Happy Halloween

Aaron's favorite holiday is Halloween, or at least one of them, so of course he was sad to miss the big event this year.

Blake was a special forces guy and Dylan was Jake from Jake and the Neverland Pirates. Dylan would even talk like a pirate. We were practicing with Dylan to say Trick or Treat and he every time we would get to a door, he would hold out his bag and say..."candy"! Our talk was obviously very effective.

Blake salutes you all. I didn't think much of Blake's costume..he thought it was cool, so whatever. We got a huge response for his costume..people saying they have kids currently serving in Iraq or previously served. Great reminder of how many people fight for our freedom. 

Okay, so it is hard to get a good picture of them..have I mentioned that before?

He had so much fun!

Blake loved it too...once we got to houses. This morning I told him Happy Halloween. He said, "Mom, it is only Halloween at night time." 

Hey Dylan, say cheese. What a kid.
We had a ward trunk or treat at 6-7, so before real trick or treating happened...man, not too many people showed up. Hopefully they do it another night next year.

Blake didn't believe it was trick or treating because it wasn't dark yet, so he wouldn't say trick or treat at our ward trick or treat. Why does he need to think about things so much sometimes?

They each got to pick out a treat to eat...Aaron would be proud, Blake picked Cheetos. Someone is handing out Frito Lay products!

Dylan picked out a sucker, which is his favorite.

Some houses were awesome, but I couldn't get very good pictures because my kids wanted to get more candy. Hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween!

Dylan Turns 2

Monday was Dylan's birthday. We celebrated it while my mom was out a couple weeks ago (pictures to come soon), but we did a mini celebration on his actual birthday. Blake was excited to give him the cards that he made for him.

Dylan loved the card that great-grandma sent him. It had a dog on it...she knows him too well.

One of the toys that Aaron's mom sent.

An updated picture of his foot.

Brotherly love.

Some PJs that Aaron's mom sent...can you tell Dylan is in love with Toy Story?

We had brownies and then Aaron was off to the airport to go to Turkey for a month. Tuesday we went to the doctor for Dylan's 2 year check up. He is just over 30 pounds--77th percentile and just over 38 inches--99th percentile. So he is no longer off the charts for his height..what a midget. They drew his blood right in the pediatrician's office for his AFP levels and this kid was a champ...he didn't move his arm and he didn't cry at all. (He is totally not my kid when it comes to medical stuff apparently). Our doctor is seeing if we can start doing ultrasound every 6 months instead of every 3 months, so we are waiting on to hear back, but hoping we can make the change. But the doctor couldn't feel any masses in his belly, so he seems to be fine. 

As you can tell from previous blog posts, Dylan is a funny kid. He is a pretty easy going kid, but he can be stubborn at times. He is still sad when Blake is at preschool. Although he doesn't have to fight for my attention when Blake isn't around, so he kind of likes that part. He still thinks his name is "me". He responds to Dylan, but tells everyone his name is "me". His favorite phrases are "no like" and "hold me please". 

Now that he is 2, we have to buy him an airline ticket. We weren't planning on going anywhere for Christmas this year, but my brother, James, is getting married on December 21 so we thought we should be there for that :) 

Real bed

We finally got Blake a real bed and he loves it.

What not to like about Texas

We have all now encountered those vicious buggers.   Dylan was the last hold out.  And he got it bad.  He was attacked by fire ants today. So sad. For those who know about fire ants you can feel his pain.  We were doing some yard work this afternoon and Dylan starts screaming. I run over to him and he is standing with fire ants covering his feet and most of his legs. I start brushing them off but it isn't fast enough so I quickly dunk his legs in our pool. About 50 bites later we were done with yard work and put some bite cream on his legs. No fun.


Update

After two days here what his poor little legs look like.

Park with Grandma

My mom has been in town for a little over a week to help out and to watch the kids so that Aaron and I could go on a little getaway (more on that later). Today after running some errands, we had some time before we needed to pick up Blake from school, so we went to a park.

So, how hard is it to get a cute picture of this rugrat?

Very hard.

I will say cheese, but I am not going to really look at you.

There were some other little boys there who Dylan didn't really love, can you tell by the look on his face?

Fire Plane

Did you know this is fire safety month? Now you know. We made our monthly stop to Home Depot's kids workshop to make a fire plane. Since it was fire safety month, the local fire station sent out one of their fire trucks for the kids to look at.


They had fun checking out the truck.


And looking at all the tools on the truck.

Dylan does so well in staying in one spot to take a picture.

Blake thought it was pretty neat to be able to go inside the truck.
Can't you tell?


Here are the finished products. They also received a lego airplane...super excited about that.



Dylan needs to sleep with his plane.


Thanks for the fun planes Home Depot.


Kids were obviously super excited to take pictures.

Dessert Talk and Playing Pirate

We were eating dessert the other night and we asked Dylan if he liked it---with a full mouth he looks at us and say "Oh Yeah Baby!"

We giggled for a while after that.

You probably don’t believe that Dylan actually said it.  So, we wanted indisputable video evidence for your viewing pleasure.  Here you go. 

Everyone needs a catch phrase.  What's yours?  

Michelle and the boys were at the park.  Blake was playing on the park equipment, which happens to have a steering wheel.  He’s turning the wheel pretending to steer his ship.  He calls out, “Only pirates can come on my ship”. 

A lone girl riding her bike approaches the park to play.  Blake calls out, “Oh no, a girl’s here.  She’s not a pirate.  We’ve got to go to plan B.  Go to plan B.”

Michelle laughing to herself asks Blake, “Plan B? What’s Plan B?” 

Blake responds, “You know plan B.”

“No, I don’t know what plan B is. Why don’t you ask her if she’s a pirate?”

Blake turns to the girl and says, “You can't come on my ship unless you're a pirate.  Are you a pirate?”

This little innocent girl looks up at Blake and says, “Arrrrrggggghhh”.

You can’t ask for anything better than that.  Hmmm, maybe a match made in heaven huh?   We’ll keep you posted.