Family Blog 2: Halloween Activities, Sewing, Pinewood Derby, Etc.

Sunday Daniel was sick so Aaron stayed home from church with him. To make things easier for me he also had Noah stay home with him as well. As we were all getting ready to go to church Sarah had woken up on the WRONG side of the bed. She was crying and screaming over EVERYTHING. After about an hour of listening to her I convinced Aaron that she needed to stay home as well--he wholeheartedly agreed. It was weird only have me, Josh and Matthew on a bench. Anyway, since Aaron wasn't going to be at church to help Matthew get to his classes, I asked a neighbor boy who is Matthew's same age if he would be willing to help Matthew. He said he would and I was relieved! He made sure Matthew got to his classes and could navigate the hallways. It was so nice. However, since Aaron wasn't there no one was there to stop Matthew's random question asking. Monday morning Aaron asked one of his friends that is in our ward how opening exercises of priesthood went. Sure enough Aaron heard that Matthew had to clarify the activity announcements by asking if the activity time was am or pm. He also had to ask a few more questions in front of everyone and then say a few more things about random subjects before he let everyone convene to go to their classes. Good thing most everyone knows Matthew and is able to just smile and nod and let him do his thing. Oh Matthew--he keeps things interesting. I am glad that Matthew was able to have some help from a fellow quorum member during the last half of our Sunday meetings.

Every night before I go to bed I have to check on Noah and put him back into his bed. For whatever reason he prefers falling asleep on his floor even though when I put him to bed I tuck him in under his covers. Anyway the other night I picked him up and put him back in bed and then I went to bed. About 30 minutes later I hear the pitter patter of little feet in the hall and then my bedroom door squeak open. Since this is how Noah wakes me up every morning I was curious to see what was going to happen since it was about 1:30 am. Noah ran over to my side of the bed and then told me, "HIIIIII MOM!! I had a good sleep!". I had to sigh about then because that is what he says to me every morning. The poor kid thought it was morning and time to get up. Unfortunately, we had some guests over so I couldn't put him back in his room because he would start screaming and wake everyone up. I had to put him in bed with me and try and get a little bit of sleep. Now I am an extremely light sleeper so I have never let any of my kids share the bed with me EVER because I get no sleep otherwise. That is why we have a king size bed because I can't have anyone near my while I try to sleep otherwise I can't sleep at all. Anyway, to make a long story short--it was a LONG night for me, but judging by the sounds I heard from Noah and Aaron they slept really well. It was early bedtime for me the next night I might add :).

Matthew is in a class called CTE (don't ask me what it stands for I have forgotten). Anyway, he gets a rotation in cooking, sewing and wood working. He is currently in sewing and LOVES it. He brought home a book mark with Josh's name sewn on it and gave it to Josh. He was so proud of it. Last week he brought home a really nice windsock he had sewn as well. I was quite impressed. He was more than excited to show it off in a picture:

He actually did a pretty good job on it. He made sure to hang it up outside for everyone to see. He keeps telling me he needs to show me his sewing skills with my sewing machine...too bad my machine is broken :(. Next rotation will be cooking. I heard they have to taste all the things they cook. That will be interesting seeing as Matthew is one picky guy when it comes to eating....

Last week was the Pinewood Derby. That's what Aaron, Josh and Daniel worked on all last week. Aaron let them paint their own cars and everything. They were excited to race.

Aaron thought he knew what was up with designing the cars since Matthew and Josh tied for first place last Pinewood Derby. However, things did not go as planned. The cub scouts hired a professional Pinewood Derby racetrack guy. Now when everyone got there to way in, the professional guy geared up all the kids' different cars with the right weights and with graphite powder on all the cub scouts' car wheels. That took away all the advantage Aaron was counting on to win DOH!! Oh well the boys still had fun racing and even more fun tying down to the exact one thousandth of a second for 9th place. Here's their cars:

Josh and Daniel raced the first race together.

They were so excited that they were the only brothers ever to tie in this professional guys career even if it was for 9th place out of 10 cars. They were excited that they didn't come in last...in their mind if they tied for 9th place than no one came in 10th place or last place right?! What is more important they had fun with their Dad doing all the car stuff.

Noah is Mr. Private. He does not like to tell me when he goes potty he just likes to, "DO IT TO MYSELF MOM!!" which are his words exactly. However, I question what exactly he does when he comes walking out of the bathroom like this:

Why exactly does he have toilet paper tucked inside his underwear trailing behind him?? Who knows? I do know that he won't tell me because he, again, is Mr. Private. Sigh--because he takes care of things without my help I must say it has resulted in many an empty toilet paper roll, unplanned toilet scrubbing and unplanned shower due to the results of him trying taking care of it by himself. Good thing I still love him--I can't complain....too much anyway :).

Saturday was quite the busy day for our family! That morning we headed over and did family and kids' pictures. Right after we dressed everyone up in their Halloween costumes and headed over to the grocery store for their annual trick or treat in the store. The kids were excited to hit each station and get more and more treats. I love that they do this every year!!

We also hit Burger King because they were doing a parking lot trunk or treat with activities as well. Here kids are waiting to do one of the activities.

Matthew got to do some bowling. He LOVES bowling on the Wii and has gotten pretty good at it including getting 7 strikes in a row during one game last night. Anyway he was excited to actually do it in real life as you can see by his jumping up and down, excitedly yelling and flapping of his arms.

After that we hit another grocery store and participated in their trick or treating activities as well. They had a huge blow up spider in front of their doors that the kids liked.

They got to make some crafts, frost cookies and do trick or treating around the store.

They also had 12 random numbers taped around the store floor. Every 15 minutes they called out a random number. Lucky for us during one round we had 5 of the numbers taken up with just our family--big families are awesome and advantageous at times like this :). Anyway Daniel was the lucky number winner. He was so excited. He then got a coupon for a free pumpkin. We let him pick it out and he got the BIGGEST pumpkin he could find.

After all that we got dressed in our warm clothes and did our annual family tradition of walking through the Syracuse City Pumpkin walk.

The kids loved looking at all the carved pumpkins. I meant to pick some up for our family to carve so they could have been in the walk, but I totally spaced it and forgot this year :(. Oh well you can't win them all right?!

Anyway, at one station they had a whole train set up around some jack o lanterns that Matthew absolutely went crazy over when he saw them. Anything to do with trains is his favorite!!

Here's a few of our favorites this year:

We got to meet they guy that carved all the Minions. That was pretty awesome.

It was a tad on the chilly side so we let the kids warm up by the fire at the end which they liked. We stayed until Daniel and Josh started pulling out pieces of hay and trying to start them on fire....Why do all boys love to burn things?!

I hate it when the kids try and open the cereal bags by themselves. The NOT ME Ghost (no one admitted to who it was) split this one down the middle so every time anyone reached to grab it, it spilled cereal everywhere. That dang Not Me ghost is really mischievous!!

For FHE Monday night we carved out pumpkins. Matthew wanted a train which Aaron free handed and carved by himself. I was quite impressed!! Of course I couldn't find my candles so you'll just have to settle for the unlit versions.