Santa pic (before/after)

I didn't like that the background of Nora's first Santa picture was so nasty...so I put to use my amateur photo editing skills and made it look a little better (??).

Here's the before and after.

Christmas programs

I seem to have temporarily forgotten about the blog.
We've had a busy couple of months, so it'll take a while to catch up. however, I'm not starting in November...I'm starting with now. So it'll all be out of order probably. Oh well.

Both boys had school Christmas programs. Jack was first, he was a reindeer in his program. He looked quite adorable. Grandma and Grandpa Westover and Aunt Andrea came to watch his program. After the singing was done they had refreshments and Santa! Jack was NOT interested in sitting on Santa's lap...or even being near him. Avery and Nora took a turn though.
I'm always amazed at how many people show up for these preschool programs, the church it was held at was packed!

 

 

 

Avery's program was just last night, we had quite the crown in attendance with us (thanks partly to a family gathering afterwards). Grandma Westover, Aunt Carin and Aunt Andrea were there, along with Keenan and Suzanne and the Jensen family.
His program was...interesting. We were too far back to be able to hear the speaking parts, but the songs were cute. I didn't recognize any of them so that was weird, and I hope next year they omit the speaking and just do some songs!

He was cute, and excited though, so it was alright. I'm just glad we only had 2 that we needed to go to, I sort of feel bad for parents of 5+ kids in school!!

After Avery's program we went to a late dinner with Keenan and Suzanne and Sarah's family. It was a "Welcome Home from College, Tessa!" and "Goodbye, and good luck and boot camp, Keenan!" party.
It was also a bad night for my camera apparently...as most of my pictures are fuzzy. Oh well.

Thank you pinterest....

...and Aquafresh for fixing my table.

Yep. Toothpaste. The boys love {LOVE!} to sit at the table and draw and color and cut and create. One day they found these amazingly awesome markers they had never seen before. They loved them, and used them, and my table has permanent {or so I thought!} proof of that.

Enter pinterest. I saw this blog pinned, and the timing couldn't be better! So I figured why not rub toothpaste all over my table, the worst that could happen is the dining room will smell very minty for the afternoon.

Luckily, it worked! There were several spots that needed this extra special treatment. And now my table is back to normal. You know...just the scratched, banged up, table. And the permanent markers have been put up where small hands cannot find them! : )

Silly Boy

(Warning - Bathroom topic...but not gross)

When I picked Avery up from school this afternoon at about 3 he said we had to get home "super fast! But not too fast over bumps!" He said he had to use the bathroom "really, really, really, bad". So of course on the way home we had to stop for the slowest teenagers ever to cross the street, a school bus dropping off some kids, and a kid crossing the street a few houses down from us. So for Avery it felt like our 2 minute drive was taking 2 hours.

When we got home I let him get out first and I heard him running up the stairs and thumping around while I was getting the littles out. I just thought he was being frantic, why is it that when kids want to be fast they get spastic? They seem to think the crazier they move their bodies the faster that means they're going?! Anyway...after I came up stairs he was done and that was over.

A few minutes later I heard the boys talking about their super hero costumes and Jack asked Avery "what are you wearing under your Iron Man suit? That's when I noticed Avery wasn't wearing his Iron Man suit. Or so I though. He lifted up his shirt to reveal his costume under his regular clothes, he wore it all day to school. And because it's a one piece costume, under jeans and a long sleeved shirt he hadn't used the bathroom since 7:30am.

No wonder he had to go to the bathroom so bad.

Polo Halloween Carnival 2012

This was our 3rd year going to the Halloween Carnival in Polo. The boys love it, and look forward to it as soon as Halloween season is upon us. We love going and having fun with the Jensen cousins and not spending a ton on a family date. Can't beat .25 games, and they come away with some candy and cheap toys, which makes them very happy. This year our family theme is Ghosts. Mostly. The boys and Nora are ghosts, Andy and I have Miss pacman/ghost tshirts I made for us. That's the extent of us dressing up, it works. The boys are excited for Halloween and trick or treating, the Carnival got them even more excited! 

Fall fun

The boys were playing out in the yard trying to rake up a pile of leaves yesterday when Andy got home from work. They're cute enough that they were able to convince him to help them. They didn't stay out long, but they are already looking forward to more leaf piles. Nora just eats the leaves. Yuck. Good thing she's cute : )

 

 

Halloween FHE x 2

The last two Mondays for Family Home Evening we have done fun Halloween crafts/decorations. First we made ghosts out of balloons and garbage bags, to hang outside and spiders to hang inside, using our hand prints. I think we all had fun making the house a little more festive : )

This week we carved our pumpkins, we did 3. I wanted to do more but Andy didn't think it was necessary. He is probably right, but sometime we're going to do one for every family member. Maybe when the kids are old enough to do their own I guess. So Andy and I aren't stuck carving 5 pumpkins.
We did a Harry Potter lighting bolt, and happy jack-o-lantern face and polka dots. They were all relatively easy. The boys had fun helping dig the guts out and Nora just sort of wandered around being cute.

Trouble maker

Sometimes the boys and I call Nora "Trouble Maker Westover".
She's upping her game. I have a feeling shopping trips are about to get a lot more challenging...

Good thing she's adorable.

Random iPad pictures

Not the best quality...but it's what you get when I think about blogging at 10:00 in the basement far from the computer :-) better than nothing.

We've been busy living lately, thus the lack of blogging. Both boys are happy in school, Nora is happy growing and getting into things, and Andy and I are happy watching them grow and be crazy. Maybe not always completely "loving" the craziness...but whatever.