Halloween '10

Happy Halloween, y'all! Since I have this annoying endearing habit of keeping Halloween costumes a secret until we unveil them at the first big Halloween event of the year, I decided to post Halloween pics from Trunk 'r' Treat last Sunday to appease curious friends and family who haven't seen the boys dressed up yet. This means that I'm forgoing protocol and will be posting out of chronological order, which causes the control freak in me to writhe and shriek in agony. But I will make that sacrifice for you, oh loyal fans and loved ones...

So far we've been able to "guide" Alex into making decent costume choices, and this year, a superhero costume made the cut. He's not particularly into superheros (if you ask him, I'm pretty sure he'd tell you that his favorite superhero is Thomas, the "Hero of the Rails"), but several of his friends are into them, so he's at least heard of the "classics" like Superman and Batman. Honestly, I think that the only superheros he would actually recognize by sight would be Mr. Incredible and Spiderman, and that's only because Spiderman is on his underwear.

Nonetheless, he was very excited to don a cape and mask and transform into Awesome Alex, Defender Of All That Is Awesome. His super powers include shooting lightning bolts from his wrists and talking your ears off.

And what about Isaac, you ask? Well what good is a superhero without a villain? Awesome Alex, meet your arch nemesis, Evil Isaac. His super powers include burping like a dragon and projectile vomiting. His secret weapon? The ability to kill you with cuteness.

The only way we could make him look mean and grumpy was to rouse him from a sound sleep, dress him in a hot and itchy costume, and draw on his face. Poor, adorable evil genius.

After they stood for pictures, our hero and villain flew off to Trunk 'r' Treat at the church, where the battle between awesomeness and evil continued. More pics to come.

Happy Birthday to Charlotte

After the fair, we attempted to get Alex to take a nap because his good friend Charlotte was having a birthday party at the park that evening and I wanted him to be happy and well-rested. As usual, he spent naptime destroying his bedroom instead of sleeping. More on that later...

Charlotte's mom/my good friend Katie asked me to do Little Red Riding Hood invitations for Charlotte's party, which I think is the cutest theme for a little girl's party. The invites turned out cute, too. Ta-da.

Charlotte's party was super fun - the weather was PERFECT, the kids had a ball, and the food was delicious. Katie made really cute red and white mushroom cupcakes (looked like mushrooms, didn't taste like them), and Alex immediately sucked the icing off of his and wanted another one. Dream on, little man.

Another good Alex & Charlotte photo opp. How cute are these two together?

The fam was still here at the time of the party, so they came to the park with us and kept an eye on Isaac. Grammy wanted a pic with all of the grandkids. Hey Charlee, over here!!

I think this face says, "Hey Dad, heard of a razor?"

Our big fun day ended with a big fun dinner at Texas Land & Cattle, where I had a wedge salad with steak and blue cheese that I am totally craving at this very minute. More blogging later - gotta go raid the kitchen...

Texas State Fair 2010

It's already that time of year again - Texas State Fair time. Grammy and Poppa came up from Eldo so they could go with us, along with Chris, Leah and "baby" Charlee. We don't get to see Charlee that often, and although they didn't end up going to the fair with us, Alex did get to spend some quality time with his cuz.

Yes, that's Charlee with two big handfuls of Alex hair. When Alex whined about it, I tried to explain to him what "karma" means.

It was Isaac's first year at the fair, of course, and I had the brilliant idea to put him in the big stroller without the infant carrier. It was brilliant because it meant he could sit up and look around at everything going on at the fair, which meant he would stay happy longer. What I didn't take into account was that the double stroller doesn't recline much, so he was forced to nap sitting up. Whoopsie daisy.

Thank goodness for my sweet, easygoing baby.

While Isaac was being sweet and easygoing, Alex was trying out all of the fair rides. First, he and I rode the bumper cars together. It was a tight fit with the two of us in that little car, let me tell ya. And looking at these pictures, I'm pretty sure a family of four could feast for a month on one of my flabby arms. I digress...

After some bashing and crashing, it was Grammy's turn to ride with A. He picked the "Monster Trucks" and was psyched to see that the blue one was empty because blue is his current color obsession.

Onto the roller coaster.

Alex was big enough to go on some of the rides by himself this year, which sort of freaked me out. I was afraid that he'd panic and want off the ride, and I had Godzilla-like visions of myself stomping over the guardrails and ripping the ride apart with my bare hands to save him.

Luckily that didn't happen. He rode the race cars and the four wheelers by himself and loved every minute of it.

Last stop was the petting zoo.

We were pretty much beat after that and headed home to get ready for our next big event of the day, Charlotte's birthday party. Coming soon...