Halloween 2011

Any idea who these kids might be?

Yup, that's Luke Spiderman and Jacob Woody - as they refer to themselves.

Oh, you thought Jacob was going to be Mickey Mouse?  Yeah, me too!  He's only been talking about it for about two months.  We had to get all the pieces for the costume - ears, gloves, nose, etc., but after wearing it to their school program on Friday, he was done with Mickey.

Are you kidding me?  How cute is he in the Mickey costume? 

I think he was a little traumatized by the Halloween parade, so maybe he just didn't want to bring back those bad memories.

Speaking of the Halloween parade...

It started out pretty well, but by the time he got into the room with all the other kids, it was all tears.

It was pretty overwhelming with all the kiddos and parents, and cameras.

But Luke was a trooper and stood right by his friend, Blake, who was also Spiderman (but they weren't the same thing because he is Blake Spiderman and Luke is Luke Spiderman...duh, mom!).



Jacob did perk up a little bit when the program was over, so I got a few pictures.  Something about Jacob in this picture cracks me up.  I think he looks so much like my mom.

A picture of their whole class and their sweet teachers, Mrs. Elise and Mrs. Erica.  I don't know how they do it.

Luke and I went to Boo at the Zoo on Saturday (Jacob decided he wasn't interested in the zoo that day), and had a great time!  I've talked about how much we like the Denver Zoo, and I continue to be impressed.  It was a little crowded, but Luke didn't mind at all.  I am pretty sure we saw every. single. thing. at the zoo that day!

For Halloween, we had our new friends and neighbors, the Hernandez's, over for chili and trick-or-treating.

Before our friends arrived, everyone stood still for 5 seconds for a picture with Daddy!

Here's a group shot of the boys with their new friend, Sophia.

Sophia looks like she's not so sure about Jacob.

Let the trick-or-treating begin!!

 

The boys made a quick stop in their trick-or-treating to take a picture with mommy!

We had a great time trick-or-treating, and were really just excited that everyone wore a costume this year! 

Unfortunately, poor Luke woke up in the middle of the night with a stomach bug and has spent most of the day feeling pretty puny.  Crossing my fingers and saying a prayer that he's all better by tomorrow because we leave at 10:30 in the morning for Texas for Erica & John's BIG DAY!

First Pets!

Today was a big day in the Patterson House - the boys got their first pets!

Yup, those are fish!  The lighting is really bad in these pictures, but the boys were very excited about their new friends "Luke" and "Aggie" (Luke's fish) and "Finding Nemo" and "Finding Nemo's Daddy" (Jacob's fish).

We will see how long these guys make it around here.  They're living on the window seat in the boys' playroom now, so there is a very good chance they could be forgotten.  Poor fish.

Luke really wanted a dog and Jacob really wanted a kitty cat, but mommy wanted nothing to do with either of those things, so we are starting with fish.  We told them if they took good care of the fish, then we would get a turtle or a frog.  And if they took good care of the turtle/frog, then we would talk about a dog/kitty.  I'm hoping that is many years down the road.


This past week was Fall Break at the boys' MDO, so we planned lots of activities.  They started out the week at Wildlife Camp at The Wildlife Experience.  It was just 9-12 Monday - Wednesday, but I think they had fun.  And, really, they only went two days because I didn't send them on Tuesday so we could go bowling for my birthday.

Bowling!  Why have we not been bowling before?  The boys had a great time!  I think this will be another place we frequently visit during the winter.

We also did lots of playing outside while the weather is still beautiful, Luke did lots of drawing ghosts and we watched while the trees pretty much changed colors right before our eyes.

We also got some great tickets to the Avalanche game!  The boys thought the game was a lot of fun (or just liked the popcorn), but we didn't even make it through the first period before they wanted to go home. 

 And that was just fine with me because I love getting in bed early too.

Last weekend Bunny & Grandaddy came to visit and we were so excited to see them!  We drove through the mountains to see some more foliage and did some "hiking"...

Bunny got some much better pictures, so there are more photos to come!  Thanks for coming to see us, Bunny & Grandaddy!

Less than two weeks now until we head back to Texas for Aunt Erica's wedding - we are all so excited!!

Snow...in October!!!

 So, this is what we woke up to this morning (bright and early at 6:08am)...

WHAT?!?!?  I heard the weather person say there might be a "light dusting" of snow on Saturday, but really, this is about 3 inches.

That was fine with these guys because we just threw our snow gear on top of our jammies and headed out to throw snowballs.

Yes, that's Luke throwing a snow ball right inside the house. 

Since they weren't exactly dressed for winter games, the boys were soaked in about 5 minutes.

We had already planned on heading up to the mountains to check-out some of the fall foliage, so we stuck with that plan to see what the snow was like higher up.

We were not disappointed.

We didn't get too far up these mountain roads before the temperature started dropping and these Texas natives decided it was time to turn around.

It all worked out for the best, though, because we drove up on this herd of elk and deer.  We immediately had to call Grandaddy and D to report.  Jack was almost drooling.

The boys were not quite as excited as Jack & I about the wildlife, so we headed on down the road to eat pizza in Idaho Springs.

I'm loving winter just for the cute hats.  Precious.  And they were definitely not giving me a hard time about wearing them today!

Now we're back at home and I think we'll cozy up by the fire for the rest of the day.  And make chili!



Orchestra, Halloween, Lauren and Pumpkins!

Greetings from Colorado!! We're acclimating well to the new environment and weather. Here's what's been going-on with us:

The twins are acting like angels...not really...

We've incorporated some new discipline techniques while in Colorado...

We are getting ready for the cooler weather around here! Although it's been in the 80's for the past couple of weeks. Crazy.

I'm just impressed the boys are wearing hats at all. They have always been pretty anti-hats, but I'm pretty sure they won't have a choice when it starts snowing here. They will be asking for their hats!

Luke also had a chance to watch his first NFL game, the Broncos vs. Bengals. Here's a picture of Luke on his first train ride to the stadium.

Speaking of firsts, Jacob and Luke went to a festival, and Jacob rode a horse!!

We were excited to check the mail this week and find the invitation to Aunt Erica's wedding! Just a few more weeks until the wedding and the boys have been working hard practicing their ring bearer duties.

Erica sent us a cute book about being ring bearers. Of course, all the boys could focus on from the book is getting presents. We even had to call Aunt Erica and ask her if they would be getting presents. One track mind.

Can't wait for the wedding!

Last week we went with one of the boys school friend to the Tiny Tots Orchestra. I was so pumped - Jacob loves music and I just knew he would love it.

But this is what he did the whole time...

They both just thought it was really loud and asked to leave the whole time. Oh well. I thought it was cute!


Jacob's favorite thing last week was getting this in the mail from GeeGee...

How cute is that?

It's not just real easy to find a Mickey Mouse costume. The one at the Disney store has shorts, and I'm thinking that might be a little cold for Halloween (although, based on the current temps, who knows what Halloween will be like!). GeeGee found this one at the Wal-Mart on College Station. Whoop.

Here's Luke's vampire teeth that Bunny sent him!

On Friday night we put on our jammies (well, not me) and went to pickup Lauren at the airport! Yea, Lauren!

Jack took the boys to the circus on Saturday...

While Lauren and I did some shopping and got a first-row seat to watch the A&M game...

We were the only ones in the place watching the A&M game, so they gave us our very own TV. Awesome. Well, until the Aggies started to go the wrong direction, and then we called it a day with the game.

On Sunday, we took the boys to a birthday party and then drove up to Boulder and went to a very cute pumpkin patch!

It was HOT!










They also had a "really hard" hay maze....luckily we found our way out!



How cute are these???



And then we came home and decorated the front porch with our pumpkins! And hay...I did not really think through the hay decision very well. Lauren and I spent the rest of the afternoon vacuuming out the back of my car. Oops.