Happy Halloween!

What an exciting day! The boys absolutely loved Halloween. For weeks, Daniel has been asking "it Halloween time yet?" Well, it finally is Halloween time. I picked the boys up from daycare at around 4:00, we came home and had a very healthy dinner of Kraft Dinner and then got dressed for the evening. It didn't take any convincing to get Daniel out there. James took both the boys out while I handed out candy. They went across the street to Julian's house. That's where Halloween starts in our neighbourhood. Every year, Julian has a fire blazing in his wheelbarrow, for kids and parents to meet and chat. Thriller and Ghostbusters music blares out for the entire neighbourhood to hear. I still have Thriller running through my head!

After trick-or-treating along our street, the boys returned and I took Daniel out on my own. It was so neat to see how much he loved Halloween. He really wasn't scared of much - just one neighbour who really was scary! At about 7:30, we came back home to see James and Adam having a great time dancing to Thriller. Adam loved the crowds of kids and would have little tantrums every time there were no kids around.

We all stayed out on the porch until about 8:30, handing out candy. Crowds were really starting to thin out by then, which was surprising. Usually we get well over 200 kids to our door and this year we had 170. Maybe the rain kept them away, although it did stop raining just before trick-or-treating started. Now we're stuck with a lot of chocolate - I had bought three boxes of 125!

Now we have two little boys fast asleep. Adam passed out as soon as we turned all the lights out. It took Daniel a bit longer, because the firecrackers kept him awake. He kept saying, "Cracking fire waking me up!"

Here are a few pictures of Daniel the dinosaur and Adam the fireman!

Pumpkin carving

We kind of left the pumpkin carving a little late this year - two days before Halloween! So James and Daniel tackled the job while I put Adam to bed. They had fun, even if Daniel refused to touch the goopy stuff inside the pumpkin.

After pumpkin carving, Daniel decided to have some fun being a photographer. These are all pictures he took himself. Not bad for an almost three year old!

And here's a cute one we took of the three of us.

Beautiful sunny fall!

The weather continues to be beautiful. It's so sunny and not too cold, so we've been able to do lots of outdoor things. On Monday, I took the boys to Bear Creek Park in Surrey. What a wonderful park! We'll definitely be going back there again. We decided to go there because they have a Halloween ghost train - similar to the Stanley Park one, only much cheaper. The boys loved it! Adam pointed and grunted at everything that went by. And there was a lot - witches, ghosts, graveyards, skeletons, rats in cornfields, bats... Daniel was in his glories. He is so excited about Halloween this year. He loved every minute of that train ride - until it was time to get off!

After the train ride, Daniel did a Halloween craft and got a goody bag...and yet another pumpkin. We now have five! We had a little picnic lunch that I had packed. While we were eating, we were entertained by a little girl named Heather. She was about two and was tiring her grandma out. Heather kept running away and grandma would just yell after her and not move. Finally, after a few minutes, grandma ran to get the little girl but the doll stroller that she had then rolled the other way down a hill. Daniel, the gentleman, went to give the stroller back to them. Grandma said something like, "Chivalry isn't dead after all!" Daniel came back to me all proud and said, "That grandma says I save the day. I'm a superhero!" So cute!

Then we went to play on the playground. What a great playground! I think we spent over an hour playing there and Daniel still wasn't ready to go home. It was really neat watching him play with other kids. There were three of them playing firemen. They'd jump on a thing that looked like a truck, then Daniel would yell, "Fire! Over there!" and the three boys would run to some random spot and start pretend-spraying it. It was getting late and Adam was ready for a nap, but I didn't have the heart to take Daniel away from his new friends. Plus, I was really enjoying watching them play.

Our trip to the pumpkin patch

The weather has been so unseasonably warm and sunny this October! We're not used to having such a beautiful fall. However, as we know, it can't last forever. We had already waited so long to go to the pumpkin patch that we figured we couldn't wait much longer without risking the chance of getting rained out. So, on Sunday morning, the four of us headed out to the pumpkin patch in Richmond.

We had a lot of fun dancing along with Polly Pumpkin and Korny Corn.

Then we took the hayride to the pumpkin patch. The pumpkins weren't the best this year. Daniel found lots of doopy (goopy) and lutty (yucky) ones. We walked through the corn maze, which was very muddy. But it was fun sloshing through that mud!

Adam loved walking through the pumpkin patch, although it was very hard on Mom and Dad's back, since Adam still won't try to let go of your hand. Plus, the poor kid was walking in rubber boots that were 2-3 sizes too big for his tiny feet!

Finally, we found some good pumpkins and got back on the hayride, where we sang along with Cousin Eli, the banjo player.

We've been going to this pumpkin patch since Daniel's first Halloween, so it makes a nice family tradition. I'm glad we were able to get there this year, since we've been so busy.

Daniel's first BC Lions game

For Grampa Terry's birthday, we gave him tickets to go see the BC Lions with Daniel, James and myself. So, on Saturday, we all took the Skytrain downtown to see the game. Daniel had so much fun! First of all, he loved the Skytrain!


We decided to go a bit early to see the street party that is held outside the stadium before every home game. That was a little overwhelming for Daniel. (For Grampa, too, I think!) Daniel was really afraid of the Lions' mascot. We didn't stay there long and decided to head into the stadium to get our seats. Daniel had seen lots of kids carrying a big foam lion's paw and he absolutely loved it. So Daddy decided to spoil him and get it for him. It was well worth the $10 just to get a picture of the big smile on Daniel's face!



I don't think any of us were all that interested in the outcome of the game. (The Lions did end up winning by quite a bit.) But it was really fun watching Daniel have such a great time.




We enjoyed the halftime show, which was in honour of all the veterans. There were many marching bands and Daddy had to teach Daniel all about them.

James also had to teach Daniel about the Felions! Daniel commented that the ladies were wearing no pants!

Daniel got a little antsy every once in a while and needed to go on quite a few walks around the stadium. But, otherwise, he was really good. He loved dancing to the music they played in between downs. He looked so serious doing his dancing! When everyone started chanting, "BC! BC!" Daniel was chanting along with the fans. Only his chanting was more like, "BC! DE! FG!" Overall, it was a fun evening out with Grampa!

A quick update

It's been way too long since I've been able to update the blog. Sorry, sorry, sorry! Here are a few cute stories and exciting pieces of news about the boys.

Both boys (and James) have been really sick since Thanksgiving. They've had a really bad cold, sinus headaches, sore throats, the boys have had eye infections. We took Adam to the doctor today and he has a pretty bad ear infection and needs to take antibiotics. He's such a trooper, though. He hasn't been too grouchy and still smiles a lot. Daniel is finally on the mend. But we had a few days of a really mellow Daniel. He spent lots of time on the couch watching TV and telling us he had a stuffy-nose and boogers (or, in Daniel-ese, tuffy-nose and burgers).

Some stuff about Daniel:

Daniel is going to dress up as a dinosaur for Halloween and he's so excited. He loves his costume and he's constantly asking "it Halloween time yet?" We put up our Halloween decorations on Monday and he loves the lights and the bad guys.

His speech has improved so much these days. He's speaking in full sentences a lot more and people are able to understand him a bit better. It's amazing how he can cope when people don't understand him. He was telling me about a "tate" the other day and I told him I couldn't understand him. So he said, "s-s-s-s-s" to explain to me that he was talking about a snake. What a problem solver he is!

Adam was crying the other day when Daniel came up to say hi to him. Daniel's response: "Don't cry, Amam. I'm not a dinosaur. I'm Daniel!"

He's also really looking forward to his birthday (birtsda, as he calls it). He really understands the concept of birthdays these days and is looking forward to a party with friends...and presents, of course!

Some of Daniel's favourites these days are super heroes (especially Spiderman), anything Halloween (especially mummies and skeletons - aka tawtins)

Some stuff about Adam:

He's almost a walker! He can take at least 6 steps at a time, but doesn't do it too often. He's still really cautious. But, when he thinks that no one is looking, he can walk across the room! He'll get the confidence soon enough.

Adam has quite the little personality coming out. He's a sneaky, mischevious little guy! He'll start doing something he's not supposed to, look back at us, give us a little grin, and then do the thing he knows he shouldn't! We'll have to look out for him as he gets older!

He can climb up and down stairs now. If you leave Adam alone for a few seconds, he goes straight for the stairs and climbs all the way to the top in about a minute! He likes to climb onto chairs and toys and stand proudly on top!

Since we've all had colds the past few weeks, Adam has seen lots of nose blowing around the house. So now, he likes to hold his nose and blow, just like Mommy and Daddy! It's so cute!

Some of Adam's favourites these days are cars, climbing stairs, turning off the TV while Daniel's watching it, playing in Daniel's potty, basically just getting into Daniel's stuff!

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I really would like to try to update this more often. I'll do my best. But we're pretty busy in the next few weeks. James and I are getting ready for our cruise to the Mediterranean! Then we'll come back just in time to get ready for Daniel's birthday. Then, of course, it's time to get ready for Christmas! But I'll get some new pictures and stories up here when I can.