Happy Halloween!

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays.  I do love fall and crunchy leaves and bonfires...and chocolate.  :) 

We made a trip to Jenny's Farm Market to choose our pumpkin and have a donut a couple of weeks ago.  The boys continue to be less and less cooperative in the photo department, so I've got very little to document the event.

We were able to find a nice carving pumpkin in a relatively short amount of time.

Once I promised to "leave them alone with the camera" they had a blast on the hay mountain.  Not my greatest photographic achievements, but you get the idea.  They ran themselves exhausted through the tunnels, jumping off the top, and playing tag with some random new-found friends.



When it came to actually Halloween festivities, the boys were so independent this season!  Jared did a fantastic job with a large portion of the pumpkin "gut-removal" for us.  Fine with me - the smell makes me want to hurl!!! 

Owen supervising the gut-removal...note his portrayal of the "face" in his hand

 

"Here Owen, try a bite!"

  

"It's yummylicious!"



Jared was allowed to Trick-or-Treat on his own with his friends this year.  He was invited to come over early for a pizza dinner, so he was out the door before Owen was dressed/ready.  I'm bummed that I missed the photo op - I don't have a picture of the two of them together this year.

Jared was dressed as ... well, some sort of creeptacular skeletor-reaper thing.  He said that the mask smelled funny inside, so it didn't last all night.  But it was a pretty creepy looking thing!  He and his buddies ran through the neighborhood, enjoyed their indepence, and brought home a TON of candy!!!  Brian said that they crossed paths once or twice, and they all seemed to be having the time of their lives.

In true Owen fashion, he didn't decide on his costume until the last possible second.  For school, they have to limit themselves to a "not-too-scary" mask - there are preschoolers there, after all.  So he dressed for school in his beloved Bruins jersey and some assorted hockey pads that he inherited from a friend of mine.

But...it just isn't acceptable to wear the same costume to school AND for Trick-or-Treat.  As we started dressing in the purchased costume...the "Metal Face Biker" that he HAD to have 3 weeks ago, he refused.  The mask was "too stinky".  So...there we were (again...as we are every year) at 4:45 on Halloween and he's asking "what are my options?"  Um...buddy...you have your hockey costume from school and you have this $35 monster thing you insisted on buying.  He said "or I could be Harry Potter" ... well, we technically HAVE a Harry Potter costume...but it's in the basement (that's another post) and you have a friend coming over in half an hour...we'll never be able to find it in your mess (again...the basement is another story).

So he went with hockey player, but Red Wings this time.  And he loved it. 

His buddy from football came over to join the Trick-or-Treat posse.  They were headed off to meet up with the rest of the gang down Redstone, but I don't think that they ever hooked up in the insanity.  I didn't join in the Trick-or-Treat racing about...Linda and I passed out candy and watched Twilight.  :) 

Here are Owen and Cooper headed out for the night with another boy they both knew from sports/school...I don't recognize him, but he sure is a cute little thing!  :)


Their candy haul was impressive...we let them eat their fill and then they headed down to play a little air hockey and X-box.  It was a great Halloween, and a great start to the holiday season!!! 

Oh, and I have confiscated all the 100 Grand bars...all 4 of them!  Next time, I buy my own stash!  Owen did make a nice big bag of candy to take to school with him on Tuesday.  Their school is having a contest...the class that donates the most candy to send to troops overseas wins a pizza party!

Winding Down

The craziness of fall sports is coming to an end.  Our evenings are freeing up...which means I'll have to be able to cook dinner for the 4 of us again.  No more rushing from the bus stop to the dinner table, into cleats and practice clothes, and out the door.  No more sitting outside in a lawn chair chatting with friends for hours each week.  No more soggy socks and mud-crusted cleats in the laundry room.  No more lost water bottles...no more late-night loads of rain-soaked uniforms to wash.

We'll get to sleep in on Saturdays again and laze around on Sunday afternoons.  We'll get to hopefully watch the Lions finish out the season as strongly as they've started.  We can make plans for dinner out with friends.  We can spend the weekend with family.  We'll be able to walk through the hallway and foyer without stepping over shoulder pads or a soccer ball.

Both boys have had fantastic sports seasons.  Jared started playing soccer again after a 2+ year break.  He jumped right into the competitive travel team with enthusiasm and a great attitude.  He's worked hard, and the boys have started really playing well together as a team. 

Owen's football team went undefeated this season.  (When you don't keep score, of course you're undefeated!)  It was his second year playing football, and he's really starting to grasp the game.  He's watching the plays develop.  He recovered a few fumbles this season.  He got to run with the ball.  And his "Back in Black" half-time dance is out of this world!!!  He's excited to play again next year!

My boys of fall are ready for a break...but they've both had fantastic fall sports seasons.

Walk to School Day

Today was Walk-to-School Day.  Our school participates in a program called Safe Routes to School, so there are organized days to walk every few weeks when the weather is nice.

It was a GORGEOUS morning, and Owen begged to walk, so we headed out to the trail instead of the bus stop this morning.  We are so lucky to have the paved Lakeland Trail park right in our neighborhood to use - it takes us on a nicely shaded walk right to the back playground of the school.

Upon arrival, Owen was treated to a banana snack - must refuel after that morning exercise.  :) 

Fall Sports Bonanza!

The arrival of fall brings not only the first day of school (arguably one of my favorite days of the year)...but also the beginning of fall sports!  The crazy days of jumping off the school bus, eating a snack, and getting ready and off the practice are upon us.  Soccer practice is M/W with games on either Saturday or Sunday; Football practice is T/W/Th with game son Saturday.  Thankfully, both sports practice over at the complex by the Police/Library/etc.

Jared decided to get back into soccer this year after a 3 season mini-hiatus.  He played in the Spring of last year, but other than that, he's been focused on swim team.  Fortunately, his coach of several seasons is still coaching and had openings on his team.  He started practice just last week, and their first game was this weekend in Milan. 

The team did AWESOME and won 4-0!  Jared's still getting back into the game, but he played hard and said that he is enjoying it!  Because only a few boys have their uniforms, they wore "practice" whites for this first game.  I ordered #20 his game uniform last night and promise to share more photos (and a collage of his) when it arrives!

First Game - Hamburg Rush 00

Owen is in his second season of Instructional Pirate Football.  He loves the game...loves to get dirty, loves to tackle, and loves the excitement.  During a game, it is not uncommon to see our Lumpy jamming on his air guitar while the speakers play the team's anthem "Back in Black" or waving his arms in an attempt to pump up the crowd.  The kid has watched WAY too much Wii NFL and actual TV football...he's got the moves down.

Since he's been practicing for a month already, I thought I'd share a collage of football highlights.  (And I'll give a shout out 'THANKS" to Dad for introducing me to the iPhone app "PicStitch")

The months of September and October are busy in our household!!

First Day of School!

I love the first day of school.  I start counting down in...oh...mid-June.  :)  It's one of the best days of the year, in my opinion.

It's not that I don't miss the boys when they're gone all day.  But summer vacation is a LONG time to entertain two boys who want to constantly go go GO and not necessarily in the same direction.  The whining starts to really grate on my nerves after a few weeks.

And I LOVE school supplies.  I love shopping in general, but school supply shopping is my second favorite kind of shopping.  (Purses are #1)  I love markers, new glue sticks, back packs, and pens...love me some PENS! 

Back to school in our house this year was a little more stressful.  Jared started 5th grade, which is middle school around here.  He was nervous, but excited.  And I think that it helped when he found two kids that he knows in his class.  We'll go to his open house tonight and meet his teachers, see his locker, and learn more about this new school adventure.

First Day of 5th Grade

Owen started 2nd grade, which meant moving up to the next "pod" of classrooms and having his own locker for the first time.  He met his teacher at open house last week, and the fact that her husband used to play football has made her somewhat of a hero in his eyes.  He was very concerned in choosing his school clothes today...his Lions jersey is at the bottom of Portage Lake, and his Steelers jersey is just a little too worn for school attire.  He chose a Michigan football t-shirt, and he hopes that his teacher is a Wolverine fan.

First Day of 2nd Grade

Workin' at the Carwash, Yeah!

One of the first weeks of summer, the next door neighbor invited my boys plus her three kids to wash her car...the boys have brought up the idea of washing my car at least once a week since then.  I had many excuses ready...no sponges...it was going to rain...we had somewhere to be. 

Well, today, I ran out of excuses...I was on vacation, and the weather was gorgeous!!  So we bought some sponges at Target and I let the free labor have a go at my car.

Jared teaching Owen the finer points of scrubbing off the dead bugs

 

Working on the smooshed bugs some more



Anxious to finish up and go swimming!


All in all, it turned out decent...now I just need to tackle the inside with a dust cloth!

A Pirate's Life for Me!

I don't know if it is all of the talk about Pirate Football (Owen's team is the Pirates) or maybe watching POTC on television or just a sudden urge...but Owen built himself a pirate ship this weekend.  Jared is at Grandma Camp all week, so Owen's imagination is going to have to keep him occupied while I work (and his buddies in the 'hood, but some of them don't wake up until later).

He had a ship for sailing and looting.

Apparently the seas were treacherously full of enemies and scallywags...there was a lot of fighting.

After promising that I'd leave him alone and take no more photos, I finally got one of him close up in his pirate togs...cutest little pirate in town.  :)

Kindness Rocks!

Another 3-Day ... how is it possible that it's been a year since I posted last year's recap?!

Jillian roped us in for the 2009 Breast Cancer 3-Day.  I say "roped us in"...she suggested we join her, it sounded like a good idea, so I registered.  After that first year, I was hooked.  I cannot imagine a year without a 3-Day.  This year did not disappoint.  Because of my own health issues, Amy, Jillian, and I decided to brave the experience called Crew in 2011.  Crew members spend the weekend making sure that every walker has a true 3-Day experience. 

Being a part of the Crew was a different 3-Day experience...one that I'm so very happy to have had.  I was able to meet and interract with SO MANY wonderful people.  I had time to talk to walkers as they embarked upon their journey...greet those walkers as they struggled into camp...and in between, I worked alongside our amazing Crew teams.  I met fellow survivors...women who'd lost mothers...husband walking alongside their wives...and children walking & crewing (as part of the Youth Corps - amazing group of kids) because they saw how important it was to the grown-ups in their lives.

We began our 2011 3-Day with the All Crew meetings on Thursday.  We assembled lanyards, checked in crew team members, met our fellow Camp Services teammates, and prepared to greet our walkers the following morning.

After a delicious meal at Bone Fish in Novi, we headed to Mom & Dad Camp to rest up...having to be at the Opening Ceremony at 4:30 am meant an EARLY wake-up call!  As someone put it...the alarm went off at "o-dark thirty".  And so began the 2011 3-Day for the Cure.

We met up with Tim at Opening Ceremony and paused for a Team Tyrannosaurus Racks photo op.

Camp Services' duties include checking walkers into the route.  After a quick training on the scanners...we prepared to greet our first walkers!

There's plenty of silly at the 3-Day

We ushered our walkers onto the route with lots of cheering and excitement. 

Next order of business...breaking down the Opening Ceremony site.  We moved barricades, picked up tables, and loaded trucks.  We did make time to do a little shopping in the 3-Day Shop.com truck, of course.

What a gorgeous day for the 3-Day!!!  Friday was cooler (well, I guess if you can call 84 cool) and sunny.  We made our way to camp to beging preparing our areas for the walkers to arrive around noon.  We set up areas for Legacy Pins (recognizing walkers/crew members' accomplishments), an Information Table & Tent, Towels in the shower area (Owen is so mad that I didn't take a picture of the shower trucks for him), the Check-In area, the camp Post Office, and, my favorite, "Save Your Spot"...a table where we were registering walkers and crew members for the 2012 event.  Well over half of the people that I encountered during my shifts at that table registered for next year...people with blisters, shin splints, and all kinds of various injuries...still they were anxious to sign up for another year.  And yes, it really is THAT good.  :)

We had a quick lunch in the dining tent (biggest tent I've EVER seen...picture a tent large enough to hold enough tables & chairs to seat over 2000 people!!!  Plus a stage!).  The first walkers began arriving, and it just got busier and crazier!!!  We staffed the tables in the 3-Day Lounge for most of the afternoon - answering questions, helping walkers navigate camp, and, as I said above, registering folks for 2012.

We were able to take a quick break during the afternoon to cheer Team Tyrannosaurus Racks' walker into camp.  We are all SO proud of Tim for his amazing 60-mile journey this weekend!

We fell into bed after 10 PM that night, completely and utterly exhausted.

Saturday dawned early again...we had to be in camp by 6 am and were tasked with the VERY important job of bringing the Camp Services crew some real coffee!!!  We were greeted with many smiles as we arrived in camp with our cartons of Tim Horton's coffee.  :)  We cheered and danced our walkers onto the route then until 8:00 am.  It's kind of eerie how quiet the camp gets when 1500 people leave! 

Since we did have some down-time until the walkers would begin returning to camp, after we finished opening up all of our gold medals (our team theme was Olympic Excellence, so each walker received a gold medal upon entering camp on Saturday), we found a cozy spot to curl up for a short siesta. 

Once again, the walkers began arriving shortly after lunch.  Our afternoon duties included a nice long stint at the check-in area - we had a BLAST cheering our walkers into camp after Day 2.  Lots of good music, amazing new friends, and unbelievable walkers made it an afternoon that I'll never forget.

Talk around camp focused on blisters, aching muscles, Sunday's route, the fantastic cheering station in Plymouth...and rain.  Lots of rain in the weather radar.  We spent a bit of time huddling under the large dining tent and in the 3-Day Lounge watching the lightning streak across the sky and the rain beat down on camp.

Sunday marked our first 3-Day rainy day.  We've experienced hot and humid, but we've been very lucky with the wet stuff.  Sunday morning it drizzled off and on...and it continued throughout the day.  After ushering the walkers onto the route, we trekked off in our FANTASTIC rain gear to ensure that Rotary Park was left as beautiful as when we arrived. 

Smokin' Hot!

Thanks to the dedication and hard work of our amazing crew teammates, we had camp cleaned up in record time.  On our way to Closing Ceremony, we were able to make a short detour and find Tim walking on the route and cheer him on to 60 miles!!!

Closing Ceremony was amazing, as usual.  Cheering in all of the walkers, greeting our families, and saying good-bye to friends...lots of teary smiles all around!  But it was worth every minute...from the 3:30 am wake-up call on Thursday to the soggy socks on Sunday...I love the 3-Day!!!  Who's in for 2012?!

Cheering is much more fun with bongos!

Self Portrait!!!

Walking in with the Survivors...this is how our walkers and crew greet us. 



Survivor's Circle...and the tossing of the roses



Birds!

Owen and I woke up this morning and found EIGHT of these Sandhill Cranes walking through our front yard.  When I stepped on the porch with my camera, half took off so I only got a shot of these four.  Owen was pretty geeked as we usually only see them in pairs.

We've all heard these guys flying overhead this Spring/Summer - and now I know why they seem so much LOUDER than before - they're multiplying!

Nelly's First Slurpee

Mmmm...Grape!!

summer fruit

I love summer fruit.  All of it...berries, peaches, melon.  The boys have their favorites (Jared loves cantaloupe and raspberries, Owen loves strawberries and blackberries).  On any given day in the summer months...I'll enjoy this for breakfast or lunch (or both!)

It doesn't get much better than that!

Lego-Mania!

I remember playing with Legos as a kid.  We had a big drawer in the family room "wall-unit" that was filled with our Lego collection.

My boys have always LOVED to play with Legos.  They enjoy the big sets with complex directions...Star Wars and Pirates of the Caribbean are huge hits.  But, as many know, the big sets rarely stay assembled for long.  Then we end up with something like...well, this!

Our Lego drawer is generally such a disaster, and it usually spills out onto the top of the train table, the floor, the stairs, their rooms...you get the idea.

The boys have been busy in Lego-mode today.  They spent much of the morning perusing the Lego catalog.  It's always an exciting day when a new one arrives.  This one's been around for a few weeks, but I don't dare throw it away.

"Let's get this one"



"I don't think this $2 bill is going to buy us much"



















Showing off their creations becomes like a game..."look what I made"..."now look at his ship"...and then there are often very detailed descriptions of the guns involved, where everyone sits, how it flies....

A modified SW ship

Free-form creation



A close up

But in the end...it's all about the mini-figs.  We had a fun time with the mini-figs earlier this year when we ordered a bunch of the new hockey player mini-figs for Owen.  We didn't tell him that they were all hockey guys - he was beyond elated!

Owen generally has a small collection of guys involved in an elaborate game on his desk, floor, and chair.

Boba-Fett...huge favorite

A pilot


The days spent in Lego play are getting further apart...especially both of them together.  Jared gravitates to his DS or the Lego games on Wii more often than the actual bricks.  But we do have days like today, where hours are spent digging through the piles and piles of Legos.  Given the amount of action that Legos still see (especially with that little blonde one), I expect that I'll be stepping on them for a while, yet.