Happy Halloween

We had a super fun Halloween here in Washington.

Oh...this isn't who you were looking to see?

Well, okay, here they are:

Sock Monkey Ryne and Pirate Kade
Is that better?

How bout an action shot?

AAARRRGGG!


Pirate Kade made sure his sword was nice and sharp before we headed out to trick or treat.


Sock Monkey Ryne just wanted to figure out what the excitement was about.

We loaded the boys up and headed to downtown DuPont where the businesses all do trick or treating for the kiddos.

Who wouldn't want to get in the car and go somewhere with these two:

Driving Daddy Pirate


Wigged Out Mommy CoPilot

The atmosphere was great downtown and it was a beautiful afternoon.

My pirate boys looking for some loot!


Ryne found some loot of his own!
He thought the paper on that sucker was delicious.


Kade found a fellow pirate at one of the businesses to pose with.


I think he's holding on to his hat because he sees a pirate girl headed his way....

Kade was intrigued by the pirate girl but she just had a quick hello for him and took off to search for more loot of her own.

Then we stopped in Farelli's Pizza

Can you tell Kade is giggling?

This is why....

A dancing pizza guy.


Ryne got his giggles when he was trying to figure out how I got my hair to do that.
He has checked out all of the hair care products under the bathroom sink (seriously, he has) and can't remember seeing anything in there that would make this happen. Ha Ha!


Just another look at my precious little sock monkey.


And then we headed back to our neighborhood where that little sock monkey got to say hello to our sweet little ladybug friend Audrey


And spend some time with Pirate Daddy.


While Pirate Kade made his way to all of the neighbors to give them all a special "AAARRRGGG".


As soon as we got to our house Kade couldn't even wait to go inside to check out his loot. Searched through and found just what he wanted...Chocolate...like Mommy like Son!


Ryne at least got inside before he checked out his goodies!

Then we spent the rest of the evening answering the door for trick or treaters.
I think Kyle and Kade had almost as much fun doing that.

We ended the evening with a couple of laughs.
Let me share:

Pirate Kade was trying to disguise himself as Daddy Pirate.
He couldn't see a thing and kept crashing into stuff.
I was laughing so hard.
And then the doorbell rang again.
We opened the door to these guys:

We LOVE our neighbors!
Mr. Joe, Mrs. Claire and Sammy really made our night.
Kade wouldn't let them leave without him giving them some candy!

Happy Halloween everybody!
Hope you all had as much fun as we did.

Not so sleepless in Seattle

Got to have my birthday date night yesterday!

Look at that smile on my face....can you tell that I was excited about my birthday date to Seattle?

Here is one of the reasons that I was so happy:

This is a hotel room.
This means a night with no babies.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my babies!!!
But, it has been a very long time since I've had a night in which I didn't have to get up with a baby during the night.
Thus the title of this post... "Not so Sleepless in Seattle".....I was looking forward to some sleep!

But first we had some fabulous dinner plans.

Here we are at Sky City Restaurant.
This is the revolving restaurant at the Space Needle.
Shhhh...don't tell Kade that we went to the space needle without him.

The food was AMAZING.
This was first:

Crab Bisque.
Oh. My. Goodness. Delicious!

Then:

Prime Rib
I was so excited about this yumminess that I forgot to take a picture until after I had already had some bites of this melt in your mouth steak.
Kyle and I agreed that it was the BEST prime rib to ever cross our lips.

And I had entertainment:

This gigantic carved pumpkin was on display for us to see outside the restaurant as we rotated around to it.


And Kyle provided some laughs as he checked out collection of shades at the Needle gift shop.

After our time at the Space Needle we headed back to our hotel.
We made our way to the lounge for dessert...

Carrot cake!


Chocolate cake and ice cream!


And now that we are Northwesterners, dessert couldn't be complete without some coffee.

After a great night of sleep with no babies needing attention we headed here:

Pike Place Market
For a late breakfast at an amazing French restaurant, Cafe Campagne

Kyle at this:

Omelet, potatoes, sausage, bread.

And I had this:

French toast!
Wow, was it good!!
Of course I would expect to have superb french toast at a french restaurant but this was even better than you can imagine.



We posed for a self-portrait before heading into the market to check things out.


We found out that these cabbages are a really big deal right now.

A big deal in flower arrangements. Look at these:

That purple stuff is cabbage!


The green, yellow and purple things...cabbage!
Who new cabbage could be so beautiful in a flower arrangement.
Yes, we brought a cabbage arrangement home with us.

Then we looked up and saw this:

What the crazy???

Oh yeah, it's Halloween and this guy...

Seattle's very own Ghost Buster!
Made us smile. Then we chuckled when we asked him if we could take his picture and was so eager to pose that he asked Kyle to hold his half eaten cookie so the pose would be just right.

From there we headed to Starbucks and saw this girl:

Yep, a pirate working at Starbucks!
Reminded us that we had to get back to our little pirate Kade and sock monkey Ryne so they could go trick or treating.

I had such a great time on my birthday get away! My sweet hubby really new what I needed.

Ten Months

See this adorable guy....

He was ten months old yesterday!
Yep, ten months. How in the world did that happen already?


Here Ryne is riding his zebra. He has his serious riding face on.
You can see that we have a big boy on our hands.
25 pounds!


Still just those two teeth on the bottom but we expect more any day.


He is the fastest crawler in the west. Loves to climb the stairs. Eats crackers like they are going out of style. Adores his big brother. Stands alone and we expect him to take off walking any day now.


Ryne keeps us very busy.
He loves to play with the dirt in the plants, likes to pull things off shelves, enjoys everything in the pantry that he shouldn't play with, unfolds laundry like a champ, chews on EVERYTHING that shouldn't be chewed upon (kade was not a chewer so this is new for us), catches every opportunity for an open bathroom door in hopes to find some water to play in.....get the picture? We stay busy!


Ryne brings us so much joy!
I cannot believe that he is already ten months old. We have so much fun with this little guy. He makes us smile and laugh every single day.
I am so blessed to get to be his Mommy!

Two Threes for Me!

Yesterday was my birthday!
I was thinking about how Kade said that Derek was "two and three" on his twenty third birthday this summer and decided to apply that to my birthday as well. I am "two three's"! And I couldn't be happier. I am so blessed. And I have had one very fabulous ongoing birthday celebration that started last Friday night.

We were having some friends over to play cards on Friday night and look what else showed up:

A birthday cake for me! Kyle was very sneaky and went out to get the cake and dropped it off at our friend Jeannette's house so that she would bring it over when she came on Friday night. So I guess I had a "surprise party" on Friday.


See what I mean about being blessed? With these three good-looking guys to spend my life with, how in the world could I not consider myself blessed?


And look at my fabulous friends who showed up to help me celebrate.
We had a great time and the cake was very YUMMY! Just ask Kade!

On Sunday night I got to see the beginning of my birthday. We were up pretty late doing some pumpkin carving. The reason we were up so late is because we didn't get started until late. The reason we didn't get started until late is because these guys:

Were cheering on the Yankees as they made their way to the World Series.


Of course they were watching from the pirate ship (all of our couches are now pirate ships).

So after the Yankees did their thing we got Kade to bed and the pumpkin carving began.

Getting started with the cleaning process at about 10 pm.


Kyle...carving like crazy!
(I did do some cleaning and carving, too. I just happened to take all the pictures so it looks like Kyle did all the work....it was a team project though)
And three hours later....

The finished product.
Okay, I know it is hard to make out what it is without it being lit.
So, here ya go:

Arrggg....
In keeping with the theme around our place we carved a pumpkin that we just knew Kade would love. Okay....I know, now you can't see the pumpkin. So here is another shot:

See it really is our pumpkin all lit up with a dandy little pirate carved out.
By this point it was 1 am and Kyle had the opportunity to wish me a Happy Birthday at midnight! What a fun way to start my Birthday.

We didn't wake Kade up to see the finished product...we chose to wait until morning to let him see it.


And he was quite pleased.
His first look was one of disbelief, as though he really couldn't believe there was a pirate carved into one of his pumpkins. WoW!

Kyle let Kade help him take the pumpkin to the front steps for display:

And now our pirate keeps watch at our front door for us.

What else did I do on my birthday?

Well, I didn't quite take the day off so I still had laundry to do, dishes to do, dirty diapers to change, floors to sweep and that kind of usual Mom stuff. But I did have a fun day with some extra surprises along the way.

Kyle told me when he left yesterday morning that he would be back around 11 o'clock to pick up Kade because they had plans. I said Okay and Kyle headed out. Then I asked Kade what kind of plans he and his Daddy had at 11 o'clock. To which he responded, "Oh, we are going to the store. To pick up a gift for your birthday." Kade doesn't really know what a secret is. I prodded further, "oh, what are you getting me for my birthday?"
"I'm going to get you a skateboard."
I didn't ask any more questions. Started trying to picture myself on a skateboard. Yikes!

Kyle did come and pick up Kade at 11 o'clock and they were home by lunch time. I really wondered if there was a skateboard out in the car for me.

After lunch time and nap time the boys and I played some football:




Then when Kyle got finished up with his work for the day it was celebration time....
Kade came down the stairs carrying a gift bag and singing "Happy Birthday"

You've got to watch these videos they are the BEST "happy birthday" singing ever. I didn't get my camera going until the end the first time and when I realized that I was barely getting Ryne in the shot I asked them to do a "take two" for me and they did. They are both so funny. I promise they will make you smile. Be sure to notice Kade's singing face in the first video and Ryne clapping and dancing at the bottom of the second one.



And here is what I got:

A "skateboard" helmet that I can wear while I ride my bicycle.
I think that getting me a "skateboard" helmet was the only way that Kyle was able to appease Kade's decision to get me a skateboard for my birthday. Don't you just love it?


Ryne loved the "skateboard" helmet....in fact he played with it the rest of the afternoon and cried when we had to take it away from him.


I also got a fabulous purple columbia sweater and a note from my sweet hubby telling me that we had a baby sitter for Friday and Saturday so that we could spend the weekend in Seattle. Not sure what all that will include but I do know that we have dinner reservations at the Space Needle. (I don't think I'm going to tell Kade about that because he might not want to stay behind). I am so excited about our weekend getaway! Looks like I will be celebrating my birthday for an entire week....remember we started with a surprise cake last Friday night.

After gift time it was dinner time.
Look at this fabulous birthday dinner:

Mmmmm, my favorite. Steak, baked potato and a roll.
Yes, you also see some grilled onions next to the roll....not so much my favorite but Kyle and Kade really like them so I always have a taste. Then the green stuff with cheese on top is something new we tried.
Check this out:

This is something that we saw at the market in Seattle when we first moved here and it intrigued us. It is some type of broccoli/cauliflower hybrid that we had not encountered in Arkansas. It is called Romanesco broccoli and I couldn't resist picking one up on my trip to the market Saturday. I have to admit it was quite Yummy! I think we will try it again soon.

After dinner we watched our boys ride their Diego car until bedtime.
Just look at these little guys...


I am so blessed. I had a fabulous birthday!
And in all of that I didn't even mention the phone calls from family and friends, the cards and gifts that I got in the mail, and of course the countless Facebook Birthday wishes.
I like being two three's!