Happy Halloween!

Notice anything? Other than the beautiful tree, that is.

All dressed and ready for the Halloween party!! Woody, Buzz, and Rex (aka Liam, Luke, and AJ)

Trick or Treat!

Eating the sprinkles off his cookie

Making Halloween Cookies

Holding sweet baby Andy. Andy is the new little brother of our twin friends, Jack and Charlie. This is his "blog debut" since I have failed to take pictures of him prior to this. He's a sweetie and one of our seven boys that we tote around everywhere!

Painting pumpkins

Making Halloween crafts

All the Toy Story Gang (left to right: Charlie, Eli, Aiden, Liam, Luke, and Jack holding Andy)

One more time (minus poor sleeping Andy)

Hockey Game #2 with Jack and his Dad, Kevin

We are ready for Halloween, but will give you a sneak peak at our costumes. Our neighborhood is doing the 8th annual Halloween parade and trick or treating so the boys could not be more excited. Our cousin, Calvin, is also coming for a visit and we have lots of fun things planned. We recently did a trial run with our costumes at a Halloween party with a few friends and had a great time. We painted pumpkins, played outside, made cookies, and went trick or treating.

Luke and Liam are becoming regulars at the Gopher hockey games and were able to attend their second game with John and our neighbor and his son. I am not sure if the boys were more excited about the game or getting to go with Jack and his dad. As you can see in the picture above, Luke made himself comfortable in Kevin's lap.

2nd Annual Trip to Iowa

John and Grandpa's view at the stadium

Our "view" at Charlene's! Aj is always climbing up something.

You want to take my picture?

Mmm Green Frosting!

Decorating the cupcakes

Baking with Charlene

Aiden found Charlene's toys which included Buzz and Woody

Breakfast at Charlene's

Tatoos for gameday

We made our second trip to Iowa for the big Hawkeye versus Northwestern football game last weekend. John and his dad had a great weather and enjoyed a great game. The Hawkeyes even won this year! While they were away at the game, the boys and I had lots of fun playing with Aunt Charlene and Uncle Tom. It would be very hard to make this trip without Charlene's work. She fed us and organized lots of fun activities to help burn energy and keep us occupied over the weekend. Hotel rooms are really not a lot of fun with three little kids. At one point, Aiden was dialing the front desk on the hotel phone while Luke and Liam were using the internet phone cords as jump ropes! Yes, I am totally serious.

Hockey Game #1

Liam is showing me how to sit and hold your stick in the penalty box.

Playing hockey on the driveway with one of our favorite neighbors, Jack!

Chalk anyone?

High Fives from the Gopher! Luke and Liam called him a Bear and Liam pointed out that his hands were super soft!

"Bear" tatoos

Waiting for the game to start and not sure what to think

Even though the boys attended their first hockey game last weekend, they have not stopped talking about it so I thought it was worth posting a few more pictures. They loved it! Of course, what's not to love? They got tatoos, little zamboni cars, popcorn, drinks, high fives from the Gopher mascot, and of course the game itself! Since I have never actually been to a hockey game, they are a few steps ahead of me, but it will be a lot of fun to take all three of them to a game in a few years. We really didn't do many hockey games growing up in Arkansas! The boys have not stopped talking about how the big boys sit in the penaty box and even showed me how to hold your stick in the penalty box. It was definitely a night to remember!

The Marathon and No time for recovery....

Aiden running to pick out his pumpkin

Petting the baby goat

Liam and the puppy, I think.

Checking out the pigs (Left to Right: Charlie, Jack, Luke, AJ, Liam)

Pumpkins!!

Playing in the corn

Trying to get a picture with everyone

First Hockey Game!! Thanks to our Aunt Jennifer and hockey crazy cousins, we had two jerseys to wear to the first game. They are still a little big, but they worked well.

First swimming lesson

The boys had a little too much fun while I was in the shower recently. Granted, I was only gone for 10 minutes, but A LOT can happen. When I walked in the room, Liam looked at me (covered in marker) and said, "AJ did it, Mommy."

The boys were enthralled to watch the new refrigerator being delivered to our house one morning this week.

John and I ran the Twin Cities Marathon on Sunday and greatly appreciated all the well wishes and kind notes from friends and family. It was a beautiful day for a race, albeit a little on the warm side. The morning started out cool and sunny, but quickly warmed up to the mid to upper 70's, which is warm for a marathon. Neither of us had our best races for whatever reason. We ran well, but we both hoped to run a little better. John finished in 3:21 and I finished in 3:37. It was the 7th marathon for both of us and our second this year so we are very happy to be taking a break from running marathons for awhile.

There was not a lot of time for recovery from the race this week as we had lots of fun things to keep us busy. Even though John and I were limping around from the marathon, we survived the Monday after the race and managed to have a lot of fun outdoors with record high temps for October. The boys started their first swim lessons this week and really enjoyed it. Luke and Liam were also able to go to their first real hockey game. Thanks to some tickets from a neighbor, John took Luke and Liam to see the Minnesota Gophers play an exhibition game. Aiden was initially not too thrilled about spending extra time with Mommy and missing out on both the swimming lessons and the hockey game, but he survived and I assured him that his time will come. Lastly, we went to another apple orchard/pumpkin patch this week. This was is really a lot of fun as it includes a farm with goats, cows, pigs, chickens, etc...and they allow the kids to feed the animals and pet them. Despite a very windy day, we had a great time with our twin friends, Jack and Charlie. Happy Fall!!