The Accidental Boilermaker

Halloween is finally here!  Evelyn decorated her pumpkin this afternoon.  So much easier than carving; maybe next year. I found these awesome Wonder Woman stickers at Five Below.  The perfect addition to Evelyn's Halloween costume and she loved them. Jameson did great in the wagon while Evelyn went trick-or-treating. The whole superhero family. Evelyn definitely had trick-or-treating figured out this year, but we think she had even more fun handing out candy

Our annual Halloween party was last night.  We had fun but hosting a party with 3 toddlers and 2 babies in attendance is a lot of work!  Evelyn was a good helper and together on Friday we made chocolate covered pumpkin pretzels. Every party needs a few games.  People guessed how many of each candy was in the jar and the winner got to the keep the candy. For the kids there was pumpkin bowling.  I bought a cheap decorative pumpkin at Michael's.   Here's where I got the idea . Meredith and Jeremy came down for the party. Meredith was Tina and Jeremy was Gene from Bob's Burgers. Jameson and I as Batman and Catwoman. Evelyn and her friends playing on the swing. It was a prefect day for a party.  I just hope the weather is just as nice Monday for trick-or-treating.

A friend told us about trick-or-treating at a nursing home today and since Nate usually has bike practice on Thursday, I thought it sounded like a good activity for evening.  But Nate had long day at work and I had a long day at home, so he decided to skip practice and come with us. Earlier today I tried to recreate a picture I had taken of Evelyn on her first Halloween.  Who wore the jack-o-lantern onesie better? Jameson or Evelyn?

Evelyn's last soccer practice was tonight.  Everyone received a medal and a team picture with a note from their coach. Evelyn's teammates with Coach Jermaine. One last team cheer.  We really like Soccer Shots and more important Evelyn seems to enjoy it too.  As long as she stay interested, I think we will keep signing her up. Jameson can't wait until he's big enough to play too.

Jameson has not been sleeping very well lately.  He cut first tooth so maybe that's why.  But my parents were here this weekend, so I think that actually helped.  More people to hand off Jameson or Evelyn to when Nate or I got too tired. We have a lot of trees in our backyard so we asked my dad to bring a rake and help with leaves.  Of course Evelyn wanted a big pile to jump in. Getting a little help from Grandpa. Jameson however was not so sure about playing in the leaves. Evelyn helped make cookies with Oma. Picture time with our beautiful mums. It was so nice outside today that after my parents left, I decided to take Evelyn and Jameson to the park while Nate biked. Back outside again after dinner for Jameson's very first wagon ride.   

I'm hijacking Liz's blog. Here are the two good pictures of me from last season. Liz's joke is that she always thinks that I'm someone else (who's also called Nathan). In her defense, we all have the same uniform, bike, helmet, and are moving pretty quick. We do look similar. For example, here is a picture of someone who isn't me

Jameson is 9 months old.  He has started crawling on his hands and knees, but is faster when he army crawls, so he switches back and forth a lot.  He pulls up on anything he can, but hasn't started cruising yet.  He is sleeping pretty well.  About once a week, we have a night where he is up a lot, but generally he goes to bed around 7:30-8:00, wakes up between 4-5 to nurse, then sleeps until 6:30 when it's time to go downstairs for breakfast.  He continues to be a good napper too. No teeth yet, but I think they are coming; he chews on his finger all the time.  Jameson still eats just about everything.  Just like his sister he loves bananas, pears, applesauce, and yogurt but unlike Evelyn, he eats most vegetables.  Oatmeal isn't his favorite.  Jameson just started to wave hi/bye by opening and closing his fist.

Evelyn and I went to a ladies tea party at church on Saturday.  It was fun to do something just us girls.  Evelyn was a little on the little side, but she behaved very well and I think enjoyed herself. Every table had different types of tea to try and they also brought around chai.  A big table was set up with finger sandwiches, cheese and cracker and lots and lots of cookies. There were also photo props and someone to take your picture. On Sunday we went to the mall to do some shopping and let Evelyn and Jameson play at the play place.  The mall had some fun Halloween decorations.

Evelyn, Jameson and I went to a pumpkin patch after Bible study today. There were lots of pumpkins and lots of inflatables. Evelyn didn't really like the inflatables that moved; she thought they were scary. Evelyn was pretty good at pulling our pumpkin cart until we picked out our big pumpkins. Jameson's little pumpkin. The pumpkin patch also had a kids activity area and Evelyn really wanted to go.  It cost $3 dollars each for me and her which I thought was a little much considering what there was.  But at the same time, it gave us something extra to do.  Jameson liked the corn pit. Evelyn enjoyed the slide. I was feeling adventurous so we went inside the corn maze.  That's where many of the moving inflatables were so Evelyn didn't really like it. But she did like the Boo express.  And we didn't get lost in the maze. My little pumpkins.

On our way home from Virginia Tuesday, we stopped in Dayton, OH for Nate's final time trial of the season. While Nate's last race, it was the first race that Evelyn, Jameson, and I got to watch. The race was held at the Wright Paterson Air Force Base, so we got to see a couple big planes take off while we were there.  Evelyn and Jameson both behaved very well during the race.  I wore Jameson in the carrier and he fell asleep.  Evelyn loved watching the racers go off the start line.  Nate had finished and was back at the car, but Evelyn wouldn't leave till she saw every last cyclist start. Nate had a great finish to his first time trial season.  He finished 7th out of 100 racers and had a personal best for this course.