A Grand Unveiling

After several trips to the craft store and many hours hiding away in my craft room I finally finished the kids costumes.

Madison is going as Hermione

















Kai is going as the ghost of Obi Wan Kenobi


















Chase refuses to have his picture taken.
So instead of going as John Deere Farmer
he'll be going as an Amish farmer.

















and Davis is going as a Halloween pumpkin.

Bring on the candy!

I Must Be Forgetting Something

This picture of the boy was taken in the fall of 2006. I cropped it from his 4 yr old preschool class picture.


And three years later . . .
I give you Chase cropped from his 4 yr old preschool class picture.


I can't very well argue that this particular problem is genetic so I've concluded that there must be a void in my potty training regime.

In my defense buttoning your pants back up seems like a fairly obvious step in the whole process. But then again, with three little boys I should know to never make assumptions.

Dressing Up

As Chase and I were sitting in the living room waiting for his school bus yesterday, I realized when Chase said he wanted to dress like a John Deere farmer for Halloween he was saying he wouldn't be dressing up at all.

Costumes

This year each of the kids knew exactly what they wanted to be for Halloween. Long gone are the days when I could convince them to go as some sort of theme. Even Davis, at the sweet age of 2, knew he wanted to be a pumpkin as soon as he saw this seasons first crop in the grocery store. Regardless of Michael's urging them to go as various Ben Ten characters, this is what they have decided they want to be . . .

As I said before, Davis is going to be a pumpkin, Chase is going to be a John Deere farmer, Madison is going to be Hermione Granger, and Kai is going to be the ghost of Obi Wan Kenobi. Thats right. Not Obi Wan Kenobi, the ghost of Obi Wan Kenobi. Speaking of which, do any of you know how to make a 7 year old glow?

All About Chase

When Chase got home from school this morning he had this in his backpack.


Isn't it cute? They traced his body and then wrote out some of his favorite things.

Did you know that Chase's favorite animal is . . .

. . . a cow? I did not know that. Though, cows are found on farms and he loves a good farm so I'm not in shock.

Did you know that Chase's favorite color is . . .


. . . yellow? I totally knew that one. Yellow and Green? John Deere? You see where I'm going with this.

Did you know his favorite toy is . . .


. . . race cars? Again, not surprised. You thought he would answer some type of tractor didn't you? Well as he has learned from the John Deere for Kids website a tractor is not a toy*. Now a race car on the other hand . . . .

And finally, did you know his favorite food is . . .


. . . whaaaat? I think Kai said it best when, in one breath, he said, "What the heck are hod dogs? Who wrote that? Was it his teacher because why would she write hod dogs? That doesn't even make sense! HOD dogs?"

*The above link will take you to a John Deere Lawn Safety Quiz. If you haven't already, I suggest you take it. It could save your life one day.

Why ARE Farms So Perfect?!

In the last few weeks we have visited not one but two farms and Chase has been in Heaven.

The first place we visited was the Blue Moon Alpaca Ranch. It was open farm day so I went to buy some lovely lovely alpaca yarn. The kids got to walk around the farm and see the alpaca, to which Chase dreamily asked, "Mom, why are farms so perfect?"

Was it perfect? Yes, I think so. Not only did I come home with wonderful yarn, I bought alpaca wool roving too. Why would I buy wool roving? Because I'm taking a spinning class.

Before you fall out of your chair, I won't be on a bike. Instead I'll be turning roving into yarn. I braved one of those biking classes when the boy was a baby and it took the instructor 20 minutes to fix the bike so my short little legs could reach the peddles. Apparently it took 20 minutes because as the instructor said, "those bike were not really made to go that small." Needless to say, I didn't go back.

The second farm we visited was the Red Barn. We took a wagon ride out to the Red Barn's pumpkin patch where the kids each got to pick out any pumpkin they wanted. To honor the occasion Davis wore his new, and very cute--thank you very much, pumpkin hat. He is a little obsessed with pumpkins right now.

Madison picked the roundest pumpkin, Kai picked the largest pumpkin, Chase's pumpkin had the longest stem, and Davis pumpkin was, well, small and cute just like he is.


Chase was all about his pumpkin until he saw our wagon was being pulled by a John Deere tractor. He didn't take his eyes off that thing the whole ride. When asked about the trip to the farm he said, "That was AMAZING!!"