Racecars!

Isaiah is such a busy little boy! He loves to be doing something ALL OF THE TIME! Which can make for some pretty crazy days! If I run across a fun, easy project - I remember it and do it with him. A few nights ago we made some racecars! What fun!

You need:
* Paper towel or toilet paper rolls
* Paint and brushes
* Hammer and nail
* Scissors
* Toothpicks
* Paper punch
* Straws
* Plastic bottle caps
* A mom and dad who will gather the last two items and bring them over to your house at 7:30pm so you can make the project! (Thank you mom and dad!!!!)
* and an excited little boy! -- see below
Step one - put the baby brother in his booster seat with something to do.
Step two - paint the tubes whatever color and design that you want - I decided to go simple and do solid colors
Step 3 - go to bed and wait until morning for the tubes to dry

Step 4 - cut a square hole in the tube on the top for a "person" to sit in

Step 5 - punch 4 holes in the tube, 2 at the front, 2 at the back - make sure to punch them low enough so the wheels will touch the ground (we learned from experience!)

Step 6 - put a straw through the holes and cut so there is just a tiny bit of straw showing

Step 7 - use the hammer and nail to make a tiny hole in the bottle caps

Step 8 - put a toothpick in one of the small holes of the bottle cap, put it through the straw and put another bottle cap on the other end, repeat.

Step 9 - Enjoy your racecar.

Happy Halloween part 2!

A few days before Halloween, the YMCA had a Halloween party! Caiden and LeAnna joined us to have some fun! They had lots of games set up that were fun for the kids to play and of course you got a prize if you played! The boys all had lots of fun!

but before the party - Caiden and Isaiah had fun exchanging costumes and playing with our box full of dress up clothes!

my little duck and scary shark in the car ready to gothe shark.

the duck.

the shark getting a star on his face

games.

the most fun of all - of course not the Halloween costumes, games or cookies ... just a place to run and laugh!

do I get to play too?
so little.

Happy Halloween!

We had a silly little duck and a scary dragon help us celebrate Halloween this year! What fun did we have! The plan was to simply go around to a few friends and family members' houses to show off our cute little ones and then head home...but as we know, plans don't usually work the way we plan them! :) it got to be 3pm on Halloween and Mark and Isaiah were getting too excited for the fun to begin...Mark said, "isn't there anywhere that we can go trick-or-treating now? The festivities on Main Street were starting at that time. I'd told myself we weren't going to go down there this year because it just ends up being a big, slow-moving line, but I reminded Mark that that's what was going on. So we decided to go downtown. The kids were so excited to go!

What we found on Main Street was a really long, slow-moving line! :) But the kids enjoyed it. Isaiah got to say "trick-or-treat" a few times, and Levi got to cruise along in the stroller sucking no the wrapper of a sucker! haha
We decided to stop by Great-Grandma Jo's house next because she lives near Main Street. The boys were both excited to see her HUGE bucket full of candy. I think all 3 of them (Isaiah, Levi, and Great-Grandma) enjoyed digging through the bucket and transferring the candy to Isaiah and Levi's pumpkin buckets!
By now, we began to realize that we needed to eat supper before any of us filled up on candy! So we called my parents and told them we were bringing over Zio Johno's for supper. They didn't argue with that!
They even had special "treats" for Isaiah and Levi for Halloween. (The big shirt Isaiah is wearing below is to keep his shirt clean from the spaghetti! But he refused to eat any of it anyway and decided to have yogurt for dinner.)
Finally it was time to go actual Trick-or-Treating! By this time, Isaiah was getting pretty tired, and wasn't sure he even wanted to go. But we eventually got him out the door...
But after just a few minutes (maybe 15) Isaiah said, "I'm so tired, I'm ready to go home." :( So we went home. We are still trying to figure out how to handle Isaiah's sleep situation, so if anyone has any suggestions - please give them! If Isaiah takes a nap in the afternoon, he will not go to sleep at night until after 10 or even 11pm!! If he doesn't nap, he's tired by 6. oh well! before I know it, he'll be sleeping in till noon!!

Funny thing is, we came home, he rested and watched a show for about 10 minutes and was ready to be up and wrestling with daddy and Levi. Silly boy.

What a Happy Halloween! I hope you had a good one too!

By the way - you may recognize the dragon costume Isaiah is wearing. He was the exact same thing last year! ha ha. Click here to see pictures from last year. We had a few new costume choices, but he eventually decided to be a dragon again! :)

sprinkles

Isaiah learned what sprinkles were this summer when Mark made my birthday cake (I think that is when it was anyway). He knew we had more sprinkles and would ask to eat them. So, I came up with a solution -- and every once in awhile he gets a "special treat" with sprinkles. HA HA.This time he got a LOT of sprinkles ("a lot, a lot, a lot" as we call it!), usually he only gets about a third of what he got this time. Lucky boy that time I guess. :)

Jack-O-Lanterns!

At Anna's Birthday Party we each picked out a pumpkin to bring home with us. We decided to carve our pumpkins last night. The boys were both pretty excited about it and we had lots of fun. My mom came over to help (and ended up taking lots of pictures). Thanks mom for joining us!

We started with Mark's HUGE pumpkin.

My mom brought my old pumpkin knife that's meant for young kids...Isaiah thought it was pretty cool to get to use a real knife.

We had lots of fun... but didn't get to Levi's pumpkin, maybe we'll carve his another day?

Ta Da. Isaiah was proud of his pumpkin. He held it up and said, "Scary face, scary face!"
On the front step!
Isaiah was so happy to show Jayda this morning when we went outside to play.
He had to show her how all the tops come off, and how to put them back on. He is getting so interested in things and often says, "that's interesting." What a fun Halloween activity!!

leaves.

After church on Sunday I decided it was time to have some fun in the beautiful weather and beautiful leaves! Our neighborhood is so gorgeous right now, everywhere you look it is another tree with yellow, red or orange leaves. We've gone on several walks (one day we went on three separate walks!) and played outside for many hours this week. We are soaking up all the outside time that we can! Today was a dark and rainy day, and we weren't quite sure what to do without being able to go outside! I have a feeling we are in for a long winter! Let me know if you have any ideas on how to burn lots and lots of wild boy energy inside!!

Anyway, we had a blast outside in the leaves, and no surprises here...I took some cute pictures while doing it. :)

After the leaves, we walked to the park...how adorable is this?

UNI Homecoming!

Last weekend was homecoming for UNI. It's Mark's last homecoming as a student (HOORAY!) and we all wanted to celebrate, of course! Most of the events Mark went to on his own. His was recently selected to be "TC Security" which is so exciting for him! In case you don't know, TC is the "Panther" mascot for UNI. Mark has already spent lots of time with TC at all kinds of events!

But one event we did get to go to as a family, the Panther Festival. It was outside on campus with a virtual parade (aka little booths supporting several events/organizations giving out free stuff) and 2 HUGE jumpy things for kids! It was tons of fun, but a little bit chilly! We had to cut the day short because I forgot to bring hats and mittens (DUH! - what was I thinking? at least they both had coats on, I guess HAHA).

Here we are: Go Panthers! Do you think this one is good enough, that with some editing and cropping I could use it for Christmas cards???
We found TC and got to say hi, give him a hug, and have our mini UNI football signed!
Isaiah playing sandbags...
The jumpy things... I think these are Isaiah's all time favorite things in the world!
After a few times down the slide, the "worker" asked Mark if he wanted to go with him!
Home again, Home again.