Happy Halloween!

Conner ended up not feeling so well for Halloween so we adjusted our plans a little! We trick or treated to a couple houses on our street and then spent the rest of the evening handing out candy. The boys both had a ball!





Our little fireman Ben!



Our little policeman Conner!

Trick or Treating!

Ben and Conner had great fun taking all of the candy out of the bowl and transferring it to their own pumpkins!

It was great taking the kids trick or treating for the first time! Hopefully next year they will be able to enjoy it even more!

Pumpkins...

Conner and Ben were very excited to carve pumpkins tonight!



Nick told Ben to stick his hand in the pumpkin... Ben wasn't sure what to think...



Nick told Conner to stick his hand in the pumpkin and... well... you see the result...



Ben decided that using the spoon made much more sense. He would put it in the pumpkin and get one seed out at a time and say "I got it Daddy!"



Conner tried the spoon a few times as well...





It takes a lot of concentration!

Ben and Conner with the finished products!

Happy Halloween!!! Hope trick or treating goes well tomorrow....

Popcorn...

This is for our cousin Jennifer! We have decided that popcorn is our favorite snack!



Conner decides that his hands just can't get it to his mouth fast enough!



Ben is loving it!



Ben wanted to sit by Nana while he ate his popcorn!

Yummmmmmmyyyy!!!

Little Lions Parade

Ben and Conner got to dress up for school today! Ben is the fireman and Conner is the policeman. They were loving their outfits!

Their classes showed off their costumes in a little parade! Very cute! I love that they still let preschoolers dress up for Halloween!

The boys had so much fun and were very excited that they got to have a Halloween party at school! I kept asking what Conner did at school and he would smile big and scream "party!"

Silly Monkeys...

Ben and Conner felt like being monkeys last night and entertained us with their "ooh ooh aah aahh" monkey noises while running around the room...

Share the guilt?

I was feeling a bit guilty after opening some Halloween candy (although in my own defense, I have been extrememly sick and I really needed some chocolate to feel better!) so I shared with my little guys who were very excited to be getting candy for a snack...





Yum...

Remember...

Some random things I want to remember from the last couple of days:

The other night I took a risk and made cheeseburger soup for dinner. Ben LOVED it! He ate it all by himself and even asked for more!!! (that never happens...) After he was done, he looked at us and very politely said "cookie, please!"

I found Conner in Ben's bed again last night at about 11:00pm. This is becoming a pattern...

Tonight after Ben finished eating his dinner, and then some pudding, he wanted more so he was eating some crackers. After every handful of crackers he ate, he would lift up his shirt and poke at his tummy as if to see if it was full enough yet!

We had to make a trip to the doctor this morning because I really didn't feel well and Ben was pulling at his ears. He has double ear infections as do I and I probably have walking pnemonia as well. As the mom, I do not have time to be sick... I was laying on the floor this morning trying to play with my kids and Conner came over and laid down next to me. He started stroking my hair and shhhhing me! Such a sweetie...

Even though Ben has ear infections, it doesn't slow him down at all. He ran out of the garage and made it almost to the end of our street before I was able to grab him... Not cool...

This morning Conner saw me putting something in his backpack and he said "go school?" I told him he didn't have school today. He thought about that and then said "go Hy-Vee?" I smiled and told him some other day. He then said "morrow?" He is a smart one...

At the doctor's office this morning, the doctor walked in with an Iowa sweatshirt on. Ben looked at his own Iowa shirt and yelled "Hawkeyes!" Another smart one...

I honestly don't remember the last time I have ever been this sick. Nick was able to come home by noon today to take care of all of us. He has done everything all day long for all of us. He is quite a guy... Thanks Honey!

Our First Conferences...

We made it through our first conferences with the boys' teachers last night!

Ben's teacher is Miss Amy and she is very taken with our little buddy! (I once tried to explain to Ben that Mommy's first name is Amy, just like his teacher's. He looked at me for a while, smiled, and then said "noooooo... you mommy!" I couldn't argue with that logic!) Anyway, we got lots of good news at Ben's conference. He is very caring and polite towards his friends and always wants to know if everyone is okay if they get hurt. He is consistently getting closer to accomplishing his goals. He will even sit for a while for circle time by himself! Not a long while, but a little while. I was ecstatic because I was picturing him not participating in circle time at all so that was nice to hear!

Conner's teacher is Miss Cyndi and she also had lots of good things to tell us. Conner really looks up to the older kids in his class and tries to do a lot of the things that they are doing. He is becoming a lot more independent. He also is accomplishing all of the goals that we set up at the beginning of the year so we are really happy with his progress! To our amazement, Conner sits with the other kids at circle time almost all the time! (Our kids have a hard time sitting still!) It was so much fun to hear so many good things!

Nick and I are so proud of our babies. Good job guys!!!! We went to Culvers to celebrate with some ice cream. Conner got an added bonus when he grabbed Nick's Mountain Dew and took several drinks before we noticed....!

Close to Perfection...

Sunday afternoon turned out to be a day that was very close to perfection... we got to play outside, ride trikes, draw with chalk, rake leaves, and then of course jump in them too! Ben and Conner are battling another cold so that shortened our time outside a bit, but it was so fun to be able to spend the afternoon outside all together!

Their trikes are usually in the basement for them to ride so they loved being able to have more room to ride them outside. They can finally reach the pedals!!! Ben rode his for a while but was a bit more interested in raking the leaves. He also managed to tip his trike over once, but no tears!



Conner just kept riding his trike around in circles and seemed to really love it! (Except for the two times that he fell off!)

Ben liked the chalk but he got a little messy...

We have two little guys who LOVE to "help!"

Awwww.... Nick's contribution to our chalk art!

Potty Update... grrr...

Potty Training... I don't have the words to express my tremendous dislike for this activity... I was determined to give the guys a crash course in using the potty this past weekend and I am still trying, but they just don't give a hoot about it! (I have the cutest pictures of them in their big boy undies, but I can't get over the inappropriateness of putting a picture of my sons in their underwear on the internet, so I will keep those to myself for now...!)

For a few hours each day, they wore their undies. I think we had a total of 3 "accidents" in the last two days! I was actually expecting a lot more, so I was pleasantly surprised. However, neither boy actually used the potty successfully... they chose instead (I guess) to hold it!!!! Unbelievable! I apparently wasn't hydrating them enough because they both would go for over two hours without having to actually go potty. They did sit on the potties a lot so we at least got the dust cleaned off of them! Hopefully we can continue to do this when we are at home and use the pullups for when we are out and about...

I am frustrated, but determined!!! We will figure out this whole potty training thing yet... someday...

New Way of Building...

It wasn't enough today to just put the duplos together... they had to be hammered together as well..


Conner says "hi" as he works on his laptop while I "work" on mine!

Not a usual Sunday for us since Daddy has to work, but hopefully he can come home soon and play!

Winter?

We got out our winter gear the other day to see what still fits! The guys wouldn't take their coats off! Funny part is that when they actually need to wear their winter coats, they won't want to! Sleeves are a bit too short so we will be keeping our eyes open for some new winter coats to play outside in this year!

Music Men!

We definitely love making music around here!

Hallway Moments...

I am not someone who likes a lot of attention. I'm the girl who is much more comfortable sitting in a corner with my close friends rather than being in the middle of a crowd. I am quiet and shy and I try not to do anything that will call attention to myself... I have had to adjust a bit since the boys started preschool! Every morning they run into school (we are working on walking) and most of the time they are yelling and/or singing as they go. Everyone stops what they are doing and stares at us to see who's making all the noise... I try to just focus on my little monsters who by this time usually need a little guidance to go down the right hallway and go to their appropriate rooms. There have been mornings where I have had to chase one down, but lately they have been doing pretty good. So by the time I get them both to their rooms and start to head out the door myself, there are always people still standing around waiting to tell me how cute my kids are, how funny it is that two little guys can make so much noise, or how darling it is that their backpacks are almost bigger than they are. I appreciate all of these things that people say because I have discovered that it can be nice when people pay you some attention... even when you think you don't want it!

So when I go to pick up my sweeties, I have usually gotten over whatever embarrasment I have suffered earlier in the day and I am ready to show everyone that I do have some control over my children... of course this never seems to work out very well... I have resigned myself to the fact that I will usually be the parent that one of the teachers wants to talk to after school! The teachers send the kids out to the hallway when each parent arrives. Most parents get there, their children are sent out to them, and they go on their way. I, however, am the parent who arrives just in time to see at least one of my kids running away from their teacher out the door, and then one of their teachers will say to me "hang on just a second, I have something to tell you..." I was never the kid who got in trouble... at least I don't think I was. Trouble leads to attention so I avoided it as much as I could. Again, I have had to adjust! I have actually become quite fond of these "hallway moments" because believe it or not, it's not always something bad! I have had many stories of how Ben has gotten a little too "hands on" with another kid, and I have had even more about how Conner loves to run away and see how far he can get before someone catches him... but then I get a story like I got yesterday... Ben was sitting down for circle time and he noticed that a friend didn't have a chair, so he got up, went and got her the purple chair (the one she likes!) and he brought her that chair and invited her to sit down... Such a little gentleman!

No "hallway moments" today but as my kids came barreling toward me and grabbed onto my legs, screaming "Mommy" and giggling, I looked quickly to see who was paying us attention... and I found myself thinking, "go ahead and look... I have two pretty amazing kids..."

Galena Weekend

Nick and I always try to get to Galena every year to celebrate our anniversary. This year, we went a bit earlier than usual so we had to adjust our plans a little! We spent Saturday in Galena and then went back to Bettendorf to spend the night at the Isle! It was lots of fun... even though we still don't have any good luck when it comes to gambling... It was nice to get away and enjoy the day and night to ourselves!

Nick pours us some champagne... yummy...



We went back to my parents' house on Sunday to see what the boys had been up to...

They love Gramps' remote control tractors! Well, at least Conner does... Ben gets a little scared when they get too close to him! Here, Daddy tries to help Ben run the controls. Shortly after this, Ben ran up onto the deck and sat with Nana...

Gramps tries to help Conner...



Ben ventured out again when the green tractor made an appearance!

Great weekend for us all! Thanks Nana and Gramps!

Cuties!

Ben is waiting for me to turn my head so he can dump all the cars on the floor! Hence the cute grin...


Conner is such a charmer...


Some of the kids' pictures were up in the hallway at their school. They brought these home the other day and really liked my idea of hanging them up at home too, so up they went on the kitchen cabinets!