HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2008

Today was the big day! One of the most exciting days of the year for kids. Justin and Kyle are allowed to have candy whenever they want. But there's nothing like putting on a costume that you love and having a huge pile of candy to sort through at the end of the night. Not to mention deciding what to eat first!
I guess this is the first year that Justin was kinda scary. Maybe not scary, but freaky. He just loves the new Joker from the Dark Knight, even though he hasn't seen the movie. His costume came with an awful plastic mask, so we decided it would look better if he had a wig and I did his make-up. I sat him down in front of our computer, found a picture of Heath Ledger as the Joker, and copied that look onto Justin's cute little face. He really liked how I made him look! Justin carried a joker playing card around to use like a business card.
Kyle went with Darth Vader. Being that I'm sort of a Star Wars geek, I was happy about that. I think he was the skinniest Darth out there. It was nice that the weather was so warm today so Kyle didn't have to have pants under his costume. (In the picture above, Kyle is using the force to choke someone with his hand, just like in the movies.)
My first blog countdown is now over. I had a lot of fun posting everyday and remembering the past NINE years. I'll have to think of something else to countdown. Until then, I hope you all had a safe and happy Halloween!

Countdown to Halloween, day six

Here we are on the last day of the countdown. This is last Halloween. Justin chose to be an army man and Kyle was an alien. The mask of that alien costume had a huge face. They decided how to pose for these pictures.

Please check in for the grand finale tomorrow!

Countdown to Halloween, day five

Well, no more costumes made by Grandma, but these are cute ones. This is Halloween 2006 - wow, two years ago already! Kyle was (and is to this day) still obsessed with sea animals, so we bought this shark costume that we found. It's actually Lenny from the movie Sharktale, but that's not why we bought it. He insisted on having his mouth wide open for most of the pictures to look more like a real shark! Justin is dressed as the Avatar. Not many people were familiar with his costume. Avatar is a very interesting cartoon on Nickelodeon. Needless to say, it was one of Justin's favorites. I think it still is.

Countdown to Halloween, day four

In today's post we go back to Halloween 2005. Justin was a pirate that year. Kyle had begun his obsession with sea life, so he wanted to be a fish. This was the last year that my mom made their costumes (unfortunately). I happen to know that this fish costume was the hardest costume she had ever made. I'm not sure how many times she told me that, but it was for Kyle so she got it done. And it turned out GREAT!!! Justin made a good pirate in his satiny clothes. As you may have noticed, their costumes no longer coordinate with each other. I'm sure I tried.

I've been posting a lot lately, so if you haven't checked my blog in a couple days, keep scrolling down please. I'll also be adding Halloweens 2005, 2006, and 2007 in the next couple day. And of course on Friday the 31st you'll get to see this year's costumes! Thanks for checking in!

Countdown to Halloween, day three

Today's picture is from 2004. I think this one is my favorite. We have Justin the dog and Kyle the cat (both made by my mom). Before taking them out to trick-or-treat, we took pictures in our living room. I had them act like a dog and a cat for this one. It's hard to see, but Kyle had a little white spot at the end of his tail. Whenever someone was putting candy in his bag, he would show it to them and say "I have a white spot on my tail. See?" He wasn't even three years old at the time! And I don't think he let go of that tail the whole time he had his costume on. It was pretty cute.

Kyle lost his first tooth!

It finally happened! Kyle has had three loose teeth for awhile now. He says he forgets to shake them. We've been working on the loosest one for the past couple days now. I was finally able to yank it out tonight. I guess the tooth fairy will have to stop by our house on this chilly evening!

Yay, Kyle!!!

Countdown to Halloween, day two

Today we have the pumpkins and the clowns. As long as I could get away with it, I had the boys wear matching or coordinating costumes. These are some of the cutest! I wished Kyle could've been a smaller pumpkin, but it didn't work out that way. On his first Halloween, he was 10 months old. Justin was three and a half. Kyle didn't even go trick-or-treating that year because it was so cold and windy.
Have you ever seen such cute little clowns? Kyle was close to two years old, so he was walking around. The fall of 2003 was a rough one for my family. My grandma had just suffered from a couple strokes and had gone into the nursing home. Even worse than that, my grandpa passed away that year on October 8th. Somehow, my mom found the time and energy to make these colorful costumes for her grandsons. Justin just loved that wig!

Is that a pumpkin or a fish?

It's a pumpkin decorated like a fish! The first graders were given a pumpkin project this year. The goal was to "save the pumpkins", that is, decorate them not carve them. This morning when I woke up my first thought was to make Kyle's pumpkin into a fish! How perfect for him! We chose a clown fish because they're already mostly orange. When we were done painting, I taped on some fins including a tail fin. It goes to school tomorrow and comes home on Thursday.

Countdown to Halloween

I thought it would be a cool idea to post pictures of past Halloweens. Justin and Kyle have had a lot of cute costumes over the years. The cutest being the ones they wore when they were younger. Those are the ones my mom made for them. She would still make their costumes, but there aren't patterns for the things they want to dress up as now that they're older.
So here we have Halloween 1999, the pea pod. Justin was almost 8 months old. I had always loved the idea of this costume. It was a nice warm costume for a baby made mostly of a felt material. Unfortunately, it was a very warm day. My mom made the peas detachable which made putting Justin in his car seat easier.
In 2000, when Justin was about a year and a half old, he was obsessed with Blues Clues (it's fun to tease him about wanting to watch it now!). It was only appropriate to dress him up as the star of the show for Halloween. My mom took a regular dog costume pattern and used blue material. Then she made the ears extra big. I like his little blue nose.
The last one for today is Halloween 2001. I was very pregnant with Kyle and Justin was two and a half years old. He LOVED signs, especially STOP signs!!! Therefore, we dressed him up as one. He loved it and continued to wear it around the house for the next couple months.

"The big race"

Justin started referring to this as "the big race" before Kyle could talk. I'm sure anyone that grew up in a house with stairs did it. I grew up in a ranch so I was deprived of this. And there's NO way I'm going to attempt it now. As you can see, both boys get in position at the top of the stairs, stomachs down. Then they push themselves so they can slide down. Now that they're older, they slide pretty fast. (As I'm writing this, I'm surprised that I've allowed this to go on.) However, Justin and Kyle will only do this when the weather is cooler and they are wearing feetie pajamas since they're one piece. They learned this at a young age after suffering from rug burns. Ouch! And since it's not cold enough tonight, I'm sure they'll be changing into different jammies before bed, but they got to have the first big race of the season.

A day at the park

Matthiessen State Park in Utica, IL that is. It's just past Starved Rock, which seems to be more popular. Matthiessen is much smaller, but just beautiful. It also has a lot less man-made areas than Starved Rock. There's much hiking to be done, not to mention water to get across by jumping on rocks. Justin, Kyle and I had been there last year with our neighbors. The boys really wanted to go back there with Jason so he could see it. We decided that autumn would be a perfect time.
It was a sunny day and about 60 degrees. We had planned to eat a picnic lunch. Due to a swarm of bees, we ate our lunch in the car. Not how we wanted to start the day, but after that everything was fine.
At the end of our day, prior to leaving Utica, we stopped at a gas station to fill up. Gas was only $2.97 a gallon down that way!
Feel free to click on the pictures to enjoy the fall scenery or see Justin and Kyle jumping across the rocks. Kyle took the picture of Jason and me. Not bad, huh?

A busy day

Well, here's Justin hard at work on a new Lego set. It's from the Lego Agents line, the Swamp Raid. This set has 231 pieces. I asked him if he wanted help and he declined. He really enjoys the building part of it.

The Chicago Marathon took place this morning. Of course, Tony was a participant. (Tony is my obsessed with running brother.) This was the 3rd marathon he ran this year alone! It was a little warm to be running a marathon this morning, but he ran it in 3 hours and 30 minutes. That's an awesome time, unless you're from Kenya, which Tony is not!

The powder room project

As I said before, I usually paint something in our house about every six months or so. I just get the urge to change something. It came about 2 weeks ago. I was about due since I painted the living and dining rooms back in February. This time it was a smaller room. I happened to be at Menards looking at wallpaper border with my mom and found a really cute one that was on clearance. At $5 a roll, I couldn't resist! I had to decide where I could use it at home so I could buy it. I didn't even have to buy paint because I had a color that worked at home in my paint collection.

Winter projects: our master bedroom, Justin's room (it'll be going from solar system to camouflage!)

Facial hair

Most of the time Justin and Kyle take showers, but every once in awhile they'll take a bath together. When they do, I put bubble bath in the water. The result: facial hair.
Goofballs!

Halloween crafts

A couple weeks ago my mom purchased a couple foam crafts for the boys to do for Halloween. Some of the pieces fit into certain places, but there were others that they were able to choose the locations. They had fun and they both turned out really cute. I'll have to put them away carefully so we can display them again in the future. Justin's is the graveyard and Kyle did the spooky tree house.