B-L-A-B

Well, Halloween has come and gone again this year and I swear, every year just gets better. It is way more fun dressing the kids up than it ever was dressing myself up for the holiday. While last year was a lot of fun, Levi really didn’t get what all the fuss was about. This year was especially enjoyable because not only was Levi old enough to really understand what was going on, but he also had a costume parade at school and we participated in “trunk or treat” at our church. We let Levi pick out what he wanted to dress up as and then I was able to take the idea of a lion and run with it. And of course, Annie Rose had to take part in the festivities. We recycled Levi’s original costume for Annie; she was our adorable little Sweet Pea.

***The adorable picture of Levi (above) was taken by our friend, Kim Kennedy.

Here is Levi with the rest of his class at Mom’s Day Out. This year taught me that every Halloween is going to raise my blood pressure a bit because there is SO MUCH Halloween candy with peanut butter or peanuts in it. I never realized how much until I had to be hyper-sensitive about what Levi sunk his teeth into. (It also really hit home when the doctor told me I couldn’t have any peanut butter candy either because I’m breast-feeding. I have not had a peanut or peanut butter in over a year!)

Levi and Annie preparing to head out for the festivities.

Here are Levi and Maeve hanging out in the church parking lot during ‘trunk or treat’. I was trying really hard to get the two of them to look at me and smile, but instead they became involved in a very heated argument over whether they should ‘roar’ or ‘meow’ for me.

Levi, Charlotte and Maeve running through the grass and falling down. This kept them entertained for about an hour.

Our lion took first prize at the costume contest at chuch. I was so proud…until they gave him the prize (a box of markers) and he said “I don’t want that!” Levi, or course, wanted more candy instead.

While Kim and I took the babies inside for one last feeding before heading out for dinner and trick-or-treating, the kids hung out in the back of the mini van and raided the candy.

After ‘trunk or treat’, we all headed over to the local pizza place for dinner. Kim and I hung out with the babies and ordered the pizza while Brice and Craig took the kids out for trick or treating. It worked out great for everyone!

And at the end of Halloween night, one last picture of Levi the Lion before he heads in for bed.

Levi was really excited about carving pumpkins and ‘getting messy’ until he saw just how messy carving pumpkins really was. He stuck with it for about 10 minutes and then we pulled out the paints.

Once again, Annie is watching Levi’s every move…with her thumb in her mouth.

Levi is cleaning out his pumpkin and Annie is eating her chair. Yummy!

All a-glow!

As funny as Brice and I would like to think we are, no one can make Annie laugh like Levi. We’re trying to capture it on video, but until then I thought I’d add some photos of Annie and Levi interacting. I don’t know if it quite captures it, but Annie is completely enamored with Levi. If he’s in the room, her eyes are on him. And when he focuses in on her, she just brightens up, starts laughing and lately I’ve heard belly laughs and squeals coming from her. Levi, of course, soaks it up!

So, I always swore I would never put a hair bow on the head of any little girl I had. I just thought they were completely obnoxious. Don’t get me wrong, I cannot wait for the day when I can put a barrette in Annie’s hair, but as you can see, that’s going to be quite a while. So, come Sunday morning, when I put that bow on her head and she starting giggling and smiling, I turned into a gushing mama. Look at that smile!

Levi wanted to show off some talents on the blog also. He loves to watch himself perform on this thing. And we got a little more of Annie rolling too.

As Halloween approaches, we’ve been reading lots of books about the season with Levi. One of them is called “The Pumpkin Fair” and has brought back many memories of our visit to Gentry’s Farm in Franklin, TN last year.  After having such a great time, we decided to return this year. The more we talked about visiting Gentry’s, the more Levi got excited about visiting the “Pumpkin Fair.”  Here are some of the highlights:

Levi and Brice had so much fun hiding in the corn maze and then jumping out at one another, we barely found our way out.

Annie just laughed at all of the nonsense.

Brice and Annie watching Levi play in the playhouse with all the kids.

This one’s for you, Lyle. Levi waited very patiently in line so that he could ride this tractor. It was the biggest one and required ‘gassing up.’

Here we are on our hayride. Levi spent most of the ride asking to speak to the farmer driving the tractor.

You can’t visit the farm without a ride on the tire swing!

Proof that I was, in fact, there!

And…Levi found his pumpkin!

I absolutely love the fall and over the last five years, Brice and I have been making fall traditions to continue through the years. On weekends, we’ve started carving pumpkins, making caramel apples, visiting pumpkin patches and apple orchards. Prior to Levi and Annie, we would invite the kids from the Children’s Connection over to carve pumpkins and partake in all of our fall traditions. Well, by the time we got our act together this year, all of the apples had fallen from the trees and we had so much rain this year that we couldn’t pick our own pumpkins at the pumpkin patch. But, we did get to make caramel apples!

Levi LOVED eating the plain apples on the stick

and loved playing in the powdered sugar we put down,

but wasn’t a huge fan of the actual caramel apples.

Since Annie has become so mobile lately,  I dug out Levi’s old jumperoo for her. She really likes sitting in it, sucking her thumb, and watching what everyone is up to. The night that Levi and Brice went to the movies was the first night we tried it out. I took out the camera and just clicked away. Annie makes the cutest faces! I was able to capture just a few of them.

Brice took Levi to the movie theater for the first time a few weeks ago. They were showing Toy Story in the theaters and we just couldn’t pass it up. I have to admit, I was a little jealous that I was not going to be there for it, but someone had to stay home and take a nap with Annie. I mean, sacrifices must be made! Anyways, Levi LOVED it. Brice said Levi’s eyes did not waver from the screen the entire time. The movie was in 3D, but the glasses were too big for him so Levi sat on Brice’s lap while Brice literally held the glasses to his head the entire time. I would have loved to have seen that. I love this picture of them. Nothing says a trip to the movies with Levi like popcorn, m&m’s and an epi-pen!

Since movie night has been such a big hit with the family, I decided to start a game night as well. Levi loves anything that incorporates the whole family and I decided that we needed to pick a night and just stop moving for a second. Most evenings seem to consist of trying to get dinner on the table, both kids fed, bathed and to bed on time, followed by cleaning up after them. By the time all that is accomplished the evening is over and Brice and I are both exhausted. And we’ve spent most of our time doing things separately; divide and conquer seems to be the mantra. Anyways, the idea is that once a week we forget everything that needs to be done and just hang out together as a family and PLAY (usually in our pajamas). So the first evening started out with Chutes and Ladders, which lasted about 3.5 minutes before Levi was launching the pieces across the room. We then turned to Go Fish and Memory. This weekend, we played with some new blocks and then had a drum circle. The drum circle was a huge hit (literally, ha ha!).

We had to separate Levi from Annie’s drum after the second picture was taken. He was getting just a little too into showing her how to do it.