Halloween Festivities

This last few days we have had some fun Halloween festivities. On Friday we went to the Frisco Safety Town Festival. And it was super busy! Long lines, and many people. The kids had fun looking at all the costumes and riding the bus on the way there. But we didn't get to see my brother and his family till later because the lines were so long, it was fun, but if we go next time, we will try to be the first ones there. Lesson learned.

Then Saturday we went to Dustin's Aunt and uncle's ward chili cook off, and watch the candy bomber give out candy. The boys didn't get any candy, but they thought it was cool anyway.

Then for FHE last night we painted pumpkins. We usually carve them, but I was too tired to clean up that mess and it takes a lot longer and it was already running late so this was option B and the kids had a lot of fun. 

Halloween Costumes

I always try and get some cute pictures of my kids' costumes every year, and it seems like every year it gets harder and trickier. Oliver is nearly impossible to even hold still for one moment to get a picture, and Thomas is at that stage where he is more aware of the camera and it's hard for me to get a genuine smile from him and not a forced "cheese". So between these two problems I never really get the picture I had in my mind but I accept what I get. I will admit I do get frustrated a lot when I try to get that "perfect" picture, especially since I feel like my photography skills have dropped, or I haven't seen myself improve for a long time now. I blame the lack of time, and taking a picture of one kid is a lot easier than taking a picture with two, and soon I will put a third kid in there, so I'm just guessing my "perfect" picture quality will be even less next year!
One of the ways I get my kids to pose is by giving them candy as you can see here and here. So almost every picture they have candy in their mouth. And for some reason I thought Swedish fish would be better than a sucker because it won't be sticking out of their mouth, well ha ha, it just made them make funny faces as the gummy goodness got stuck in their teeth, so lesson learned, no gummy stuff.
But I can't complain my kids will do this for me once in a while when I want to tempt a photo shoot, maybe one day they will thank me, if not, maybe their wives will thank me for all this hard work!

Pumpkin Patch

We had a fun time at the pumpkin patch this week with play group. The kids weren't too interested in the pumpkins but loved playing in the little maze and the dried corn bin, they played in that for at least an hour, and came home with a lot of corn in their clothes, that I still see a corn here once in a while on the floor.

The World from a Three-Year Old Eyes

If you have a smart phone and kids, you probably have a lot of pictures your kids have taken, and most of them are selfies, their foot, the pillow, the couch, and everything in between. And a lot of times I go through my pictures and delete a lot of them, I do keep most of their selfies, but everything else I delete, but once in while I run into a picture I like, and the other day I saw that Thomas captured some moments this last week, that it let me see a little of how he sees the world. That's why I love photography, I like to capture how I see the world, and it was fun to see a little glimpse of Thomas' perspective of his world.

Sadly, most of these aren't me with him, or looking at him, or interacting with him, but usually when I'm doing that he's not taking pictures, so these are more of Oliver and I, but I still thought they were cool to see.

Keeping Them Busy

We have had nice weather this last month and we go outside a lot and play in the parks. But we have had a few wet and cold days (which I love!!!) and so I try to keep the boys busy, which can be hard, because they rather run around outside. Thomas loves the hands on crafts while Oliver could care less but they both loved frosting the cookies! Oliver said he wanted to "paint" the cookies. And it didn't take them long to realize that the frosting was pretty good, so I ended up frosting most of the cookies... and eating them...

And these boys always have too much fun when they should be asleep. I love my boys!

Aboretum: Pumpkin Patch

Today we met up with my sister in law, Trixie, at the Aboretum. We love going when they have their pumpkin houses, and the Cinderella carriage. The kids had fun climbing on pumpkins, running around, and playing with the straw. Oliver loved throwing the little pumpkins, I'm pretty sure he broke many of their stumps too, that boy.
We were lucky to go when it was cloudy and not too many people, but it didn't take long when it started getting crowded and hot, gotta love Texas weather.
The boys had a great time and have already asked if they could go again, and I'm pretty sure we aren't done going to pumpkin patches this month!