Happy Halloween

This morning while Evan and I were getting ready for the day it was getting a little quiet.  Next thing I know Graesen walks into the room saying, "Help me!"  looking like this:

He had found the cupcakes he had made on Saturday and had helped himself :)
Tonight we went trick-or-treating for a short time with Phoebe.  Graesen would not say trick-or-treat to the people, but he would tell them "thank you."  Poor Phoebe didn't feel well and wasn't up for doing very much.

After going around the block trick or treating we headed to our church's fall festival.  Graesen played games and won candy.  He also jumped in a bouncy castle.  His favorite thing was a race track they had made for remote control cars using pumpkins.  He could have just sat there all day long watching the cars go around.

I have so much fun being this little guy's mom.  I feel so blessed to watch him grow and experience life :)

Pumpkin patch addiction

My sister invited us to come along to the farms today.  We decided to go even though we have already been up so many times this year.  It was rainy, so that was a bummer, but we still had fun.  Graesen picked out a pumpkin to do for my parents' house after family dinner tonight.

Graesen's lucky day

This morning we took Graesen to a Halloween story time at Barnes and Noble.  There was supposed to be a story, an art project, treats, and a costume parade.  Graesen was the ONLY kid who showed up, so all he got was the story :(

My mom called to tell us that maybe we could redeem the day by heading to Fred Meyer.  They were having a great sale so we got Graesen a button up shirt to wear under a sweater for Christmas Eve and a super cute sweater vest.  They also had a cupcake decorating station.  You could buy 6 cupcakes and let your kid go to town decorating them.  Graesen is a little young to figure out how to squeeze frosting onto the cupcakes, so Evan had to help him.

After that we let Graesen go in the play area for the first time.  I had no idea this was free!  I also thought Graesen would flip out.  He didn't and had lots of fun!  While he was in there we did a little Christmas shopping for him.  The one present I think he will be super excited about is a balance bike.  He still struggles to figure out the pedals on his tricycle, so I think he will be really excited to be able to ride a bike on his own.
While Graesen was in the play area he colored a picture for the coloring contest.  We got Graesen out of there just in time to enter his drawing into the contest and to join the costume contest.  They just folded up the pictures and drew one to find the winner.  Guess who won?  Yup, Graesen won a $20 gift card!  We took him to the toy isle and told him to use his prize to buy a toy.  This is not something we usually do.  A couple of times when we have been shopping for a long time and Graesen was behaving, I have let him pick out a $1 matchbox car, so he was surprised to get more than that.  The first thing he did was find the matchbox cars and try to buy all of them :)  We directed him toward some more expensive toys.  He ended up choosing a Thomas the Train that makes noise and moves, and 2 matchbox cars.  He was so thrilled to pick out toys for himself.  I had so much fun watching his excitement!

Tonight Evan and I went to a play, so my parent's watched Graesen.  This is what he looked like when we came to pick him up :)

Shopping

After working this morning, Graesen and I met up with my aunt and Phoebe to do some shopping.  We drove out to Old Navy.  The kids did a little napping on the way.

We got some amazing deals and we didn't even know how amazing they were until we got to the register and were told that if we used my aunt's old navy card we could get an extra 40% off everything!  So, my aunt paid for everything and I wrote her a check for the things I got.  I got clothes for both my nieces and nephew for part of the Christmas gifts.  I got lots of clothes for Graesen for Christmas, a couple small things for Evan, and a couple things for me that I needed to replace.  After shopping we headed to the mall play area to let the kids burn off some energy. 

We got to talking and decided that since the deals were so great we should go back and get more clothes for the kids.  The kids in our family are going to be getting lots of nice new clothes this year!  Tonight we headed back to my aunt's house for dinner and a movie.  We watched "Soul Surfer."  I really liked it.  Graesen and Phoebe were super funny and kept dancing to the music and singing along.  At one point they started telling each other, "I love you!"  Too cute :)

"Mommy take picture"

I spent the entire day reorganizing my basement/laundry room.  We got new dressers for our bedroom and decided to keep the old ones in our basement.  I took boxes of maternity clothes we have been storing down there and put them in the drawers, because I don't really like having so many boxes stacked around.  I also brought Graesen's slide in for the summer and set it up with his ball pit at the end.  I brought his basketball hoop down there too and add a paper roll to his art table.  Now the basement is set up for winter.  There are lots of toys and physical activities that Graesen can do down there when it is cold out and he is starting to feel cooped up.  I didn't do it today, but I am going to bring his tricycle down there too so he can ride up and down the hallway. 

I also reorganized all the stuff we had stored in our laundry room.  We had tons of boxes just stacked up on one side.  We had some flooding a while back and we had pushed everything to one side to keep it all dry.  I went out and got some rubbermaid bins yesterday so I wouldn't have to worry about things getting wet.  I went through all the boxes of baby clothes and sorted them by size.  I put them into the new bins and labeled them.  I am so excited that everything is so organized now!

Graesen was so sweet and put up with me cleaning all day.  He did a lot of art work while I worked and then decided to "help" me.  He liked to climb into bins and ask me to take his picture.  Only, the second I grabbed the camera he would start coming towards me to see the picture, so the pictures ended up a little silly :)