Happy Halloween

Halloween is finally here! This is our first Halloween in Illinois so it's our first Halloween with family close and the possibility of cold cold cold weather. I am pretty sure it snowed at one point during the day today too. The weather was chilly and gross out all day. Charlotte hung out with Aunt Bare in the morning while Sawyer took his nap. She went to visit Miss Janet and all of her cats. It made her morning. Then she came home and took a nap.

We decorated another pumpkin with big stickers when she and Sawyer were both up from their naps.

Charlotte and Sawyer's side of the pumpkin :)

She found a mustache. She was being like Papa.

We finally decided to get ready. Our plan was to go to Daddy's work first since he wouldn't be able to see them dressed up otherwise.

Sawyer...the cop

Charlotte was a donut (her TUTU was the donut)

Do you love that eyeliner mustache???

I can't even take it...

So we drove over to Alex's work. It was cold and gross out. Mom met us there since I was going to be having to get them in and out by myself everywhere that we went.

"Trick or Treat" at Finish Line Ford

She took half of the bowl. Too bad half of the bowl contained peanuts :-(

He took about 17 pieces too. He kept choosing Junior Mints and Whoppers.... I know he won't like those.

Charlotte even trick or treated to all of the individual desks of everyone.

Charlotte insisted on wearing that free Dunkin Donuts T-shirt that Mom gave us. It's an XL adult on a 2T child.

I have no idea what he did but how funny is this pic.

They crack me up.

Cops and donuts are like peanut butter and jelly, mac n cheese, ball and chain..... get it?

Since it was raining and cold and gross, I was not about to take my kids door to door and risk them getting sick and being miserable. So we stopped by and saw my friend Jennifer's parents and trick or treated with them.

The kids got a TON of loot!

Then we headed over to Miss Lisa's house and saw her, Mr. John, and Zoe.

She even made fresh cookies for her trick or treaters. (They live on a farm so they usually don't have any. I told her we were prob going to stop by.)

She was all ready for Charlotte....and had a peanut free house going on...

Gigi and Papa met us at John and Lisa's house.

Charlotte was so excited to show Zoe that she was a donut.

Sawyer walked over to Lisa and reach up for her. He did this with me, Mom, and Dad in the room.

He is getting there...

He loves her :)

Charlotte LOVES her playtime with Miss Lisa. She loves going over there and having one on one time with her.

After their house we headed home. I made supper and we waited for trick or treaters to come visit us. Not a single trick or treater came!! No one on our street had their lights on and we are on the end AND it was raining. But still...I thought we would at least get a couple of trick or treaters :(

Mary came over to see the kids and to hang out with us.We had some fabulous mostacolli and then Mom and Dad headed home.

By the time Alex got home, everyone had had baths (Mary helped! It was so nice to have help).

It was a great Halloween even though the weather was less than desirable :)

I am already planning what they will be next year....

Halloween Themed Tuesday

We came home from the Villa on Monday October 28 in the afternoon. We wanted to make sure to be home for the entire day on Tuesday since that is Alex's day off. Tuesdays have become our laundry/grocery shopping/errand running day with Daddy. While we were gone for the weekend, Alex bought pumpkins, mums, and Halloween themed cupcake stuff so that we could spend Tuesday getting ready for Halloween.

While Sawyer took his nap that morning, Alex and Charlotte started on the cupcakes. She said that she really wanted the cupcakes to be pink (even though Alex was trying to remind her that Halloween is orange themed :) ).

Pouring the cupcakes herself.

Note Daddy's hand trying to snatch it from her before she could get a lick in :)

They fill the cupcake tins and let the cupcakes bake. While they bakes, they started gutting one of the pumpkins. Charlotte LOVED it.

She was so excited about it.

Then they washed all of the seeds off and baked them in the oven.

Once the cupcakes were done, Charlotte decorated hers and ate it right away!

She was in LOVE with it.

Poor Sawyer missed all of the fun (he took an almost three hour nap.)

So after supper, he got to decorate his own cupcake.

He couldn't wait to get his hands on it.

Charlotte got to decorate another one.

Dig in, Buddy!

He loved it :)

She took her own sweet time decorating the cupcake (and she didn't really eat this one.)

Charlotte's second masterpiece of the day.

Yep. He liked it. So did his hair :)

Then we decided to carve/gut the next pumpkin. This is his first pumpkin experience.

Alex was trying to get him to reach inside the pumpkin and touch it. He chose to try to pick it up.

Alex finally got him to put his hand inside.

This was his reaction.

But once he tried it a few times, he LOVED it and dug right in.

 After the pumpkins were all gutted, the kids took good baths and went to sleep for the night.

Alex got to have his own fun once they were asleep.

The art major in him came out.

He was pretty proud of these :)

(And I am proud of them too! He did so good!)

It was a productive day off!!! We had homemade vegetable soup for supper. It was a great day.

A Beautiful Sunday in the Fall

On October 27, 2013, we all woke up at the villa (after having had a great day at the wedding the day before) and Mom had prepared us a delicious breakfast.

Charlotte and Uncle Cha Cha shared breakfast together in the bay window overlooking the water.

Charlotte was drinking her "coffee" and so was he.

Mary and Chad headed home for a church function and Anne headed back to Jeff City to see her hubby. Alex had a bunch of stuff he had wanted to do on Sunday and I had a LONG honey-do list for him so we stayed down at the Villa for one more day to just let the kids relax and have a simple day before heading home on Monday.

We went down to the river with Papa again.

Papa carried them down the STEEP bluff down to the river. 

We LOVE rocks.

Do they look like siblings?

It's pretty beautiful.

Papa was teaching her to skip rocks.

The steep trek back up to the villa.

After we played by the river, we took naps and ate lunch. Great Grandpa and Grandma Schumann came up to see us from Kampsville. Grandma is looking MUCH better than in September. She brought her oxygen tank with her and carried it around. Charlotte loved her time with them. Sawyer was scared of Grandpa's voice for some reason. But we had a great time. They even sat on the back porch in the sun and got a bit of Vitamin D. When they got tired they headed home.

But not before Grandpa used his shoe horn.

Now THAT is a serious shoe horn!!!

It was almost like a weapon!

We also ended up getting some fabulous visitors later that evening too. Chet, Vanessa and their new doggy Sugar came by. O. M. G. They just adopted this dog. She is SO SWEET. She loved everyone. We watched the game with them. Vanessa helped me bathe the babies. Chet enjoyed some homemade chicken N dumplins... It was a great Sunday.

The Cardinals DID lose but that's ok.

It was an awesome Sunday of relaxation and family....even though we DID miss Alex so much :)