A Fun Filled Week Before Halloween!

The week before Halloween is filled with a lot of excitement. Not only for the upcoming holiday, but for the other activities that always seem to pop up. This last week was really fun at our house.

First of all, Zach's school had Red Ribbon Week - which is basically a "Say No To Drugs" Week filled with a lot of fun things.

Like crazy hair day.


And backwards day.



And of course scare away drugs day (or wear your costume to school day). Look out, the cowboy sheriff is on his way to school.


If you don't believe him, he'll show you his badge.


Yep, he means business, don't let that smile fool ya!


Hailey also had a costume day at preschool. We decided not to spray her hair pink because we were worried about ruining anything at the preschool teacher's house. But she was excited to go at the Pinkalicious Tooth Fairy (don't ask me where the fascination with the tooth fairy came from, but she all of a sudden decided to add that to her costume explanation).


Apparently, the preschool had a parade where they wore their costumes and played some homemade instruments and marched up and down the street. Unfortunately, there was a mix-up and Hailey's note about it didn't make it home to me, so I didn't know and missed it. I'm frantically trying to track down some pictures from some of the other moms that were there to see it. If I find any with Hailey in them, I'll be sure to post them.

In addition to the Halloween activities, I took some other fun pictures of the kids. They love to lay on the floor by their baby brother and watch TV or play with him. I thought this was sweet to see them holding hands.


If they get too close, Tate loves to grab a hold of them in any way he can. Most of the time he just coos at them, but every once in a while he'll pull them in for a big slobbery kiss (or sucking of the face).


Tate is just loving his Bumbo chair. He's really getting good at grabbing his toys and playing with them. Ok, playing means that they just go straight to his mouth, but that's ok, they don't seem to mind and they never complain! :)


Don't you love it when you catch them just right with that "HUH?" look on their face? This one was too funny.


This is a common scene at our house. Hailey will read Tate books on the floor or more recently, she's been doing it on a stool next to his highchair. This day she read him about 5 or 6 books while I cleaned up the kitchen. It's funny because it's almost as if he knows what she's saying because he looks at the books and listens to every word she says.


Tate has really been a good, happy baby.


Quite often he will be smiling and happy - especially when his big brother and big sister are around. He loves them so much and boy do they ever love him.

A Happy Hawks Halloween - Part 1

Halloween has been a long time coming at our house. Zach and Hailey have really been into dressing up and doing activities, especially trick-or treating. This year, the PTA at Zach's school decided to do a Halloween Carnival Saturday afternoon. We decided to take the kids over because they absolutely love rides and games and it was a pretty reasonable price.

After lunch and feeding the baby we headed over. After buying wristbands, the kids decided to ride the swings first.


The swings are one of Hailey's favorite rides at Lagoon and so she was so excited to ride them again at the carnival. I think she rode this ride more times than any of the the others!


It was a little overcast and there was a slight breeze, so we bundled Tate up in his stroller with a hat, gloves, and tons of blankets. I don't think he was very happy with us.


He couldn't see much all the way in there with the canopy over his head, but he just sat there and sucked on his binkie most of the time.


At some point he fell asleep and got a little nap. I couldn't resist taking this picture - he always looks so peaceful when he sleeps.


Next, the kids decided to ride the train. They were so cute sitting there together on the bench.



We got to the carnival fairly early, so there weren't a lot of kids yet. It was nice because the kids didn't have to wait to ride anything! Next we headed to the little mini-golf area they had set up. Zach really surprised me at how well he did - he's really coordinated at sports and golf is no exception.


Hailey was by far the most hilarious! She would hit the ball (without any help, mind you), then go pick up the ball and put it right next to the hole, and then hit it in. No matter how many times we tried to explain that she needed to hit it where it was, she would continue to pick it up and move it where she wanted it. The only time this didn't happen was when she hit a hole-in-one.


After mini-golf, we decided to grab a snack. The kids DID NOT like the cotton candy we got, so they decided to get churros. I had to explain to them that they were like long, skinny donuts. They loved them!


Since I'm usually the one taking pictures, I wanted to document that I was actually there- so here's a picture of me with the kids. Tate's asleep in the stroller or I would have pulled him out and help him for the picture!


And one of just us girls!


Of course I made Jeremiah take a picture with the kids too.


And here's one of just the boys!


Next we headed to the games. The kids loved all the fun games they could play.


Almost every game had a prize, no matter if you won or not.


I didn't catch a picture of it, but Zach hit a hole-in-one on the golfing game! Looks like we have some talented golfing kids!


Yes, the games were a bit hit!


Next, the kids wanted to ride the ferris wheel. I wasn't sure if they were going to like it, but they were so excited! In they went without hesitation...


And then up and around they went. Hailey spent most of the time holding on to the sides of the cage. I kept trying to get her to wave, but all she did was wiggle a finger at me. Zach, the little daredevil he is, would wave, turn around, etc. without any fear.


Tate woke up just in enough time to see them get on the ferris wheel. Love this little hat!


Next we headed back over to the rides and the kids decided to try out The Whizzer. It basically spun around and you could make it go faster or slower by using the hand cranks. They loved it, but Hailey again, hung on for dear life until the ride stopped.


After that, Hailey headed back to the swings and Zach decided he wanted to play the pitching game. I sent the camera with Jeremiah to video him throwing the baseball.



This was sort of a combination ride/game. You had two chances to throw the ball. If you guessed the speed you throw it, then you win a large blow-up bat. Yep, you know where this is going right? Zach guessed dead on and came home with a bat he's been swinging around the house since Saturday! Gotta love those carnival prizes! After another ride or two and being there for 2 1/2 hours, Tate started to get hungry and we headed home to get him fed.

The kids had a blast and it was so worth the money we spent for them to ride and play the games. We're hoping they do the carnival again very soon!

A Happy Hawks Halloween - Part 2

After a fun afternoon at the school carnival, it started to rain. We were lucky because we weren't home more than 20 minutes before it decided to pour. Considering we walked, we felt a sigh of relief that we made it home without any of us getting wet.

We basically stood on our feet for 2 1/2 hours, so we decided to feed the baby (I did anyway) and rest for the remainder of the afternoon. We had an early dinner so that we could head out trick-or-treating before it got too cold with the rain. The kids were all giddy and had a hard time sitting still during dinner. We threatened numerous times that if they didn't sit down and finish eating, there wouldn't be any trick-or-treating at all. That was an empty threat as we never followed through. After trying to get them to eat a bit of dinner, we gave up and cleaned up. Jeremiah did most of the costume prep while I fed the baby again. I had wanted to take Tate and go out with them, but I decided to stay home to answer the door in order to keep the baby dry and warm. I asked Jeremiah to wait to go out until I finished because I didn't want the doorbell to ring while I was feeding him. The kids could hardly contain their excitement as they asked every few minutes "Is he done YET?"

Once I finished feeding Tate, I did Hailey's hair and then made them hold still for just a few seconds for a couple of pictures. You'll see the cowboy sheriff and pinkalicious (yes, that's pink hair) all decked out and ready to go.


We had some lighting issues, so I tried with and without the flash. I didn't particularly like the way this one turned out, but I kept it because Hailey has the most hilarious grin on her face and Zach's ears really stand out against his black cowboy hat.


Once I finished, they raced to get their coats on and out the door they went. They were so excited! Luckily, the rain decided to stop for a few minutes, so I was glad we were ready when it let up.


As you can tell, Jeremiah's thrilled to be taking them out.


I was a bit upset that we weren't able to take Tate out, but I didn't want to get all the way down the street when the rain started up again and have him get cold and wet. So I decided to dress him up in his lion costume anyway and answer the door with him. Everyone loved his little costume! In between answering the door, I took some pictures of just him. They turned out so darling, I just had to include a few.


I'm usually not very lucky at getting pictures of him smiling, but it seems my luck changed that night. I got a whole ton of them!


This one has to be my favorite though. He's the chubbiest little baby and that lion costume is just the cutest thing. He and I had fun for the little bit of time we were home.


Not too much later, the kids came back from trick-or-treating our neighborhood. The weather was still nice, so I decided to take all 3 kids and head over to the other neighborhood to trick-or-treat a few houses the kids wanted to do. Jeremiah decided to stay home and answer the door, I guess he'd had his fill of trick-or-treating. Actually he said he basically had to run to keep with with Zach and Hailey around our neighborhood - they would run from house to house and he could barely keep up with them!

Once we got home and the kids downed at least a pound of candy, we bathed, got on pj's, and put them all in bed. What a fun, but EXHAUSTING day! I love Halloween, but I'm glad it's over for another year!