Halloween 2012

I am a little slow in posting this, but hey, at least I am posting about Halloween before Thanksgiving arrives.  

Jack made this pumpkin at preschool.  He is absolutely loving preschool.

Jack and I made these paper pumpkins that we put on the mantle.  I am a bit of a perfectionist so it was hard for me to just let Jack draw his pumpkins freehand rather than using stencils, but I let him do it.  And I ended up loving his a lot.  They made me smile and laugh.  And it especially made me laugh when Jack looked at mine and said, "mom, yours look weird."  Ha! Ha!  

I bought some awesome LED tea lights that change colors to put in the paper pumpkins. A couple of nights we would just sit and look at these pumpkins.  Yep, we know how to have fun.

The boys and I made a bunch of these skeleton cookies for a neighborhood party. 

Carving pumpkins was a little more fun this year that in years past because Ben did it all by himself.  He did an awesome job carving his pumpkin.

This is what Ben's pumpkin looked like

I saw this costume on Pinterest and wanted to have Ben do it.  He wore this costume to school for the parade.  It was awesome.  

 Jack was Spyro from the game Skylanders.

 I didn't want Ben to wear the headless man costume trick or treating (which he was mad about) so he dressed up as a ninja.

 For the local grocery store trunk or treat, Luke was a monkey.

And for Halloween I was Little Red Riding Hood and Luke was the big bad wolf.

Brain dump

Totally random-

Luke has found his voice.  Yes, he is starting to say more and more words, but by finding his voice I mean screaming just for the fun of it.
He helped me with the dishes today by putting his dirty plate in the sink.  He was so proud of himself he kept putting dirty dishes and silverware into the sink.  Never mind that they were the dirty dishes I had just put into the dishwasher.

Jack has changed so much in the past couple of months.  After deciding to have him wait a year to start kindergarten I made another hard decision to have him go to preschool.  I don't know exactly why but I often feel preschool isn't necessary and it's best for kids to be at home with mom.  Turns out I had to change my thinking because I felt that Jack needed something more.  The first preschool we put him in he didn't really like, so I moved him to another one.  He is learning so much and he loves it.
Tonight I made a nummy dessert.  Chad made a comment that I should open a food truck and include this particular dessert on the menu.  Jack came up with a name for it, "Frosting Finale."  And then he said, "mom, if you don't like that I can come up with a new name."  And he thought very seriously about a new name.

When the boys are around each other they more often than not, drive each other crazy which drives me crazy.  But when Ben is at school all day I miss him.  He is gone too long.  I just don't I have much time to talk with him and what is going on in his life.  :(  We are trying to be better at doing a date night with each of our boys.  But it's funny on those nights I have a hard time getting Ben to talk.  The time he likes to talk is right before he goes to sleep every night.  I am always stressed about him getting to sleep, most nights I am putting Luke to bed, or I am just so done with the day that I don't allow him the opportunity to talk.  I need to work on that.

Union Pacific Rail Trail

Yesterday we, along with my sis and her fam, took the kids for a bike ride.  It was a perfect, beautiful fall day for the ride.  We went on the Union Pacific Trail from Park City to Coalville.  We ended up riding 23 miles.

  

We started at the City Park in Park City.  The guys dropped us off then drove the vehicles down to Wanship where they started working their way back up to us.  The ride started out pretty easy but as we started riding along US 40 a head wind dampened our spirits a bit.  I had Luke in the seat on the front of my bike and I was pulling Jack on the Trail-a-bike behind mine.  I know I am not in the greatest of shape, but it was difficult with the added weight of the two kids. And Luke fell asleep and was leaning on my arm which made riding especially difficult.  

We rode through fields of cows, had to avoid lots of cow pies, and open and pass through gates that kept the cows in.  

 The trail eventually turned as we passed under I-80. We no longer had a head wind and the trail started going downhill.  The kids really enjoyed the bike trip from that point to Wanship.  It wasn't quite so much fun for the guys as they had to ride uphill to join us.  Chad was pulling the bike trailer and was exhausted by the time he reached us between mile 9 & 10.  

Jack got in the bike trailer and rode there the rest of the trip.  Luke stayed on the front of my bike the whole trip.

When we reached Wanship, Jennifer and Jeremy took the vehicles to Coalville and then started riding back towards us.  

The ride from Wanship to Coalville was flat and I would say about six miles from Coalville the kids hit a wall.  It didn't help that once again their was a head wind.  There was whining and crying, but we got them to keep going.

We rode through lots of farmland, past lots of horses and cows.  (Fields full of cows are really loud. Something you definitely don't notice when you are flying by them in a car.) One horse ran along the fence line as we rode along.  And this cow posed for a picture.

We crossed this bridge right before we finished our trip in Coalville.  The trail goes six more miles after this point.  But the kids were done.  And we mostly were too. 

We finished the day with dinner at Taggart's Grill.  Mmmm!  I love that place.