kick off

We kicked off the Halloween excitement with the Bootique trick or treating at Mosaic.  So much has changed in a year with a whole new block open now.  They even had free pedicabs pedaling you around and I wish I had a photo of all four of us squeezed into the back of that bike basket. It was a breezy rush of a ride for the Knights of the Noodle Necklace! The Roundtable held court and shared a feast at Sisters Thai (the Queen of the Noodle Necklace loves a good massaman curry!) J was dressed in his normal disguise as a Gtown student because they don't make crowns big enough for him ;)

moms party

A very redeeming quality of the craziest party of the year for the MOMs club was this picture booth! Check out the Wizard PopPop and the Jester GranGran added to the Roundtable of the Noodle Necklace - so glad they are here to trick or treat!  A and K are the knights in shining armor that bow down to the Queen of the Noodle Necklace - which is what Keaton named me after insisting I wear my vintage noodle necklace with my crown.

field trip

Aiden's family group (about three buses full of kids) took a field trip to the pumpkin playground which is full of slides, climbing structures, and farm animals. It was like being at a giant playground for the morning with all your friends - can you beat that?! 

spooky guys

Aiden's free handed cartoon guys plus a few googly eye stickers:

oktoberfest

Our friends host a fun annual Octoberfest with all sorts of German treats and a bounce house. Keaton's classmate Ava has a little crush on Aiden and was essentially his shadow the entire party.  She was also in charge of the face painting station - just in case you were curious what happens when you put a 4 year old in charge of painting faces. It's a rough process with pretty hilarious results. The bottom right is Aiden checking out the selfie cam of his "superhero" face - haha!

tidbits

We've been bouncing around a bunch lately...

The Destination Imagination team kicked off meetings again this year plus one new kid that seems like the perfect addition to the team.  They all hop off the bus on Monday afternoons ready to be creative!  In this picture they are drawing a map of their dream playground to tell us more about their favorite things.

Keaton's school had to postpone the Teddy Bear's Picnic this year and it happened to be that the rescheduled morning was super windy.  They managed to get in their march and play a bunch even though the picnic food was flying off the tables.

The Target costume aisle is always a fun spot with these funny guys.  Although you can't get Aiden near the scary stuff.

A Doughnut workshop with a good friend - does it get any better than warm freshly made donuts!?  We made baked pumpkin donut, fried apple cider and bombolone filled with nutella. The big flavor trick was vanilla bean paste.

Noodle Night!  Keaton's favorite!

Pokemon night at Aiden's school was a Friday night hit.  J was away so I took both boys with me (somewhat unwillingly I'll admit since it was scheduled 7-9pm right at Keaton's bedtime).  Turned out that the kids at Aiden's school are really nice kids and they just gave Keaton some of his very own cards - He was so excited and said "Now I'm a really real Pokemon member!"  Aiden was excited to build what he declared was "a whole new deck" with so many trades.  Then just to be sure that we were glad we came, he won a prize pack of special rare cards in the raffle!

We decorated with these smiley ghosties all around our trees.

This neighborhood is filled with signs that nearly every house filled with kids has been booed!  Our boo arrived after dark one night with a very deliberate knock on the door shortly before 8pm. J eventually went down to double check if it was a package and found this bucket filled with fun stuff.  It was then our job to pass along two more boos, which we did after getting more halloween trinkets to share (which I had to order on amazon because all our stores sell out of fun Halloween stuff in September! no joke!)  Delivering the boo buckets was such a rush for Aiden - he was pumped!

We have our very own jack-o-lantern in da house with another tooth lost!

We made it to the TJs pumpkin palooza for some grooves and yummy pumpkin treat samples.

Some fall color peaking through around here... Can it just be fall forever?!

kid junction

A big group of school friends met up at Kid's Junction in the afternoon.  Keaton and Sydney are such good buddies in and out of school.

face paint

Keaton had a day off from school the other day and my friend invited us over to play and paint faces! Keaton asked to be a coyote and I think she did a great job!  After a day of play it wore off and he mostly looked like the son from the Adams Family ;)

backyard

We've been spending a ton of time in our backyard now that the bugs are replaced with colorful leaves and the weather is just about perfect every time the boys want to run free back there.

clem

The C lemnjontri playground never disappoints and is even more fun on a crisp sunny fall day.

colonial 2

The boys learned how to make rope at the Market this time.  They cranked the machine to make the strongest rope they could. Keaton found the biggest leaf he could find ;)  The open fire cooked pork sausage keeps J coming back.

colonial

It was a crisp fall day for the Market Faire.  This event always charms us even after visiting for the upteenth time.  This time we really enjoyed the violin music and Keaton conducted the music with the stick from his rock candy.  We came home with two new corn husk doll friends. This time the little girl making them had the idea to make "self portraits" so the outfits match what the boys were wearing ;) Then I got carried away at the auction and we won a teak bowl and pewter cup, which the funny auctioneers claimed was beat up from floating across the ocean - which Aiden declared impossible - ha!

fall

Mosaic continues to be our favorite, most frequented spot.  We stopped by for some Ted's during the fall festival and snuck into the photo booth for some fun shots.  Check out J's hot and cold relationship with that flamingo - ha!  Lotsa wheels to spin for prizes and that Minion was really good at communicating like a "real minion" according to the boys ;)

rebounds

Birthday parties seem to pick up during the school year!  Keaton was so excited to be the tag along  buddy at this party where they could literally jump off the walls ;)

more school coop

I had a turn to coop this past week and I made pancakes with a class that loves Numeroff book. That day it was If You Give a Pig a Pancake!  Making pancakes for 18 people was more fun than expected and eventually I had little round silver dollars cooking (not pictured -instead you see the abstract ones the kids kept trying to tell me what they looked like and giggling)

My new favorite part of coop day is that your child writes the morning message to read to everyone. Keaton shared that he likes to play - no surprises there ;)

They all wrote a book about funny things that don't happen which parallels another Numeroff book called Dogs Don't Wear Sneakers.  

The week prior was all about apples. You can see Keaton's apple printing and the chicka boom tree with his name letter up the trunk ;)

school is cool

Big batches of photos from Keaton's teacher are so great to see what he's up to and who he likes to play with at school. Keaton has a new love for the housekeeping corner and he is stalwart in breaking the gender bias in that corner of the room, even when the girls try to push him and his buddy out - ha!  He even picked his Keaton Jr doll to bring in for sharing to prove he had his own doll baby. He even explained that his brother got the doll when he was born so he could learn how to help take care of him. I think he's finally convinced his buddies that housekeeping corner can be for boys just like blocks and car corner can be for girls ;)

rocklands

The best way to cap off a trip to the farm is with a glass of wine at Rocklands right next door.  This time we got to talk to the wine maker who lives on the property which is literally an agricultural preserve.  The kids all played while we got a chance to talk to our friends and just relax.  The farm dog was so excited to have all their attention for quite a while.  We left right as the sun was setting.... ah, the perfect way to cap off the day!

homestead

Homestead is always a fun visit even when it is literally swarming with people.  I'd never seen it quite as crowded, but we caught it right at the end of the day when the crowds were already thinning out.  We replaced Keaton with over 150 lbs of apples (most of which our friends use to make huge batches of apple butter) in that big cart.

fire stations

Once a year, all the fire stations in the county invite kids to come visit. The boys love spraying the firehose at the little house with wooden block "fires" in the windows.  They toured the vehicles and greeted the friendly firefighters.  I think Keaton wanted to break into their lounge full of giant recliners. 

firefighters

We took Cam to PB Jacks!  It was fun to see our old buddies and it made me miss hanging out at that place - we hadn't been since the springtime?!  But Keaton reunited with his favorite playtime friends and was asking to go back the next day.  

tidbits

So much fun for these foxy friends playing in the backyard and plenty of chillaxin time.  The Halloween spider guy that responds to loud noises came out to play!  Check out Liz's new Pumpkin Spice Forever apron - #pumpkinpointers!

bounce

We bounced over to the pumpkin patch right across from our neighborhood on a nice afternoon.  It was right before school let out so all the buses were pulling out making Cameron's day.  They both made it to the top of the climbing truck, even Lizzie made it part of the way through that tiny tunnel ;). It's pretty fun to have a bounce house to ourselves.

cuz band

We were so excited to have the band all together for some cousin rock. These cousin buddies are really busting out some VA blues.

good list

The good list is pretty random lately... The rainy day field trip to the Green Springs Garden with Keaton's class turned out ok, thanks to lotsa fun inside at the touch table and smart nature center hosts who pretend that we are seeking out butterflies by looking for photographs in the glass house.  The kids even enjoyed some time walking in the misty rain to look at the gardens.

We've been hosting and attending lotsa playdates after school now that most friends don't take afternoon naps (which Keaton stopped ages ago).  The kids are able to keep up with games on their own now which is fun to watch.

Aiden is learning to cook a bit.  His specialty right now is the perfect skillet chicken.  Tong skills ;)

Aiden is super duper into drawing books (thanks to one particular book in his classroom that he seeks out during discovery time) and I recently told him to look on YouTube for some drawing videos.  He was so excited to find the incredible treasure trove of drawing instructional videos on there.  Below is Keaton as Captain America and Aiden's look-a-like Frankie Pickle and his pal Argyle the dog.

I have actually made it out for a few girl's nights in the last few, but by far my favorite was meeting up with some old college friends for lunch the other day.  It's fun when people come to town and you can share some Ted's milk shakes ;)

This pic of the ungrouted tile in our new ensuite bath shower is just a preview of the full remodel that should be done soon!  We had a cracked tub and we decided to go for it with a big update instead of just replacing it... It's been fun to pick out all the details.

school

Here are some shots from "Me Week" at Keaton's school where they traced their bodies, recorded their weight and height, and talked about all their favorites. Then it was time for a teddy bear's picnic at school.  Keaton picked his new favorite cuddle guy, Wokie, who is just the right size to cuddle up with at night and dance with at school ;)

interview with KC

This month was a pretty big one for you but you kept up with everything.  The start of school was super smooth and you were so excited to see old friends and make new. You love the housekeeping area at school - "Hey mom, we're playing mom and kid!" as I help you clean up your toys here at home. You still wake up way too early and when I asked you why, you said, "I wake up with plans in my mouth, or I mean in my head!"  You always have plans.

One word to describe you would be:
Baby

Why do you like being a kid?
Because it's fun because I get to play imaginext and games!

If you could be any animal, which one would you be and why?
A baby lion because I could pounce and pounce and pounce

Tell about a funny time in your life.
That time when we got large popcorn and daddy said, "oh, did you want some, this is all for me!"

What is your favorite thing to do? Why?
Plaaaaay, because it's fun to get to play, and play, and it's really really fun!

What do you love most about your sibling?
Because he plays with me!

What was the nicest thing you did for someone?
Clean up my room

What do you think you will be doing 10 years from now?
Capturing robbers!

What is the grossest thing you can think of?
Aiden eating dog poo (Aiden wants to be sure everyone knows he doesn't do that!)

What is your happiest memory?
When Aiden plays with me!

interview with AB

Aiden heard me interviewing Keaton and wanted to answer the same questions for good ol times sake:

One word to describe you would be:
Clever

Why do you like being a kid?
I don't, nevermind I do - ha!

If you could be any animal, which one would you be and why?
I would be an octopus because then I could jump on mommy's arm and freak her out

Tell about a funny time in your life.
When I ran around in the Target costume section and saw a gorilla costume that I thought was a real gorilla

What is your favorite thing to do? Why?
My favorite is Go Noodle because I like to dance.

What do you love most about your sibling?
He's a good Go Noodle partner.

What was the nicest thing you did for someone?
I did my piano when mommy asked me to.

What do you think you will be doing 10 years from now?
Dating possibly?!

What is the grossest thing you can think of?
Looking at Keaton squat on the toilet, no really.

What is your happiest memory?
When I learned to ride my bike and I really thought I couldn't do it, but then I could!