Halloween

(Better late than never right?)

Hurricane Sandy roared through our area Sunday into Monday and a little bit overnight into Tuesday. We were very lucky to remain with power and had limited damage. Others (like my parents) weren't as lucky, as they are still without power.

We did a little bit of "trick or treating" this week, but there were a lot of neighbors without power still. This weekend they have re-scheduled a lot of the activities.

I wanted to share a couple of the pictures thus far.

The boys at the "Kids Night Out" Halloween party. The mask's didn't stay on long.

Addison slept through the whole thing.

Camden waiting to get his face painted like Spider Man.

Waiting in line got a little tedious! 

Carving pumpkins!

Or maybe we should just say mangling them.

Halloween night

Ben as Iron Man!

All of the kids in the neighborhood
(Well, most of them)

Addie decided to join in for this picture.

The week before Halloween, we dressed up and went next door to visit with our
favorite neighbors, and they made all the kids their own special Halloween baskets
even though they don't do the whole "trick or treat" thing.

The kids LOVE Tom, and follow him around like the pied piper.

The kids with Tom and Carol.

A better picture with everyone looking.

I love this picture of Ben.
He looks SO grown up!

He had a blast carving pumpkins too.
(Sorry my pictures are out of order, my computer hates me today)

The final picture of them all together on Halloween night.
Overall we had a blast despite the storms derailing Halloween.

Pumpkin Picking

Last year we started a new family tradition. Going pumpkin picking at Jones Farm with our close friend Hillary and her four boys. Dylan, Jamie, Jack and Charlie. The boys all LOVE hanging out together, and Addie... well, she is just happy with all the attention she soaks in.

I didn't get a ton of good pictures, but I did get some!

The boys were all about the gourds and different color pumpkins.
Addie just wanted to be included. LOL

I LOVE this picture of Camden.
He is the only one who actually wanted to sit down and pose for pictures, and actually include a smile.

As you can tell, I got the best pictures of Camden. 

Ben wanted no part of pictures...

Addie just wanted to run around and play with all of them!

 I caught this one of her and just love the background.

Most of the pictures I snapped of Addison ended up being the back of her head. She was just too interested in everything going on to stop for pictures.

All the kids! 
As you can probably tell, Addie wasn't interested.

Poor Dylan didn't know what to make of her trying to wiggle away.

Hay ride!
I don't know HOW Jamie wasn't freezing his butt off!
Although I have seen him in December in SHORTS!

Addie decided she wanted to sit with Hillary on the hay ride.
Oh then she decided she wanted to get up and walk around because it wasn't exciting enough for her!

The couple pictures of the landscape that I took, all included that orb.
But NONE of the other pictures had it.
Someone special was with us all day.

This is the best picture I got of all the kids together.
Ben was mad.
Addison was distracted.
And poor Camden was just holding onto her arm for dear life making sure she didn't run away.

Ben's Field Trip

This week Ben's school took two of their classes on a field trip to a local farm here in Shelton. Wells Hollow Farm. We go there all the time for their awesome ice cream shop (which is about to close up for the season).  Ben was confused why the ice cream shop wasn't open at 10 in the morning.  Haha!

I was one of the chaperones with Addison.

Each child got a yummy apple for snack when we first got to the farm.
(Which also is typically their snack time)

Ben has a new thing for sticking his tongue out in every picture I take.

Helping his teacher pick out the pumpkin for their classroom!

The two classes together.
Ben is in the first row on the right.
All the parents were lined up like paparazzi trying to get a good picture of them all sitting like this. It was hysterical!

After that we got to feed corn to the cows.
They loved it, and the kids were completely fearless.

Me and Ben on the hay ride.
He did amazing listening, staying seated and just sitting along for the ride.

I caught Addie in one picture.
Most of the trip she was on my back in the Ergo.
She was tired since it was typically her nap time.

Back To School Nights

In the past two weeks I have had the pleasure of going to the back to school nights for both of the boy's schools. Since they are no longer in the same school it was like a work out of meeting all new people in Camden's school, but it was really neat since he is such a "big kid" now.

I had the pleasure of meeting all the teachers he will see over the school year, with the art teacher totally being my favorite. He seems so into everything the kids will be doing this year. It was really touching!

I love Camden's kindergarten teacher, but then again I have had the pleasure of knowing her for a little over a year since we both worked on a friend's Mayoral campaign last year. I was pleased to learn she would be his teacher. Overall I love his school and the community. I am excited to be joining the PTO as well.

 

Above is Camden's teacher in the right hand corner. Then the self portrait on the left top. 

Then last night was Ben's turn. There have been a lot of changes at the Pre-School this year as well. Since Ben is just in the Pre-School 3 room (and won't move into the room Camden was in till next year when he is 4.) I got the chance to meet one-on-one with his new teacher Miss Jean. 

They have a lot of neat projects they will be working on for this year, including making cards for children in the local children's hospital for the holidays. Those are the projects I really like to see because I think they are most important at such a young age. 

We will also be going on our first field trip on Tuesday morning, which I will be chaperoning again this year (I went last year with Camden's class on the same trip) with Addison.

These great pictures were all around the classroom. I really love that this year the teacher is taking time to decorate the room with lots of pictures of the kids in the class. Although she did tell me how hard it is to get a picture of Ben. Something we have also been working on at home recently!

Oh and in other Ben news, we are ready for underwear! 

I can't wait for Halloween either!  We were going to do a theme for all of the children. Camden picked out Spider man for a costume this year, Ben decided on Iron Man because they are both learning a new love for super heroes. We were looking for a Wonder Woman costume for Addie, but all we came across were too big, and I wasn't about to spend $60 on Etsy for one.

So by default she is going to be Cinderella. She is IN LOVE with Cinderella since we bought the diamond edition of the DVD last week. She goes to bed with it EVERY night.  Disney store had 40% off the costumes online, and free shipping so that was a go!

I can't wait to post pictures! 

Apple Picking

Yesterday we took our (mostly) annual trip to Lyman Orchards for apple picking. We had made it a tradition a couple years ago when Camden was a baby to go, but last year we missed our opportunity because of Will's screwy work schedule.

This year we went on the adventure with our good friends Steph and Dan, and their little girl Scarlett who just turned 6 months old, even though she is virtually the size of Addison. LOL!

Daddy and Addie before we headed into the Apple Orchard

Addison kept wanting to pick up the apples off the ground. ICK!

Ben ate probably a good 4 apples just while we were picking. It started to become a running joke because every time we saw him he had a new apple and our bag was getting lighter not heavier!

Addie shared an apple with Daddy. I love this picture of her!

The boys wanted to climb this tree. They were so cute the whole time we were there!
Very good listeners too!

Addie didn't really know what to make of Scarlett.

After she warmed up to her a bit she decided it would be fun to try and poke her in the eyes.
Yeah, that game ended extremely quick!

Oh ya know... Just Dan hanging out in a tree...
The men decided to spend most of the time at the orchard climbing to the top!

 Ben didn't want to really take many pictures so I had to sneak attack him.

Camden doted on Scarlett all day. It was really cute!

This was THE ONLY picture we were able to get of the two of them. Addie was already getting up to RUN when I snapped this.

Dan took Ben up into the tree, and I snuck up to snap this picture of them sharing apples.
Adorable!

The mass of kids!  Me, Steph and all the kids. Mostly mind. LOL

Ben wanted to take a picture in the tree. I was luckily able to crop out the adult standing next to him, although it didn't make me any more comfortable with the whole thing!

Oh another apple!
I love his blue eyes in this picture!

 Camden has turned into such a BIG KID!

I don't know when he grew up so much!

 Can you find Camden in the tree? 
Daddy hid really well in this picture too, but it still scared the living bejesus out of me!

Then it was time to try and take family pictures chaos started...

We did get a couple good pictures before they turned into this...

Then the photos turned into this...

 And then this...

We got ONE picture of the kids together before they jumped ship.

 And one of the boys together.
I wanted this to compare to them two years ago when we were there with them.

Steph snapped a couple of us when the boys were off playing in the trees.
Addie was done with pictures LOL!

There are only two words that can describe Addison besides Verruca Salt these days, and that is Daddy's girl.