Welcome Emme Rose

I was going to wait until we met Emme in person but it just doesn't feel right waiting that long. 

You see, we won't actually meet her until Thanksgiving and so I just couldn't wait another day to introduce our little adorable niece...

daughter of Kenton and Brittney Anderson...

Emme Rose Anderson

She is so precious. Is really isn't fair that she lives so far away (Colorado).

We look forward to meeting her soon!

The Magic of Halloween

 Kids love Halloween and for good reason! There's so many fun things to do for this holiday including carving pumpkins, dressing up in costumes, trick or treating, parties, decorating the house with scary spiders and bats, and of course candy, candy, candy.

 This was one of our first projects with a pumpkin -- we wanted to make them look like bats.

So the first step was to paint them black. Mason really thought it was exciting!

 For a girl who LOVES to paint, Elaina was pretty excited when I told her we were

going to paint some pumpkins. I almost feel like making the bat pumpkins all over again just

to watch her singing and painting.

 Here's the finished products - cute little bats. 

They didn't really last long - after the first rainstorm we had to retire them to the dumpster.

And it was a little spooky when it came to our ghosts. Three of them flew away and

we haven't heard from them since!

 Mason is a little bit obsessed with pumpkins. In fact, its a good thing that we can still decorate 

with pumpkins for Thanksgiving because I think he would be really sad to see them go.

He likes them so much that every time he sees one he stops, looks at it, and wants to hold it.  

He especially likes the little baby ones and has been known to carry one around with him all day, cry if he looses it, and sleep with it at night and of course call it his "baby." (he has done the same thing with tiny water balloons ... should I be worried?)

You can imagine how long it took at some houses trick or treating stopping to look at all the creative decorative pumpkins. Pretty funny little guy. I think he was a little disappointed to find out 

that pumpkins are full of yucky, gooey seeds!

 Its hard to really see the finished pumpkins but there's a rocket in the middle and two silly faces

on both sides. Ellie and Oscar drew the faces they wanted and Mike carved them out.

Here's a video of cleaning out the pumpkins...

Yikes! Grandma & Grandpa  Anderson gave the kids some Halloween treats & little toys.

Boy did they love the scarey vampire teeth!

Mason and Ellie would chase me around the house with these teeth in and 

I think they really thought I was terrified. (I'm a pretty good actress)

 I think Ellie was more excited about the broom than the witch costume. 

We ordered it online and so everyday she would ask me "Will my broom come today mom?"  I remember when it finally did come and the magic moment of getting it out of the box.  I think she thought it would really do magic or something.

 Here's a little information about six year old boys - at least this one- any costume 

that has a toy as an accessory is pretty much awesome. 

I remember when we first talked about what he wanted to be for Halloween he wanted something

scarey, had a weapon/toy to go with it, and the only thing he wanted people to see were his eyes. 

I think we did pretty well considering all the other options out there. 

 I think we counted down for two months before the day FINALLY came where it was time to 

trick or treat. Halloween and Christmas are the most exciting holidays for my kids.

 The lighting kinda makes it look like he has a mustache! 

I have to say the back view of this little spiderman as he was running from house to house 

was pretty cute too!

 Here are the kids with their cousins Carter & Bennett (Winnie the Pooh & Tigger) 

Carter looks adorable posing the picture and Bennett just looks mystified by the 

crazy angry ninja standing next to him!

Here's Mason talking about his fun time trick or treating...