Happy Halloween!

Today I put the last finishing touches on the house to get it ready for the trick-or-treaters. Tyler was home from school so he and Kyle were able to help me with the mummy door. We wrapped it with several rolls of white crepe paper, which thankfully looked good enough on its own since I didn't get around to adding any eyes. You can imagine how much cuter it would have looked with a face.

 

I had the boys put on their costumes before dinner so I'd be able to get pictures of them before it got too dark. And it made it easier to get out the door anyway. After dinner all they had to do was put on their hats and gloves and they were ready to go.

We had a nice variety of candy to give out this year: Skittles, Twix, Twizzlers, M&M's, Snickers, Baby Ruth...all the good stuff.

 

And here's our pumpkins for this year. I carved the one on the left, Tyler's is in the middle and Rick carved the one on the right.

Halloween Carnival

Last night I took the boys to the Halloween carnival at Tyler's school. When I first heard they were doing a carnival this year instead of Trunk or Treat, I was a little disappointed just because parties aren't really my thing and as a parent it's more fun to decorate a car and pass out candy rather than hang out in the school gym. The boys had a great time though, so that's the important thing.

 

They debuted their Mario and Luigi costumes, which were a hit. They got all kinds of compliments! I decided to skip the mustache part of the costume because with Tyler and his sensory issues, it was just asking for trouble. Otherwise I'm happy with how the costumes turned out. I found a pair of overalls for Tyler at the thrift store for $6, which were kind of big so I hemmed them up a bit. I found a plain green tee at Walmart for $5, white gloves for $1 and I spent $3 on some fleece for a hat. Not a bad costume for $15. For Kyle, we already had the overalls and Mario hat, so I just spent $4 on a plain red tee and $1 for a pair of white gloves.

We spent most of the night in the gym playing games and then went down the haunted hallway collecting candy before it was time to go home. The boys had so much fun last night that I'm rethinking my position on Halloween parties...they're not so bad after all.

September Favorites

Project Life pictures for September:

 

With Tyler gone at school for most of the day, it's hard to get pictures of him so I tend to end up with a bunch of car photos like this with him either doing a funny face or a handsome smile.

At the park.

This was picture day at school. I haven't seen how the pictures turned out, but I'm pretty sure I'll be quite pleased. I gave him 3 shirts to choose from that morning and he picked the orange one. My least favorite, until he put it on...he owns the color orange. So handsome!

Story time happens after bath and before bed. It's part of our night routine. The boys know this and Carmelita knows it too. She LOVES story time and was more than a little confused when the boys decided to play a game of Monopoly instead of read. Excuse me? It's story time!

 

Goofballs at the eye doctor's office.

Lots of smiles and giggles at the park.

Kyle was desperately trying to get Max to play Chutes and Ladders with him. He explained to me that since Max didn't have any hands, he would do the spinner for him and move his man. Poor Max didn't want to play. He kept hopping away to the couch and up to the window.

I put this in my Project Life, which I made to remind myself how hard I've worked to get where I am in my fitness journey. It's so easy to start comparing myself to others on Instagram and suddenly feel inadequate, but it's all a dumb mind game. I know I work hard.

This is the autism awareness necklace I got this month, which I now wear nearly every single day. The symbol for autism awareness is the ribbon with brightly colored puzzle pieces, or sometimes a heart with puzzle pieces. What you can't see is that the back is engraved with Tyler's name. ♥

Coco Bear plopped down right at my feet and started begging for pets the moment I stepped off the treadmill. She's scared of the treadmill in motion so she just waits outside the door until I'm done running.

A black and white filter every now and then isn't so bad. And it's a good thing selfies are a thing otherwise I'd probably have close to zero pictures of myself in Project Life.

Baking with Blueberries

The problem with picking over 8 lbs. of blueberries is figuring out what to do with them once I get them home. I prefer them fresh over frozen so I try to use them as quickly as possible and since nobody in the house cares to eat them out of hand, I tend to use them strictly for baking. Besides adding them to pancakes or banana bread, this is what I've done with them so far:

 

I made peach blueberry cobbler from the Smitten Kitchen blog, but it only used 2 cups of berries...hardly a dent at all. So then I made the blueberry oatmeal crisp from the September issue of The Food Network Magazine, which took 6 cups of berries. That's more like it.

Next I made blueberry crumb cake, again from the Smitten Kitchen blog. Actually I made two of these, one for Rick to take to work and the other to stay home. So that was another 4 cups of berries used.

I made a small batch of blueberry crumb bars.

And lastly I made King Arthur's blue ribbon blueberry pie. Well I used their recipe for the filling anyway and then used a different recipe for the crust. That used 8 cups or 2 lbs. of berries and yet I still have some leftover in the fridge. Ugh! I need to learn how to make jam.

Good thing I have such a good helper in the kitchen.

We worked together to make that blueberry pie the other day.

And then he could hardly wait for it to cool once it came out of the oven.

A Day at the Fair

We went to the fair on Saturday and it was absolutely the most perfect weather, nice and sunny with highs in the mid 70's. We got there right after the gates opened at 11:00 and stayed over 10 hours and it still wasn't enough to see all the exhibits. It never is!

 

I don't know if it was a new thing this year or if the fair was just slow to get going that day, but none of the rides opened until noon, a full hour after the gates opened. Our usual plan is to get there as early as possible and let the boys ride as many rides as they can in the first 2 hours before the lines get too long, but this year we found ourselves walking around aimlessly waiting until noon to roll around. Huge waste of time. We did however get our lunch out of the way first thing. Lamb burgers and lamb chili. Yum!

This year Rick got a wristband along with the boys so that he could go on some of the rides with the kids. We started out in the kiddie section which Tyler has pretty much outgrown, but he wanted to get on the rides with his little brother.

You can kind of see on Kyle's face that he isn't too sure about this bumpy ride. Then Tyler convinced him to get on the Happy Swing, which is just two long bench seats (that seat 6 or so kids per side) faced back to back that swings back and forth. Seriously no big deal, but Kyle hated it. For him it was the "unhappy" swing.

The merry go round was a hit and the horses actually went up and down. Somehow the boys always seem to get the horses that stay stationary the whole time. Not nearly as fun of a ride that way.

Kyle also went through a handful of fun houses, but then got hurt coming down a slide and was done with rides for the rest of the day. Tyler went on to ride this roller coaster several times in a row.
 

Rick and Tyler rode the hang glider together.

That's my cheeseball.

We played a few games with our eyes on a giant donut, Pikachu or a minion as a prize, but came away empty handed.

Oh wait, I take that back. Tyler won a tiny red dog or some dumb thing when he played this dart game. We were after the minion, but no.

 

A chocolate dipped ice cream bar with nuts from the huckleberry ice cream stand. Imagine my surprise when it was just vanilla inside. I thought everything was huckleberry, especially since there was only 3 things on the menu and it was called Huckleberry's. Oh well.

The biggest highlight of the fair was that Tyler had a piece of artwork hanging in the elementary art section. It was a self portrait he drew of himself using his 3rd grade yearbook photo as a guide, only he added glasses to his drawing since he wears those now (well most of the time...at school anyway). I think all three of the 4th grade classes at his school did the same art project, but Tyler was 1 of only 4 kids from his class that made it into the fair. So cool!

The ag building with monster sunflowers, zucchini, watermelons and the like.

We almost skipped going into the Modern Living exhibit, but I ran in quickly to look at some of the sewing projects. I noticed that one person had entered 12 different aprons, each one themed for a month of the year. My favorite was this sheer bat apron for October. Love!

Taking a quick break from the crowds and craziness.

The Pioneer Hall had a Sweets exhibit where we learned about the history of different candies and ended up buying some majorly overpriced jelly beans, but hey, look....we're just a bunch of sweethearts.

At 7:00 we headed over to the grand stands to watch the destruction derby. Bleh. The most boring two hours of my life! Next year I'll ditch the boys and go check out the animals or something else.

Mileage Club

As part of the physical education program at Tyler's school, they have mileage club on Mondays and Wednesdays at lunch recess. On Wednesdays it's required that all students run laps during lunch recess and on Mondays it's an optional choice. All the kids have electronic necklaces that they wear during mileage club that keeps track of the laps/miles they run. Parents are allowed to come participate, so Kyle and I came last Wednesday.

This is Tyler's last year at this school and in turn, his last year of mileage club. I think the farthest he's ever gotten is to the 30 mile club, but he's always had his eyes on the 50 mile club and the bright orange t-shirt that comes with reaching that mark. This year he has a plan. As long as he keeps on pace with Mrs. James, who always reaches the 50 mile club every year, he's good to go. The bright orange t-shirt shall be his.

On Wednesday he ran 6 laps (a mile and a half) and reached the 5 mile club. So far so good. He even lapped Kyle and I a few times and walked with us for a little bit.

So proud of this kid!

Here is his necklace from previous years filled with milestone markers. He has to start fresh from zero every year and work his way up. After running the Fitness for Kids Marathon earlier this year, 50 miles doesn't seem completely impossible.

And much to Kyle's delight, after mileage club there was still a few extra minutes of recess to play basketball with his big brother.

What fun! How can we not come back next Wednesday?