Cousin Fun-October Edition

Praise the Lord and pass the blue jeans! I believe the 100 degree weather has finally passed for the year. We've been spending plenty of more time outside and we have been able to break out the Jeep again.

Recently, we also got some new neighbors across the street, including one little cute blonde girl with a pink motorized scooter. She rides it up and down the street all the time and my son can't help but stare and yell "HI!". She just waves back. She is probably 7 or so. One time he was driving his Jeep while watching her and ended up hitting a tree. I have feeling this won't be the last time he'll be distracted by a pretty blonde!

This past weekend my nephew, Fletcher, came into town for the weekend while his parents celebrated their anniversary. Congrats, Greg and Winonah!! We decided we needed to take the boys downtown to our local Fall Festival.

Pony rides were, of course, the first stop.

The blow up obstacle course was next. I thought Grant was too little to participate but he proved me wrong.

Vivian showed up for the festivities so we tried to get a good picture of all of them. All we wanted was a good picture of all of them....we tried.

1st round...oops, finger and someone isn't looking.

2nd round...Fletcher, why are you a pirate!

4th round...Ok, this one works alright for the moment...

5th round...ok lets get Vivi in the mix...

6th round....what are you looking at?

7th round...ok this is getting ridculous.

8th round...okay we are all giving up now.

Once that drama was done, we painted some pumpkins.

We walked around, played some games, and had secret conversations with robotic dalmations.

We then went back to our house were Fletcher fell in love with Grant's bunkbed. They spent the afternoon hiding up there pretending to shoot animals while watching "The Magic Schoolbus".

That evening ordered pizza and played some more. They love spending time with each other but sometimes fight like brothers. We are looking forward to cousin fun-november edition in a few weeks!

Thank You Columbus

Due to Columbus being honored for getting lost, we got a day off from work! Daniel and I took Grant to The Great Wolf Lodge. Grant fell asleep on the way there and good thing he did because we had a long day ahead of us.

It rained, hard, the entire way there.


Here was the view from our room.

A quick snack before we start our day.


This is where I would insert all these adorable pictures of my son having a blast with his father and I at the indoor waterpark. The only one in the south of it's kind. However, I took a waterproof disposable camera in the park and it was too dark and only a few pictures barely showed up. I was quite upset to say the least. So here are some ones I found on the internet to let you get the idea.

That evening we checked out the stores at the hotel. Here, Grant is trying to convince me to buy this treat. He is quite the negotiator.

His negotiating skills worked better in the gift shop. He had to have these motorcycles.

Later, we went trick or treating at the hotel. He quickly said, "Mommy I can't trick or treat without my costume!". I reassured him the hotel staff would let us participate anyway.



As we wrapped up the day, we joined all the other children for storytime. He was excited about his new McQueen house shoes he got for the occasion.

Daniel and I were worn out. We had to hit Starbucks to make it through storytime.


These animatronic figures taught us not to be scared of nature. I was scared of the thing that looked like a little boys head on a stump. Surely he was scared of nature!

Cheese!

Grant was into the story line, or confused by the boys head, I don't know...


Grant and one of the Great Wolf mascots.

Grant and Daddy racing back to the room.

In order to save some money, we pulled out our own breakfast. Some quick bites and we were back to the waterpark.

Insert more cute pictures here. On this morning, he was brave enough to wait in line with the 'tweens' to cross the pool via the log stumps (see picture from brochure below). However, he was not tall enough to use the rope, so he jumped from one to the other. At point, some girls about 8 years old or so were clapping for him and cheering him on.

It got to be around lunch time and so we packed up and headed back home. We stopped for lunch at this great little diner we thought we'd try. It was so good!

Next time, I'll know to be like those people I talked about who had their expensive cameras out taking pictures of their kids in the water. Ok, maybe I'll just get a diposable with a flash next time...if they still make them by then!

Red River Shootout

Hook Em Horns! Beat OU!

Halloween Craft

It's October! The one time I don't mind seeing the color orange everywhere. My neighbors put out their usual decorations and we admired them on the way to church. Grant said, "Yeah! It's Halloween time!". Then I tried to explain what a ghoul was. Tricky one.

This afternoon we tried a craft I found in Family Fun magazine.

You take clean jars of any size. In my case, my co-worker gave me these antique honey jars after I told her what my plans were. They turned out to work perfect!


You get your cute child to pose, in my case, Grant, and he wasn't too interested in posing. Here he is with his cooking/craft apron on.


You then tape off a "face" for your jack-o-lantern.


You then paint the jar with acrylic paint.




Grant got bored after making 2, so he was running in and out the door. Then I heard, "Help!" and this is what I found:

He thought it was swing time I guess.
After it dries, pull off the tape. I ended up pulling out a Sharpie marker and coloring in the areas that were taped off. I was worried the face wouldn't show up too well.
I put battery powered tea lights in the jars, and ta-da!!


Instant spooky!

Friends

Friends of ours just moved into their new home in the country. Congrats Christine and Eric, your house is beautiful! We went to see their new home and Grant got some good play time with Jacob.

Needed Night Out

Lion King 3D came out and my husband was more excited than anyone. I refused to go to the movies on opening night with 1 million children, so we opted for the drive-in theatre instead. This turned out to be a good decision because the weather was cooler.

Grant was excited once we got there, except this is about the only time he wore the 3D glasses.

I was so excited to see they had the guilty pleasure of funnel cake. So good! Daniel got cotton candy and Grant said, "Is this food?" I wasn't sure how to answer that.
Grant decided I was more comfy that the bed of the truck. There IS more padding that way.

Near the end of the movie, a front blew in and it started to rain. Great end to another odd week.

Looking Toward Fall

Beauty in the Common Things: cooler weather. In this area, we've had 68 days with 100+ temperatures. The record is 69 days set in 1980. Such a relief to have high in the 80s. I'm going to cross my fingers that we don't end up breaking that record.

Dinner Plans: taco salad with Wholly Guacamole 100 calorie packs (my new favorite find!)

Listen In: review of college football. Bring on the Longhorns...if only we could watch them.

This month's family fun badge was "Learn Something Together"

Since we are a science minded family, I went with a simple science project: Sink or Float.
We got an empty bucket and filled it with water.

We then gathered nick-nacks to try out. In this case a stick, a leaf, scissors, a toy car, a card, a pine needle, a toy cow, a necklace, dice, cheerios, a pencil, a foam star and a nail.

Before we could make our hypothesis on each object, Grant threw them in the water. That is ok though, he enjoyed it.
In our log book, we would write that the heavier items sank and the lighter items would float (even the old drenched paper card)

The rest of the weekend was spent in the sandbox or playing with our cat, Kitty. Grant kept trying to get Kitty to look at the camera.

After the fun, came the catching up on chores. I scrubbed the floors while Grant took my order from his kitchen. No matter what I order, its always $10! But who cares, look at that smile!