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.

Fun Run

Every year the boys' school puts on a Fun Run to raise money for the school. They get pledges and then try to run as many laps as they can during a 30 minute period. The boys love it even though it is literally running in a circle. This year they added a tunnel so even Patrick thought it was great.

We didn't make over in the morning to run with Josh's class but we were able to stay to watch Daniel run.

Here is his class lined up and ready to go.

They are so cute when they are being nice to each other.


Some of the time Patrick just stood in the tunnel and gave everyone high fives as they went through.


Afterwards they had popsicles for everyone. Daniel had a green one. Can you tell?

Sleepover

Some of our friends were going out for the night so we offered to babysit their two kids and have a sleep over. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Good thing we have a mini van. 

We also had one of Daniel's friends from school over for the afternoon.

This was our full mini van as we drove to Josh's football practice. That is a lot of kids!

This is my friend's daughter, the lone girl among all the boys. She borrowed a coat to play outside during Josh's practice. Her parents are Kansa and Nebraska fans. I think she looks cute.


That night, for fun, we had a movie night. I popped some popcorn and we watched Muppets Most Wanted.

We put all the kids to bed in the big boys room (Josh in his bed, one friend in Daniel's bed, Daniel under Josh's bed, and the other friend on the floor). They stayed up late but sleep through the night and seemed fine the next day. It was a lot of fun having friends over. I'm sure this will not be the last sleepover we have with this family.