halloween

ok...not too bad, just a little under a week since halloween and i'm getting my post up!  i'm on a roll.  halloween was super fun this year - both kids were really into it.  involved in picking out their costumes, racing from door to door for trick or treats and of course, gobbling up as much candy as possible.  ugh. 

kellen decided this year he would be a train - he wavered between james, busy as a bee james, thomas and finally landed on percy.  with the move just behind us, we had plenty of boxes, so i googled thomas the train costumes and came up with some great tutorials for creating a train out of some boxes, hot glue and paint.  i got right to work on cutting out the pieces and while maya napped, k and i worked on painting and gluing. 

mr percy the train (with face painted by grandma!)

when maya found out kellen would be percy, she quickly decided she would be ata hat...aka sir topham hatt.  the round, friendly head of all the trains on thomas and friends.  ever since our "day out with thomas" adventure in hood river, she has had a mild obsession with ata hat.  everytime halloween was mentioned she would declare "ata hat!".  so ata hat it was.  i ordered a kid's size top hat off amazon and went out to search the second hand stores for a little boys suit.  after no luck, i happened to be talking with a mom of kellen's friend and she mentioned that his favorite thing was to wear a suit that his dad had bought for him.  lucky for us...we were able to borrow the suit jacket and that almost completed our costume.  i had found a little yellow shirt at goodwill that i cut into the shape of a suit vest, a black piece of felt tied into a tie and some grey pants, white shirt and black shoes that are part of our every day wardrobe rounded out our little miss sir topham hatt. 

here's a side by side with the real sir topham hatt and our little miss topham hatt...not too bad!  actually super cute!  she put the costume on at 1 in the afternoon to go visit our old neighbor and didn't take it off until late into the evening! 

miss maya topham hatt

the "real" sir topham hatt

maya topham hatt and torsten the big red dog!

miss topham hatt and percy the train

trick or treat!

maya and daddy in line for trick or treat

kellen unfortunately found it pretty difficult to run from house to house with his percy costume on...so off it came and we hauled that thing all around the neighborhood.  note to self:  no more cardboard box costumes.  they are super cute and impressive, but not realistic and will promptly be discarded in favor of keeping up with the friends for more candy!  on the plus side, we now have a real fun percy costume/toy that has gotten some good playtime post-halloween and it was a fun project for us both!

the crew mid trick or treating!

for the second year in a row, we met up with our "baby and me" friends...tilden and torsten, tom and wes, kellen and maya, sydney, henry...just missing hadley.  we all enjoyed a great halloween feast of pulled pork, sweet potato fries and other yummy treats prior to heading out to trick or treat in the ladd's addition neighborhood.  it's so much fun to see how much more into it the kids are each year. 



post trick or treat...and they ALL chose to eat a sucker!



the loot!



on a sugar high in their new halloween jammies!



trick or treat!

it's official...halloween is a million times more fun with kids!


cookie monster! *made by me! easiest costume...ping pong "googly eye" balls sewed onto blue hooded sweatshirt. felt cookies stiched onto body of sweatshirt. after halloween...snip the thread and it's a blue sweatsuit!


chocolate chip cookie! *made by me! even easier...felt chocolate chip cookie safety pinned onto brown shirt w/ brown pants and brown socks!


cookie monster and cookie!


maya and her buddy torsten, stuck in the strollers while their olders sibs trick or treat!


chocolate chip cookie has had enough!


cookie monster, pinkalicious, pilot and robot fairy!


earlier in the week we had some friends over to paint pumpkins. these are all of my nike mom friends who are all now staying home with their kiddos. so fun to "work" together again!


very proud of his pumpkin!

message from the boy

in lieu of a real post (of which i have several started in draft form, but not completed or posted!!), here's a message from my boy:

happy halloween!

40 weeks ago we found out we were having another little one - due on halloween...a little pumpkin baby, our special treat! because kellen would not budge out of me, i anticipated much of the same. not that it was a huge worry for me, but i did think about what we would do if the baby decided to come right around halloween and we ended up being in the hospital. what would halloween look like for our boy...because he's at the perfect age to "get it" this year - or at least have some fun with it and i wanted to be able to experience that with him. i honestly thought that by halloween i'd look as if i had the giant pumpkin inside my belly and i'd waddle around the neighborhood with my boy and his cousins and then we'd have our little one shortly after. i still have to share the whole labor and birth story, but that is for another day. because our little maya arrived 10 days early, we were able to carry one with our long-standing tradition of trick-or-treating with my sister and her kids. kellen had a ball!

he was a little dinosaur (which was my nephew's costume 10 years ago!) he loved showing off his tail and using it as a sword!

the gang - tylre, britain, madison, kellen & maisy. kellen ended up riding his bike and maisers went stroller-treating!

my little miss pumpkin was much too small for even the smallest costume i could find, so she stayed in all snuggled up as the biggest, yet smallest duck fan! oh yeah...the other concern with the oct. 31 due date - the ducks v. usc at autzen stadium. why we had two fall/winter babies to coincide with football season, i'll never know....but it all worked out and aa made it to the game, without having to be on call, to enjoy a huge duck win over usc - 47-20.

and just for fun...here's a look back at our boy last year - my what a difference a year makes in our lives!

happy faux valentine's day!

years ago, before we were married, aa and i decided we would not give into the commercialism of valentines day, so we created our own "faux" valentines day that we celebrate every year. it happens to be today and is always the saturday before super bowl. it beats fighting the crowds on the real v-day and ensures that we always celebrate our love on a saturday! instead of flowers, cards and chocolates...we treat ourselves to a delicious dinner and of course something really sweet for dessert! tonight we enjoyed a great meal out at serrato and then dessert at papa hayden. yum...my belly is full of food and my heart is full of love! happy faux, my sweet husband!

oh and i got a haircut today...what do you think?!

post-holiday post (warning: another long one!)

let's see if i can recap our holidays...it already seems so long ago! hanukkah was fairly uneventful this year, although we did make it out of the snow and over to adam and sarah's for a latke feast one evening. we didn't bring our camera, though...so no photos. sadly, i'm not even sure that we managed to light the candles every night! we did light them with my family on christmas eve, though and b had the honors!

the snow caused my family christmas eve celebration to be postponed until this saturday, so instead my sisters and their families came over to our house and we celebrated with a big lasagna meal and present opening for the kidlets. it actually turned out quite nice, but did make me a little sad that we had decided not to decorate for the holidays...so it wasn't very festive!

family pic:
group shot:
checking out his gifts:


christmas day, aaron's parents came over and watched kellen while we went to check out a movie. we had planned to go with adam and sarah to the curious case of benjamin button, but we had no idea that the theatre would be so crowded! we got to see benjamin button and adam and sarah had to go see another movie. after the movie, we had dinner with aaron's family and it was a bit of an adventure to get there and back...with several cars having to be pushed out of the snow, but we all made it there and back and it was nice to be with family, enjoying a good meal.

cuddling w/ grandpa (and teddy, of course!):
with muzz and chief:

k, checking out the tree and wanting to grab every ornament...maybe it was a good thing we didn't have a tree!
the boys pushing the first car out of the ditch:
k, watching the boys push the car out of the ditch:


we enjoyed a great duck football win in the holiday bowl (42-31 over Oklahoma State)...so nice to end the season on a winning note and so happy to see college football coming to an end here VERY soon! k and aa did some major celebrating with each duck touchdown which was even more entertaining for me than the actual game!

new years was quite mellow...just our little family home for the night. we put kellen down a little early and enjoyed a nice meal and for me a couple of glasses of champagne! coconut shrimp to start, mango and hearts of palm salad and seared scallops, roasted brussel sprouts and garlic bread for our meal. we ended with a little peanut butter pie and barely managed to stay up until the clock struck 12...but we did and we were tucked into our bed by 12:08! 2008 was quite a year and i'm definitely looking forward to 2009 and all it brings! i have a few ideas of things i'd like to accomplish in the new year and one of them includes figuring out our family holiday traditions for this new year...i'll share more of what i want to do in the next post.

i'm thankful for...

...the sound of my sweet boy laughing so hard he has tears in his eyes! his cousin cam was pretty funny today!



...my boy's little tootsies


...family


...for my husband, who is so wonderful - he cleaned every single dish that was dirtied today. the kitchen is now sparkling! unfortunately i didn't get a picture of him in action.

...that i could enjoy thanksgiving dinner this year. last year thanksgiving was my actual due date and i couldn't eat more than a few bites without feeling incredibly full.


...watching kellen enjoy his first thanksgiving meal. he had a little turkey, mashed potato, stuffing, peas, sweet potatoes and a roll...pretty much the whole shebang! poor boy didn't get any gravy on his potatoes though!


...so much more, but i need to go lay on the couch now! hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving! i'm feeling extra thankful this year!

a message from the boy...

H A P P Y

H A L L O W E E N !!!