Santa came for a visit by helicopter

playin' trains


Breakfast before the surprise at Millie's Hallmark
It's a bird, a plane, no it's........
Santa Claus!!!!






Firetruck- you can rent it- has built in grills and flat screen TV's



After sitting on Santa's lap they were happy about their candy canes and toys

Carolers
Santa's elves


There is a local Hallmark store that put's on a little festival for the kids every year the day after Thanksgiving.
We took the boys and did not tell them that Santa was flying in via helicopter!!!

They had a bouncy house, a firetruck, carolers, face painting and also balloon animals. Once Santa arrived, the kids waited and got their picture taken, and then they each received a free candy cane and a toy. The best part of all is that it was all FREE!!!

Riding bikes.....

He decided to pull it for a bit....
Bark Park

We went to a park/ bike path that is near our place to ride bikes, walk and then go to the playground.
The weather is finally cooler now and on this path we do not have to worry about cars and can see the kids when they get way ahead of us while we walk it. The path goes around the entire park.
Poor O, his legs could not get him around that far. At one point, he got off of his big wheel and walked it........

Our little Trick or Treaters.....

This post is a little behind- but we have had quite a busy week!!!

It started with Halloween on Sunday, I started a new job and a new schedule, there was Rob's birthday during the middle of the week and I felt so bad for him, he had pneumonia on top of all of that.
Needless to say, things are quieting down a little and I have a few moments tonight before bed to put some pics up of our little guys for Halloween.

This year, we went to my sister's hood' since we are renting and not really sure if there would be anything going on here......

They had a blast and Grandpa and Grandma G came down for all of the fun!!!!

Sea Horses- oh- and we were able to touch a Starfish!

Peek a Boo place in the middle of the tank
Rob believes he was stung by one of these when he was little in Chesapeake Bay????? Yikes!
This was the glass tunnel aquarium- I love this profile of O- he was a little hesitant to walk on it at first

How cute are these?? They are soooo cool!


Is it wrong of me, that after we left, I ordered shrimp for my lunch ??



I spent the day today spending some one on one time with our youngest.
O was so excited when I told him we were going to the Sea Live aquarium, he kept saying how he wanted to see the sharks, oh, and Sponge Bob.
He was certain Sponge Bob and Patrick were going to be there. He even asked about Gary.

If those of you do not know who these names are, I dare you to "Google" them, or "Wikipedia" them and it would be interesting to see what you find out about them.
I was really just glad to have a day with O, just him and I together.
After the sea life aquarium, I took him to lunch to the Rainforest Cafe- where at first, I thought, the loud elephant sounds, thunder and lightening might scare him, but then realized, he was in awe.

We started out the morning right, with a stop at Starbucks. I asked O if he wanted to get a chocolate milk and he said " yes, I get a chocolate milk and you get a coffee"- oh, he knows me so well ; )

Anyhow- we went to the aquarium, and unfortunately, some of the pics are hard to see, since they did not allow flash photography ( I did sneak in a couple pics with the flash). Apparently, the flash harms the fish??? ( it lowers their immune system)
Anyhow, I was really excited to see the sea horses. Ever since I was little, I have been a little fascinated by Seahorses. They are so prehistoric looking, yet really cute- kind of a weird combo. They are just really cool to look at- and at this place, they had red ones, black ones and yellow/clear ones.
There was a really cool Octopus, sharks, stingrays, and the other really cool display was the jelly fish- they glowed and you can kind of tell in the pics.
The last exhibit, you walked in a tunnel on glass over an aquarium. The same aquarium was on both sides of you as well as, above you. There were all kinds of colorful tropical fish and sharks.
It was a lot of fun.

I had a great day with O. Time for me to return to work next week and I feel like these last 2 weeks, I have been able to spend some good time with my kids and rest up.

at the Farm

O found his special pumpkin right away
Now O is the engineer!
J loved this- it is a hay maze with these John Deere tricycles.... FUN!

Count Dracula!!!!!
smeared in 2 seconds...... oh well..... boys!
face painting

O had his hand on my leg the entire time on the train ride.......even though he is brave, I think he was a little scared








Yesterday we spent the afternoon at Schnepf Farms. We wanted to get some pumpkins and we have never been there before.
So we took a little road trip to Queen Creek.
The only thing I would say, is that I didn't find cider and apple cider donuts there- so I still am on that quest for a place like Edwards Apple Orchard back in IL.
They did though, have a lot of things for the kids that was part of the price of the ticket, so it was a lot of fun.
We were able to see a a K9 frisbee catching show, there was face painting, candle making , stuffing your own scarecrow, a playground, tricycle hay maze, a corn maize, trainride, carnival rides, pony rides, carousel, live music, sweet shop and their famous chili. The kids were wiped by the end of the day, and so was Rob and I : )
Apparently, they have your own garden picking in November/December and they also have holiday activities, so I think we will be back.

potty training

I found this picture of O when he was a newborn. It seemed like he has always done things early. It is like he knows.
This look on his face tells me, that he knows- it is kind of a little smirk of a smile and I think he was only 4 -6 weeks old!!!!!
He's talking pretty well now, but it can be very soft spoken. Then all of a sudden, all this personality comes out - out of the blue. He is an observer and I think all of this time, he was taking everything in.
We are TRYING to potty train him. He isn't really interested. In order for him to go to preschool- the next phase, he must be potty trained. So we are working with the school to help us- he is wearing underwear during the day and not enjoying making a mess of them.
Last night, he was in underwear and in the span of an hour and a half, he had 2 potty accidents. Needless to say we have towels everywhere and hoping we can move out of the pull up phase- at least during the day.......then we ran out of clean underwear.....

I think I am going to have to get more underwear for home since most of it is at school...... maybe I will let him pick out what he wants.......At times, I miss having a baby..... but I wish he would be potty trained....they say boys are harder than girls....... Wish us Luck!!!

Jake is the Star of the Week

Jake is Star of the week for his class. One of the projects was to make a poster board about himself and bring this in.
At the end of this week, me or Rob are going into his class and speaking about Jake and talking about the pictures and talk about Jake. It will actually be me going into his class- my favorite thing- Public Speaking!!!

I think Owen was more excited about Jake's project- Check it out!!!