Halloween Festivities

Halloween with kids is a month-long celebration--it gets tiring!  It is fun, though, and the boys absolutely love it.  For the first time they decided to dress up as something other than a superhero for Halloween this year.  When Max picked this costume I thought it was going to be ugly.  However, once these two cuties tried them on my heart fluttered.  Aren't Mario and "Guigi" adorable?

Max and Sam had a Halloween parade at their preschool...

 

And Super Jack got to dress up for his Romparoo class...

 

 Then we had the MOMS club Halloween party...

And we went on a "hay"ride to a fun Halloween house...

 Where we saw a silly puppet show and got to try on silly hats, masks and a variety of other fun costume accessories.

  

The West Chester Halloween parade was spectacular this year--probably because the weather was GORGEOUS that night...

 

 And last but not least, the event that culminates from all the partying and parading in October: Trick-or-Treating!

 

In the 'hood...

 

Max got really into it this year and was running from house to house ringing doorbells, leaving his brothers in the dust.  Sam just wanted to eat a piece of candy after every stop.  Jack was enjoying the stroll at dusk in his cool costume.  It was a nice way to end the month!

Soccer

I signed Max and Sam up for soccer this fall through our YMCA.  Max played last year, but this year Sam was finally old enough to play, too.  So, every Saturday for 10 weeks they each played a game.  At first the commitment of spending 2 1/2 hours every Saturday morning at a soccer field seemed a little burdensome, but once we figured out a rhythm it turned out to be quite a fun event.  Watching the boys improve over the weeks was also very exciting. 

Max was one of the stars on his team...

 

And Sam was one of the better (and younger) ones on his team...

  

But, we would have never known that if Paul hadn't decided at the last minute to help coach the team...  For the first game Sam wouldn't even go out on the field, but once Paul got out there with him he was scoring goals left and right...

 

My cute little spectator...

 

Fun September Snapshots and Staged Pictures

Jack was loving corn-on-the-cobb this summer.  One time he saw me shucking it and absolutely could not wait to get his hands on an ear.  He loved it even without salt and butter!

Yep.  It is a September entry being written in mid November.   (Big, long sigh...)

But September, while it seems so long ago and far-removed from now, was a very awesome month!

The boys started preschool--Sammy for the first time.  He was so excited!  We can't believe what a big boy he is now.  Max, too!  Time has been flying!!

 

We had to stage a few pictures to take for preschool.  This time it was just for Max--he needed to make a poster all about himself (and all by himself) and could use pictures or drawings or whatever to decorate the poster with things that describe him.  This was like the first real homework that I had had as a mom, so I was stressing it a little.  But, the photo shoot(s) turned out well as did Max's cool poster.  Which I totally need to take a picture of... He chose several of the pictures below to use for his project, but I couldn't resist adding all of these here--they are too awesome and definitely depict Max and his cute personality...

 

These next two pictures are my favorite of the series, as they were totally his idea.  Since it is his favorite food, we were looking through magazines for some pictures of pizza.  After helping me look unsuccessfully through half a dozen issues of Bon Apetit, Max proclaimed that he had a "great idea!"  He suggested we take a picture of him making and then eating a pizza for dinner tonight.  Genius!  Especially since it had the added benefit of providing him with his favorite food!

(The batman cape was just the costume du jour)

Pretty cute staged pictures of a super cute boy!

The spontaneous photos below are pretty cute, too!

The first bunch are of the boys having fun with the gigantic box our new soaker tub for the (still under construction) master bathroom came in.  Max, Sam and Jack loved this box.  First of all, it was a secret fort... 

Then an empty canvas...

Then a house (which the neighbor girls loved)...

We had a lot of fun playing outside.  I think September is my favorite month in Pennsylvania; the weather is perfect to me.  I LOVE to be outside this time of year--not too hot, not too cold, not too humid.  It kinda reminds me of Southern California weather...  So anyway, we played outside a lot!

I think our backyard looks like a mystic grove in these two pictures...