Souting Fun

On Monday, Riley's scout troop took a field trip to the fire station. Since Jeff had just come down with pneumonia, I got to be the leader. I forgot my camera, so I took pictures with my phone. So these pictures are not good at all. Oh well.

The boys got to go through the fire station and see where the fire fighters work, and where they eat, and watch tv. Then they got to go out and see the fire truck!

They showed the boys how everything worked and they even had the dispatcher do a practice alarm and they got to see what happens when they get a call for a fire.

They all had a great time!

Then on Tuesday (I forgot my camera again.....), the boys had their monthly Pack Meeting for Boy Scouts. They get awards that they have earned during this meeting. Zach got 2 belt loops one for shooting and one for archery. He earned these at summer camp. The only picture I got of him was so blurry, you couldn't see him. :0(

This is Jeff with his Boy Scout Troop:

(Riley is the one with his hand on his Mario hat.) They all got their beads that they wear on their shirt. They start earning them by doing activities during their meetings. They will continue to earn more beads as the year goes on.

Since it is close to Halloween, they had a Halloween themed meeting, The kids all got to wear their costumes, and they played a game where they wrapped each other up as mummies. The team who wrapped their person up the fastest wins! They did this several times, so all of our kids got to be a mummy at some point during the game. Even Lily got to do it!

SO much fun!! =) The boys really enjoy scouting and they get to do lots of fun things throughout the year!

Halloween Party!

Yesterday, Lily & I had a Halloween Party with all of her pre-school age cousins! Lily & I decorated the house with lots of fun Halloween things and then set out some yummy snacks!

After Ares, Camden, & Johnny got to our house, we played our first game; Halloween Bingo!

I don't have any pictures of them playing the game, because I forgot to take pictures.
After the bingo game, we played Pin the Tail on the Cat! The mask was a cat face!

They all did a great job getting the tail near the back of the cat!

Then it was time for snacks!!

(Do you see Jeff in the background on the couch? He has walking pneumonia. :0( He isn't feeling too great.)
After our yummy snacks, we headed outside to hit the ghost pinata!!

Ares knocked the candy out of the pinata!!

Lily got quite the haul!

Our last fun activity was an art project making pictures with foam Halloween stickers.

The fun didn't end there though, everyone got a treat bag on the way out the door.

I hope everyone had a fun time at the Halloween Party! Lily is already planning her next one. ;0)

Thank you Dianna, Mary, and Kathleen for the yummy/fun things you brought!!

Fall Pictures

I took the kids' pictures in August, but it was SO hot (even at 8:00 at night) which made the kids (and me) kind of (really) cranky. So, I wasn't super happy with the pictures. A few weekends ago I decided to take them to Riverside Park and get their pictures taken again. I'm glad they are so cooperative with me and my obsessive picture taking. =) (A bribe of a surprise at the end doesn't hurt either.)
So, here are the pictures of the kids that I took:

(By this time, Lily had ripped her tights, and Jeff had to keep turning them to keep the rips out of the picture.)

I really wanted Lily up there too, but she refused to get in the tree. (It was kind of high up.) But, I'm glad she didn't want to now, because it turned into a cute "brothers" picture. =)

Zach did not want to get out of the tree.....

Random......

I feel like I have not been posting very many things lately. It's not that I haven't wanted to, I just haven't had anything really to post. We have been busy, but not with anything particularly exciting. So, while this post will not really be exciting, it does have things that we have been doing the last few weeks. I have properly warned you. ;0)

I have seen Lily line her princesses up like this several times now and take pictures of them. She tells them they are pretty while she does it too.

A couple of weeks ago at Riley's scout meeting, Jeff used a map he had printed out at work to show the scouts how to locate their houses on a map. When they got home, Riley asked Jeff to make it into a paper airplane.

That was one giant paper airplane!!

And yes, Riley dressed himself. "Their both blue mom! They match!" Umm....no. ;0) (And no I didn't let him go anywhere but the backyard dressed like that!)
We are getting a new roof put on our house next week because it looks like this:

So far the process has been pretty painless. Let's hope it stays that way.

This giant bag of clothes came from Riley's closet. They are going to my sister Mary's house to her son. Don't worry, Riley won't be naked. He just got a giant bag of clothes from my sister Dianna, and clothes from Zach that he outgrew. (Don't feel too bad for Riley, he does get new clothes too.)

In the last week everyone except Jeff had to get a new coat or jacket. OK, I didn't have to get a new coat...it just wanted me to buy it. At least that's what I told Jeff......

We (Jeff) volunteered to be Popcorn Kernels for the Boy Scouts again. So, all of this popcorn (which is for the show & sell) will sit in our house until the beginning of December. Yeah..... (can you hear my excitement???)

My rosebushes are still blooming!

And finally, this is where I find Lily 90% of the time when Zach is home:

She just grabs a blanket, and climbs on top of him and snuggles up. And he never says a word to make her get off of him. Such a good big brother. :0)

Apple Cider, S'mores, and Sleeping in a Tent

We finally got to cross off "sleeping in a tent" from our Summer List last night...... sort of.
Since it had been SO hot and Jeff didn't feel the need to sleep outside when it only got down to eighty some degrees (and I say Jeff, because I don't sleep outside no matter what the temperature is) we didn't get to cross that off of our list. Since the weather has been so beautiful lately, Jeff thought it would be a good idea to camp out now.
We started off by making a fire and having hot apple cider and making s'mores!

If you have never had a s'more made with Reese's peanut butter cups, you must try one. Delicious!!!!

After the kids finished their cider & s'mores, we settled them into the tent to watch "Spooky Buddies".

While the kids did that, Jeff & I sat by the fire and drank something a little more adult than cider..... ;0)
After the movie, Jeff got in the tent with the kids and they all fell fast asleep. Then 2 hours later, (around 11:00) Jeff got up and realized that it was really cold out there! So, he brought them all in the house and laid them down in the family room.

Not one of them woke up!

Until 3 am, when Riley & Lily came upstairs to our room. This was how that conversation went:

Lily: "Riley is snoring so loud he woke me up!!" Riley: "No! Your snoring woke me up!" Lily: "No, it was your snoring!!" Me: "Let's go back downstairs and go to sleep."
30 minutes later...... Lily:"MOM! Riley keeps snoring right next to me!!" Me: "Let's put you in your bed so he doesn't do that anymore." (and to myself: so I can finish sleeping without you coming in and yelling at me....)

So, even though they didn't get to sleep outside all night, they did get to sleep in the tent. =)

I think they all had fun even though there was all of that snoring going on. ;0)