Spooky Spooky Halloween

As my kids get older, Halloween seems less like a day to celebrate and more like a season that lasts for weeks.  There are so many parties, school functions, crafts, and decorating.  By the end of it all, when trick-or-treating actually happens, we're just about "Halloweened" out.  It was another great season for it all.  The kids love doing special activities and everything is magical to them.  Here are some pics of just a few of our festivities.

Anna is her Daddy's daughter!  They both have their focus face on.  This is something I like to tease Josh about when he's working.  I know what he's doing on the computer just by looking at this face.  My assumption is usually confirmed when I tell him he has his "focus face" on to which I get no response.  Not because he's ignoring me, but because he's too focused to get distracted by anything else.  When I get him out of his trance, he and I both laugh.  I guess Anna is following in his footsteps.

This is Andrew trying desperately to answer my "say cheese" command.  He also was so busy with his pumpkin that I couldn't even get his eyes to look up.  I guess they all have a good work ethic.  ;-)

Daniel was a little dinosaur for Halloween.  Andrew wore this costume when he was this age.  I love it!  The babies never seem to like anything on their head, so we have to snap pictures fast!  The picture on top is Daniel.  The one on the bottom is Andrew.  This costume was way too long for Daniel and pretty baggy.  Andrew fit in it just fine.  Andrew has always been my off the charts boy.  They both look darling though.

I know it looks like Andrew is flicking us off.  It's his ring finger, I promise.  He tried so hard to get the Spider-Man web shooting thing down.  He just couldn't quite do it.  "A" for effort though.

Anna was trying to pose like she thought Snow White would.  She did a great job.  She's pretty creative.  We sprayed her hair with black spray paint so it could be "dark as ebony" and put on bright red lipstick so they would be "red as the rose".  She felt so legit.  ;-)

This is Andrew, I mean Spider-Man, showing off his muscles.

You can't buy a superhero costume without the built-in muscles.  I love it.

Anna always tells me this is her BFF.

This is at Anna's preschool for her school Halloween party.  The whole family was invited.  This was actually on Andrew's birthday and he loved it.  They thought it was all so fun!  Check out Snow White's smile!

Trick-or-treating.  Cutest idea ever!

Here we are at Trunk-or-Treat.  I sat with Jenna and handed out candy.  We had a great time just chatting.  I love being the mom.

The three amigos all dressed up.  All of these boys will be going to college together one day and going on missions.  Hopefully they'll meet up one day and be good friends.  We sure do love their parents.

Finally, Halloween night.  It was not ideal weather by any stretch of the imagination.  We got soaked.  It rained pretty hard at some points but we were hard core.  By the end, the kids were ready to go home and eat their treasures.  We had to dry all the candy off before we could get into it.  The rain caused us to take significantly fewer pictures.  Good thing we still have one million more.

Classic smile.  I think he was trying to impersonate Elvis.

We hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!

Andrew Turns Three!

 Happy Birthday to the sweetest, craziest three year old I know.  There is just no one quite like Andrew.  He is always keeping us on our toes.  I always have to brace myself for a tackle from this little man.  I think he thinks he is a professional football player where the game never stops.  He is always, always tackling us and hard, I might add. His funny facial expressions and off the wall comments keep us laughing.  He often tells me, "Mom, if you say no then I'll just say, 'waa, waa, and then I'll just TOTALLY freak out!'"  Awesome, huh?  The other day we were following Josh in the car and we were getting left in the dust.  Anna was in the back screaming, "Hold on, let us catch up Dad!"  Andrew quickly chimmed in, "Yea, then we can put ketchup all over Dad and eat him!"  Andrew is always on the lookout for the bad guys.  His singular focus in life right now is to put the bad guys in jail.  He loves to pretend to be a super hero.  We love this little guy and loved getting to celebrate him on his birthday!

 We have a tradition to make pancakes into the shape of the number of your new age.  Andrew got his "3" pancake and was in heaven.

 We opened presents in the morning and he was just gushing over every one of them.  I think we could have gotten him anything and he would have been thrilled about it.  This boy is easy to please.

 Granny and Grandpa bought him this new winter coat.  Doesn't he look cute, no pants and all?

 I'm trying really hard to get more pictures of all three kids together.  I don't think Anna is very excited about this idea.

 We sang to him again at lunch with his PB&J.  He thought that was cool.

 We also had a little birthday party for our superhero.  We made it into a Super Andrew party.  He thought it was so cool.  Totally made it worth the effort.  I think a part of him really honestly believes he is a superhero.  We had some really great friends come out to support Andrew.  Gosh, we sure are going to miss St. Louis.

 I made these little caped lolipops.  They're kind of hard to tell what they looked like, but trust me, they were cute.

 We had the party at the Rocket Ship park and all the kids just ran around and had a great time.  I think I prefer having a party at the park.  There is hardly any clean up.  Count me in!

 Daniel and Daddy had some quality time on the slides.  I think Daniel has found his new favorite thing.

 You can always tell when Andrew is saying "cheese" in a picture.  So cute.

 I tried to get him to give me a better smile, so instead he just smiled harder so he could go down the slide.  Little stinker!

 Daniel was in heaven on this slide.  His laugh just melted my heart.

 Finally, I get a good smile.  He was so happy!

 This is a job for....Super Andrew!

 Watching him open presents was darling.  He was so excited about all of them.

 I love how they're all peering into the bag.  So cute.

 We played a little Red Light, Green Light and then called it a day.  He probably will never remember any of this, but it sure was great to see him smile and feel special on his special day.