit. It was really dark in by the dinosaurs.



This was pretty neat to see. It was spinning and bringing balls up and would push them down different paths into bowls where they would spin around and drop down to the bottom to start all over again.


We also stopped by the news room and played around with the green screen. We missed being on air by about ten minutes. The boys didn't want to wait that long.




Our final stop at the museum was the activity room. Daniel convinced Grandpa to help him build a rocket that you get to launch. That kept the big boys busy for quite a while.



Josh launching his rocket.

You could find Patrick at the Ball Wall. You got to put balls in lots of different areas and they would be pushed through tubes with air. He loved running around and picking up the balls. He was there for quite a while. It was pretty cute.


It was a fun filled weekend with family and friends. We made it home and spent the next few days recovering from the excitement. It was a good Fall Break for the boys.