Halloween

The day before Halloween we took Kelsey, Daniel and Carson to the airport. We were sad to see them go but we had so much fun while they were here! 

As soon as we got home, we got started on our pumpkin carving.

Afterwards, we roasted the seeds. They were tasty. That's my favorite part of carving pumpkins!

We decorated the outside of our house this year. It's not something we normally do until Halloween day but Kade wanted out house to "look spooky". So we did. I didn't take these pictures though until after we'd had a few wind and rain storms, so they look a little sad. Also our fake headstones and skull were stolen, so you don't get to see those either. 

These are from our living room/entry way. Halloween didn't get much farther into the house than that. 

On Halloween, the Kindergarteners got to dress up and have a parade through the school. Kade loved it. 

That night we got ready to go trick-or-treating. We also had our ward trunk-or-treat!

Aaron and I were Bob Ross and a "Happy Little Tree". Kade was a Power Ranger of some sort (his choice), Tadd was a recycled Captain America and Max was a recycled scarecrow. That's a huge benefit of having three boys in a row I guess! We only had to buy one costume this year!

We decorated the back of our car... sort of. We made our annual home-made rootbeer though. Our car was the hit of the trunk-or-treat. Some even said it was "life changing." Haha. 

I was so excited to be able to use this costume again! I made this costume for Kade's first Halloween and Tadd was 3 days old for his first Halloween and then he was just too big, the next year. Yay for Max being so tiny! He's twice as old as Kade was but it still fit! 

After the trunk-or-treat, we headed to the Lewis' neighborhood and went trick-or-treating with them. It was so fun! And it was perfectly cool outside too!

Tadd and Kade LOVE Halloween, which makes it a little more tolerable for me. We had fun this year!

Maxwell

With every baby, I've had their nursery decorated, waiting for their arrival. Max was different. Not only because he came so early, but because we knew we were moving shortly after he was supposed to be born. Well, 9.5 months later. He got his nursery. Finally. I don't have pictures yet of the whole thing, not good ones anyway. But this was the process of his name sign. I had a vision, I don't remember where I saw it before. Or, honestly, if I even did see it somewhere. I must have though, no way did I come up with this idea on my own.

My original plan was to buy some wood, and leave it outside. I wanted it to be naturally weathered and distressed. This was the most daunting part of the project for me. What if I bought wood and it didn't weather as quickly as I wanted it to, or look like I wanted it to. Anyway, as luck would have it, our neighbors down the street redid their fence recently. They had a whole trailer full of wood from their old fence. Aaron went and asked for a few pieces. They gladly gave them up! After inspecting them to make sure there were no termites or other problems, we started on the project!

Max was not sure about it all.

Aaron and I wanted Kade and Tadd to be involved in the project. Tadd's attention was lost quickly but Kade loved every minute!

We got Max's approval before we moved on. 

He started to get excited about it. 

Then it was time to paint his name on it. I wanted to do an old baseball script so I did my research to see just what his name would be like. Then I wrote it on a paper to get used to writing it out. Then I pencilled it onto the boards. Turns out my pencil job was no bueno. I ran out of room for the L's. I'm not a super patient person, so I got the paint and just decided to do it. (If anyone knows of a good way to get pencil off of paint without ruining the paint, let me know) You can still see the pencil. 

It's not perfect, but in my brain it was going to end up way way worse, so I'm really happy with it.

And it looks way better in person. I promise. Come see for yourself!

And just for good measure. Bah! He's just so cute when he sleeps. And other times too, just especially when he sleeps. 

He Turned 3

My little guy turned 3. I don't really want to think about that part. 

We decorated his room while he slept, just like always. 

He was very surprised to come downstairs to balloons and presents. I love surprising my kids!

Aaron made Tadd's favorite breakfast, chocolate chip pancakes. So this was his official first birthday "cake" for the day. 

He got shy when we were singing to him. 

Most of the rest of the day was spent just relaxing and hanging around the house. That evening we went into downtown Austin to the Long Center for Performing Arts. Truck by Truckwest was being held there. It's Austin's food truck taste off. There were plenty of choices. We all decided on the same thing though. A brisket slider. Uh. Mazing. 

These two. Aren't they the cutest little friends/cousins?

We tried our darndest to get the candles to light on the cupcake. It was so windy. Alas, the flame failed. We sang anyway. 

He has been asking for the movie "The Croods" for quite sometime. It was the last gift he opened and it's as if he was opening all other gifts...looking for this one. He just stared at it, once it was opened. 

Looking at a new toy.

Not a great picture, but this city is so beautiful!