halloween 2010....

We knew for a while that Charlie wanted to be a lego minifigure for Halloween. I mean really, we all knew that was coming, right? And of course, I looked high and low and nobody actually sells a lego minfigure costume. So, once again, we were going to be making Charlie's costume this year just as we did last year and the year before. This costume was quite the project and as we made our 23rd trip to Hope Depot to get yet another supply, Eric and I looked at each other wondering if we were completely crazy. Charlie was thrilled so that makes it all worth it I suppose. The costume was a pretty big success. Everywhere we went people were commenting about it. Charlie even won the costume contest at his school and was quite proud of himself.

Here in Utah, everybody went trick-or-treating on Saturday. We weren't happy about this but we didn't want the kids to miss out, so we followed their tradition and went on Saturday. (Utah even celebrated the 4th of July on Saturday instead of Sunday this year, CRAZY!!!) It started to rain at about 4pm and it didn't let up for hours. Bummer.



Neither of the kids were having much fun in the rain, so we headed to the mall. Along with everybody else in the city. It was a total zoo and most of the stores were out of candy early.
We gave up and headed to Target to just buy some candy. The kids were happy with that. We ended the night with a quick dinner at In-N-Out, and the adults were happy with that!

Hope you all had a fabulous Halloween!

we finally made it to the zoo.....

I heard that the zoo was fabulous here but we had never made the effort to go. There is a funny story of why we ended up going on this day. I used to work with a gal named Christine at Archiver's in Boise. She moved but I never realized it was to Utah and I especially never expected to run into her at Costco a few weeks ago! She has an annual pass to the zoo and invited us to tag along with them when the kids were on Fall Break. (on yet another note, is fall break just a Utah thing? I don't ever remember getting 3 days off in October for "fall break") Anyway, we quickly accepted the invitation and we had a great day. She has a daughter that is also in kindergarten and a son that is about 6 months older than Cannon.

Charlie was quick to do his standard pose and cheesy smile whenever the camera pointed his way. He loved the giraffes and we were able to get pretty close to them.

Cannon did pretty good in his stroller for a while but he finally decided that he needed to get out to explore with the big kids. He did much better staying by me than I expected him to be. He kept trying to lead the way and then he would turn around and yell at the rest of us "Come on!" I think he has heard me say that to him about a thousand times as he usually thinks the walk from our apartment to the car is a 15-minute nature walk. I am constantly standing there with my arms full of groceries trying to hurry him along.



And of course, what would a trip to the zoo be without a ride on the carousel? We had to wait in line a little while before our turn and Charlie had scouted out that turkey. He really wanted it and I was thrilled we were able to get it for him.
Cannon had the praying mantis, but he couldn't care less.
We didn't get to see everything because naptime came much too quickly, but we were happy to have finally made the trip to the zoo. Another great day spent with my two cute boys.

pumpkin painting...

Our complex had a pumpkin painting party at the community center last week. It was so cute when we walked in the door and a bunch of the kids yelled "Hey! It's Charlie!" He got all shy and then whispered "those are some of my bus friends." They must be from other stops because I didn't recognize any of them. It was fun to see him interacting with some of his school friends.

We didn't know if Cannon would be interested in this so we just got a pumpkin for Charlie at first. What were we thinking? If Charlie is doing something you better believe that Cannon will be doing it to. He will not be left out on anything. Ever.

I started Cannon out with just a little bit of paint and then he was pretty happy just dipping his brush in the water and then going over his pumpkin. He eventually figured out there were other colors of paint and he would reach way over to the other side of the table to dip into them. He was very serious about the whole process.


Charlie just kept plugging along until most of his pumpkin was covered in paint. These types of projects are not usually his favorite, but he had fun anyway.




There were some kids waiting for a turn so we hurried the kids to finish and Cannon was not happy about this one bit. I think he could have stayed there all night dipping his brush over and over again. Maybe he will be the artistic one??

cannon is two.....

Since I figured Cannon may have an opinion on what kind of party he wants next year, I took advantage of being able to choose this year and I picked an owl theme. It was a very small party so I didn't really have to do much, but it was fun to put together a few fun details for the day.

I started with some invitations. Luckily, I only had to make a handful of these, so I added a lot of stitching and detail.

Then I made a plush version of the owl to put into the cake. We decided to go with a Nothing Bundt Cake again. They are just so GOOD.
Banner and balloons. The ballons were the biggest hit of all with Cannon. He was not happy that they were tied to his highchair so I had to take a few off for him to play with. He calls them "noons".
The little goodie bags I made for the guests. I made each of the boys a t-shirt using a freezer paper stencil and some bleach using this tutorial. They all turned out different and the boys loved them. The bag also included a toy skeleton and a sucker/crazy tooth toy thing.
I didn't really get any good cake photos. Bummer. The light in our dining area is pretty poor and it was dark outside by the time we did the cake, so I was forced to use the flash. Charlie got a little excited and blew out the candles before Cannon had a chance to, but I don't think Cannon even knew that he was supposed to blow them out anyway.

The boys were very helpful to Cannon with the present unwrapping. They were all unwrapped in no time. Even though the toys were much too young for the bigger boys I think they were so excited with just the thought of new toys that they wanted to play with them as much as Cannon did.
He LOVES music so he thought this toy was pretty cool.
Getting his groove on.
It was fun to see Cannon enjoy the day. I am not sure he really understood what was going on, but he was happy that there were balloons, cake and presents so I would say it was a success.

He played with the older boys the whole time and I am pretty sure he thinks he is 4 or 5 too. He has really grown up these past few weeks and I definitely see a little boy nowadays. No more babies in this house!

cornbelly's....

The weather on Saturday was PERFECT for a day at the pumpkin patch. Charlie got a coupon from his school so he had been begging to go. How smart of them to give out coupons directly to the kids at the school, right?? Cannon is finally old enough for this kind of stuff so I was looking forward to seeing him soak it all in. He loved it. Charlie had fun too, but he is at a weird stage right now where he is constantly thinking/worrying about the future. I think he sometimes forgot to enjoy the moment because he was afraid it was going to be over. He kept asking, "We aren't leaving yet are we?" Not sure what has brought this on, but I hope it doesn't last too long.


Trying to get a picture of the two of them together....another FAIL.
Cannon was crazy about the tetherball. He is his mama's kid.




Showing how scared they were to go into "The Creature". It was very dark inside so I carried Charlie. It was cute to hear him rationalize the experience when he started to get scared. In one part there was a disco light flashing and he just kept saying "oh, that is just a disco ball, there is nothing to be scared of."

Cannon HAD to do everything that Charlie did. Even if it may have been a little too big for him.










Chowing down on some kettle corn as we wait for the pig races to start.
Throwing a fit....An outing wouldn't be complete without at least one!
The boys loved jumping on the jumping pillow. Cannon kept falling and got bounced around quite a bit, but he just laughed and kept on trucking. It was so cute. Charlie would have NEVER done this at this age. One of my favorite things is observing how they are so alike and so different all at the same time. I don't necessarily like to compare them, but I just like seeing how they truly are their own unique little personalities.