November

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I know it is July and I am still blogging about November, of last year. But I am determined to catch up!  (Slowly but surely it will happen!)  Anyway, here is November:

Gotta love discount Halloween costumes:  My cute little ninjas!  

 Oh the fun with Jack's home preschool.  Here they are turkeys! :)  The kids actually dug a song I totally made up about turkeys to the tune of "I'm a Little Teapot."  Went a little something like this:  "I'm a little turkey, fluffy and brown.  Here are my feathers and here is my beak.  Oh no! It's Thanksgiving day!  Quick!  I better run away!"  Kids loved it.  Yeah. I am awesome like that. ;)  

One of the main events of November:  Jack's 4th Birthday! (Anyone else having a hard time believing I have a kid this old?)  Here he is getting a sang to and getting a free dessert at Applebee's.

 He decided he wanted a "Jake and the Neverland Pirates" birthday party this year.  It was actually really fun to plan a Pirate Party!  Here are the little pirates in their bandanas they got when they arrived! Simeon, Braedan, Eli, Phoenix, Dwayne, Jonah, and Jack.  

It was fun!  We played Pin the Treasure Chest on the Map, colored pirate masks, played Musical Pirate Dots, ate pirate themed food, did a treasure hunt and collected gold dablooms and fount Pirate's Booty at the end, and I attempted a treasure chest cake and a pirate cake.  Good times.  

My cute little pirate!  Opening presents, eating, and checking out the cake and treasures!  

 Opening his gifts and super excited about Monster Trucks!  He also got a Monster Truck launcher stadium, Hi Ho Cherrio, and some other fun gifts!

Here he is opening his birthday package from Grandma and Grandpa Enslinger!  As you can see he was SUPER excited about his Monster Trucks, Shake and Go Lightning McQueen, train, church clothes, and MONEY! :)  

Hope our cute little 4 year old had  a fun birthday! :)  

Our other silly little pirate! :)  

 Just a fun picture! Yes I came in one morning to find jack and Zander both asleep in the crib!  Please ignore the ghetto diaper box and bungee cord thingy we rigged on the end of Zander's crib to prevent him from climbing/falling out of his crib! :)

A fun cheeser of Z-man!

 Fun with pics after church one day....My handsome boys.  Doesn't Z look like the Nutty Professor!?

 Another church pic of my handsome boys!  (Jack in his new birthday outfit!)

And our final big event of November - THANKSGIVING! I took the boys, yes by myself, and headed to Kansas to spend Thanksgiving with the Enslingers because we would be in Utah for Christmas. Here are some highlights from the trip.

Jack having some chat time with his amazing Great Grandpa Enslinger!

 Both boys really enjoyed drinking out of fancy cups for Thanksgiving dinner.  And the food was DELISH!  It always is when Great Grandma Enslinger cooks!

 The boys had so much fun playing in a big box of leaves with Grandpa in the backyard!

 Some other highlights:  Hugs from Great Grandma, eating at Greg's (Oh how I love the yummy fried spicy cheese balls!), hanging out at Enslinger lumber, riding the toys, and playing Hide N' Seek behind carpet samples, seeing Aunt Melissa, Uncle Shawn, Gillian, and Audrie, a fun parade and meeting Santa Claus after at the park where we also got hot dogs and hot chocolate,, and playing at Grandma's house with cars and cooking sets.

 A few more fun things from the trip:  Going and watching the La Crosse High School leopards play in the State Championship game, watching everyone open our Christmas presents from us early, and Jack and Z opening a couple too.  I love how my homemade presents for Gillian and Audrie turned out! Glad the fam agreed to open everything in front of us so we could see, and glad I was actually done with Christmas shopping by November! :)

And looky there. Finally to December! :)    

Catching Up: October (Warning: Super long post!)

October was a fun month!  Even though I was recovering from knee surgery, we were still able to do some fun things with the boys and as a family!  

Here we are at the UW Homecoming Parade.  

The boys after the parade! I absolutely love this picture of them!   

The boys enjoying some Daddy time!  (Ya know they have to do that before basketball season starts and they don't see their daddy nearly as much!)
The weather in October is crazy.  One day we got a TON of snow. It was probably one of the biggest storms of the entire winter!  The boys loved going out and playing in the snow. Making snow angels, throwing snowballs, eating snow, etc.  This was really one of Z's first times really being old enough, big enough to play in the snow!  

We then, of course, had to go inside for some hot chocolate!  

Another fun weekend we had amazing weather! So we took the boys and our rakes and went to a park. We (meaning Dustin because I was still gimpy) raked up leaves there and let the boys jump in the leaves!  They had a blast!   

Here is our family in the leaves!  

A few more shots of our fun at the park!  

We were so lucky to have Grandma and Grandpa Hansen come out for a visit!  We went down to the Denver Zoo for a crazy free day! There were tons of people, but we were still able to have fun and see everything.  I gimped around on crutches and a giant brace, but it was still fun to see the zoo, and even better, experience it with Grandma and Grandpa!  

We loved seeing all the animals, the statues, and going on the train ride around the zoo!  

So much fun with Grandma and Grandpa at the big zoo!  

By the dinosaur statues on the way to our parking garage.

Another highlight for Jack was getting his early birthday present from Grandpa - a fishing pole!  Here is  a picture of the prepping of the pole.

Once we had the worms and got the pole ready we headed to the park to fish in the pond!  Check out how Jack caught a fish!  

A he did catch a fish!  In fact I think he ended up catching like 5 fish! When he caught his first he was so, so excited until he went to touch it and it started flopping.  Then he was terrified.  If you can't tell, in the top left picture he is both crying and smiling!  

A few more pics from our fishing adventure!  

Saying goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa! It was such a fun visit!  I took the boys to do lots of fun Halloween activities. I love Halloween.  I love dressing them up. I love candy.  The decorations.  (I love being scared!)  I just think it is a fun holiday.  I am trying to pass on the excitement of it to my boys, cuz Dustin hates the holiday!  So we made sure to decorate the house cute, carve and paint pumpkins, wear fun Halloween clothes, and go to lots of Halloween activities! 

The outside of our house.   

Grandma and Grandpa brought the boys some little pumpkins and some  big ones that we could carve. Here are the boys painting their pumpkins while Grandma and Grandpa were here.  

Carving Pumpkins as a family.  The boys were both disgusted and fascinated by the goop inside of hte pumpkins!  

Cute Halloween pajamas and shirts!     

Here are the boys Trick or Treating at the Children's Clinic.

  Here I am making them pose by our decorations before Trick or Treating fun!  

Me with my handsome doctor and cute little monkey!  

Visiting Daddy at work after Trick or Treating at the Clinic.

 I think Jack thinks he has to have multiple costumes each year, because for the last couple of years he has had more than one.  he wears a different one for each event.  Here he is as a doctor (with his monkey of course!)

We also went to the Downtown Trick or Treating at local businesses!  Here Jack is Spiderman!  They got to play some fun games and do some fun activities while picking up loads of candy! :)

 Then we went to the Stake Trunk or Treat on Halloween night.  A cute older couple always brings this fun little set up for people to get pictures by, so here is our family on Halloween!

 Jack and his best buddy, Phoenix, were both sporting their Spiderman looks! :)  

Our family!  

 Yes.  The boys and I sure enjoy Halloween!

And as if this post hasn't already been long enough, here are few parting photos of my cute, crazy guys!  

I love Jack and his fun personality!  He can be crazy but so, so sweet too! :)  

My handsome boys before church one day! :)

Sorry for the duplicate pictures, but gotta show our crazy Zanderman some more!