Halloween

I'm finally getting around to posting Halloween pictures...if I do it before Thanksgiving, I figure I'm okay. Levi was a puppy this year, Wyatt was a Transformer (Megatron because he "likes the bad guys just a little bit more than the good guys"), and Madison was a clown. She wore this same costume three years ago. She has grown a little, but we adjusted the suspenders and added some crazy tights, and it worked great. She also had to have a matching doll costume. We had a fun night trick or treating with cousins. Their neighborhood gets way into the holiday, and most of the houses were fully decorated. The best one even has a haunted house through their garage and into their house, complete with live scary people, bloody footprints, and creepy sound effects.

Fall Break, Part III-The Pumpkin Patch

To finish off a fun Fall Break week of vacation, play dates, the zoo, and lots of Halloween crafts, we went to Apple Annie's Pumpkin Patch. Our friends, the Swain's, came with us. We had a tasty lunch of hamburgers and hot dogs and pie out in the apple orchards, played in the huge basins of dry corn, then boarded the hay wagons to ride out to the pumpkin patch to pick out the perfect pumpkins. Wyatt picked out a tall, skinny one. Madison's is perfectly round. And Levi, well he didn't really care, and his parents are cheap, so he got one of the smallest we could find. Levi did love crawling around over all of the pumpkins. He didn't seem to mind the stickery vines at all. It was record-breaking hot that day (at least it was a few degrees cooler at the pumpkin patch in Willcox than in Tucson), and it was super windy. But we're not complaining...we had a great time!
By Sunday night, the kids were at each other's throats, and they were bored. We had a fun, busy week, but they were sure ready to go back to school on Monday!

Fall Break Fun, Part II--Levi's First Trip to the Zoo

Since Levi gets so excited about the birds in the Wal-Mart parking lot or any dog we may run into, I decided he was ready for his first trip to the zoo. And being Fall Break and nice weather, we invited our cousins to join us, and we did the zoo. We love our little Tucson zoo. It is big enough to have all of the major animals, but small enough that you can see them all. We can do the whole zoo in under two hours and for 10 bucks for all of us. Levi's cousin Aaron is six weeks older and it was his first zoo trip, too. They both did surprisingly well at finding and watching the animals. We had a great day at the zoo...

Fall Break Fun, Part I--Mexico

Last week was Fall Break for the kids. I was worried about keeping them entertained for a whole week off of school, but it turns out we had more than enough to do. We had a super fun, busy week. We started off with a weekend in Rocky Point with the Burns'. I was afraid it would be too cold to swim much and we would spend most of the time in the hotel. I was sure proven wrong! The water was beautiful, both the pool and the ocean. We spent almost the entire time in the water. The ocean was a little rough and the waves were too big for the kids to go in very far, but Darin and I liked swimming. The kids stood at the edge of the water and they spent hours playing in the sand. Levi wanted nothing to do with the water this time, but judging from the contents of his diaper for a few days after, he had a great time in the sand! We buried all of the big kids in the sand. They loved it and laid there for quite a long time. Levi tromped right over the top of them when they were hidden in the sand. The resort had a great pool with a nice kiddie pool and a fun waterslide. The kids especially liked that there were no rule-enforcing lifeguards on the slide (like they are used to in Rancho Sahuarita), so they were able to go in trains and on their bellies.

Made Me Laugh

I visited Madison and Wyatt's school the other day, with Levi in tow. After we had lunch together, we were on the playground when a cute little Hispanic boy (dark skin and black-as-black hair) came to talk to us. He was talking to Levi (my blond-as-they-come baby) and telling me that my baby is so cute. And then, "Don't let him get a sunburn. I worry that he will get a sunburn. See (showing me his arm), this is what a sunburn looks like." I look closely for signs of redness. Nothing. He goes on, "When I was born, I looked just like him. I got a sunburn and now I am this color." Thanks for the advice, cute little second-grader. We'll avoid sunburns!

When I went to give Levi a bath this afternoon, the tub had little pieces of something all over it. I questioned Madison and Wyatt, who had been playing in there earlier with toy boats.
Me: "What's all over the tub?"
Madison: "Oh, that's dirt."
Me: "Where did all this dirt come from?"
Wyatt: "We wanted it to look like a real ocean."
Madison: "We dumped out Wyatt's shoes in there."
Of course you did. How resourceful of you.

Rocky Point Getaway

Even though school started last week and summer is officially over, we were able to sneak in one last little vacation and hit the beach like the kids had been asking to do all summer. Our good friends invited us to join them for a weekend in Rocky Point, and we are so glad we did! We had a great time. Travelling with another family was so much fun. The kids had friends to play with, and then after the kids went to bed at night, the adults stayed up and played Rook and talked and laughed a lot!We stayed in a really nice place. This is the view out our back door...a nice big patio, grass, a three-section pool, and then the beach right in our backyard.

The kids all loved the sand and the water. Levi crawled right in, not a bit scared. The water was warm--the warmest ocean water I ever remember swimming in. We even went on a banana boat ride (all of us) and rented jet-ski's (Darin and Brian).

Madison got to go on vacation with her best friend, Coralee. What lucky girls!

All the kids--Wyatt Burns, Wyatt Elam, Coralee, Levi, Madison, and Carter

Shopping

The whole group, just before the long trip home. We had a perfect trip--great company, nice weather, fun swimming, happy kids, and good food--now if we could have just stayed a few more days!

When A Kindergartner Hijacks Blogger

Wyatt asked me today if he could play on PBSKids. He does that quite often, and knows how to get to the website and find his way around just fine. So later when I came to check on the latest blog happenings, I was surprised to find a new post. Somehow he opened my blog, found the "new post" button, typed in the text area and even the labels area, and then successfully posted. I think he forgot to run spell-check though.

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It's So Quiet

With two kids off at school, and Levi going on hour three of his nap, it's awful quiet around here! Madison and Wyatt were excited to start school today. I think Wyatt was a little nervous. When we went to meet his teacher yesterday, she asked him his name. He said, "um, I don't remember." Was that something I was supposed to teach him before he went to school? After seeing his classroom and meeting his teacher yesterday, he was feeling a little better about things. We are very happy so far with Wyatt's teacher, Ms. Goodenow, and Madison's teacher, Mrs. Meyer. We are looking forward to a great year!

Not So Uniform

Tomorrow's the big day...back to school! We had a "Not So Uniform" back to school party last week with Madison and 14 of her friends. The girls and their moms came and we did what we could to make our school uniforms a little more fun. We added small flower and heart embellishments to our shirts and rhinestones to the buttons. We made belts and hair bows and flowers in uniform colors. The girls made beaded backpack charms with their names on them. We all had fun crafting, and the girls are excited to go to school in style!

Levi's First Haircut

I kept putting it off, but I finally was ready to cut Levi's hair for the first time. Maybe its because he was the first of my kids to have even a hint of curl in his hair, and I didn't want to cut those cute little curls off in the back, because he may never have hair long enough to see them again. I love the new look! What do you think?

Levi's First Birthday Party

We celebrated Levi's first birthday at the park with lots of friends and family. We had a cowboy party, with a hamburger and hot dog barbecue, then Texas sheet cake for dessert. Levi got his very own cowboy hat cake. We had to take pictures of the cake as soon as we got there, because the chocolate brim melted in the first five minutes. Levi has truly crossed the line from babyhood to little kid--as demonstrated by the new foods he got to try...chocolate, Capri Sun, and Twizzlers. He loved the Capri Sun. After every sip, he kicked his feet like crazy. I guess it doesn't take long for that sugar high to kick in. He loved his chocolate cake too. That kept him busy for a long time! After we were all sufficiently hot and sticky, we cooled off in the pool, then opened presents poolside. Thanks to all who celebrated with us!