Baby laughing...enough said

Happy Halloween 2011

Well, Luke and I were left feeling like we just finished a marathon, but we trick-or-treated with all four littles tonight.

D was St. Wenceslaus, Jackson was St. George and Patrick was a dragon.

 Leo was a horse. And this kid looked seriously cute when he was crawling around and his little horsey tail was following him. He was SO excited all night--all smiles, bouncing up and down in the wagon as we went from house to house.

After the chaos of getting four little people fed and in costumes, we went around the block and hit about 10 houses. Jackson was a little confused, though, thinking that Halloween is just a parade where you wear costumes. He asked us when people were going to throw candy!

Patrick has been wearing this costume almost every day since I bought it about a month ago. He IS the dragon.



Dominic got to wear his costume to school this morning and went to a nursing home in town. We have candy to last us until the parade next summer...

And this is probably the last picture I got of the Knight Costume in its entirety--it was pretty much in pieces within a few blocks.



I tell ya, this Jackson is going to be a heart breaker...

Our last stop via foot was at our neighbors across the street. Jill is pretty much a live in nanny. The kids love her and she loves the kids. Makes running to the store for milk in the middle of the afternoon a feasible idea now! We love having her and her family as neighbors!

Mom and dad didn't wear costumes, although D thought Luke should be a shark...we thought that he could just put on his suit and tie and head to work... Get it?

Happy All Hallows Eve and a Happy All Saints Day!

Roca Pumpkin Patch

This weekend we went to Lincoln to visit our dear friends, the Guenthers. We had SUCH a fun time, we've decided to move in with them (is that OK, Katie?? :))

So...our big Saturday excursion was to the Roca Berry Farm Pumpkin Patch. Our two goals for the day were to have an awesome time and to get a good family picture because I am so cheap that I really don't want to pay someone to take one for us...and I want a good Christmas Card. Well, the kids did awesome and we DID have an awesome time. I'll let you be the judge on goal number two.

First stop, the corn bus.

This kid (Jack-attack) loves sandboxes and the corn box was equally awesome to him. And he just takes really adorable pictures, as you can see.

Next up, this crazy big bouncy thing. Jackson, Dominic and Grady loved the bounce thing and Katie and I had a pretty good time on it as well.

Patrick didn't love the bouncy thing, so he just sat by the fence and looked cute.

That was followed by a quick ride on the train.

And here's the first of my many attempts to get a good picture. As usual, Dominic is being a silly four year old...

 Another attempt.

A small break from the photo session to go down the super awesome, huge slide. Every time Patrick went down (probably 5 or more time) Patrick yelled the whole time down so his voice would vibrate.

Ok...we're starting to get a little crabby here.

But would a little crabbiness interfere with my photo taking? I think not.

Then off to the hayrack ride. And....another great thing about the day is that we had a surprise visit from Uncle Jake and Gina at the pumpkin farm.

We stopped to pick out pumpkins in the middle of the ride.

Then off to the trike thingees. They were way to big for the littles, so Jake took them on rides. Again and again and again. He was feeling pretty tired after a bit.

At this point I was withholding lunch to get a good picture. The three older boys got the threat and took a pretty good one. Unfortunatly, Leo doesn't understand cause and effect yet.

At any rate, it was a super great day, although after this shot, I broke my camera, so my blogging days might be numbered until I can get a new one. Looks like i know what I'll be asking for for Christmas.

Thanks a bunch Katie, Paul, Grady and Brynlee. You guys rock.

Man, I love these kids

Things I love about this picture:

Two boys in super hero capes. Some nights, the boys sleep with them on. This is, in fact, one of those nights for Patrick.

Leo can stand with the older boys!

Patrick is holding his penguin, which he calls an "owl" that he got in the free box at the thrift store that afternoon.

They were content to just sit and look at the indoor pool for about 20 minutes while I did paperwork to get my Y membership.

These kids are just too awesome. Sometimes I can hardly handle it.