A Dinner Conversation

Ty:  "Mom you are Lightning McQueen and I am the bad Professor Z.  Watch out!  I'm going to blow you up!"

Me:  "Oh, no, please don't blow me up Professor Z!"

Ty then commences to blow huge breaths of air at me.  After a minute, "Ha!  I just blew you up!"

I love how literal kids are!

Talent Show

The youth in our ward had a talent show for mutual last night, organized by the Beehive class.  It was so entertaining!  Somehow, Adam convinced me to sing a duet with him.  I have to admit, I am pretty self-conscious about singing in public, not because I have never done it before, but because I really don't enjoy doing it.  I feel like I have a great choir voice--I can hold my part and blend in in a crowd--but I don't think my voice is solo quality at all.  So, this was kind of going out on a limb for me.  Here we are, a la Tim and Faith, singing, It's Your Love.

Besides that little mess-up at the beginning, we felt decently good about the rest.  And apparently the Beehives liked it, too--we came home with a second place ribbon.  First place went to the YW leaders performing a hilarious skit--there was just no competing with that!

Sorry for posting this without permission, ladies!  You knew we were recording it!

StacKING

You know, as in the stacking king.  That was my totally lame attempt at being clever.  Fail.

But, really, McKay has been stacking everything lately.  He says he's "building towers."  And I think it's cute.

Today's tower was constructed out of books in Ty's room.

Ty took this picture.

That was the entire shelf of books, and had there been more, he undoubtedly would have tried to add them on.  But still, that's a pretty tall tower for a two-year-old to construct singlehandedly.  Can you tell how proud of himself he is?

Snow Surprise

Last Friday night, I was on my way up to bed when I glanced out the sidelight window by our front door and was startled to see a large form on my front yard.  Initially, I thought it was human, and I had that heart-in-your-throat reaction for a moment.  But when I pulled back the curtain and really looked, I found this friend:

So obviously the work of young men from the ward.  The following morning at our volleyball game, I singled a couple of them out and thanked them for the "friend" they left us.  They denied it, but their huge grins told me I had nailed them.  If this is as much trouble as they will cause on a Friday night, I think they're doing pretty well.  :)

Another Awesome McKay Quote

I spent this morning at the stake center coaching three volleyball games.  Adam brought the boys to watch for a little while, too.  Between games, Adam was hitting with some of the kids in our ward out on the court.  McKay came to me and asked if he could go out on the court and play, too.  I told him that if he went on the court while the big kids were playing he was apt to get leveled.  His response:

"But I am a volleyball player, Mom.  I NEED to play."

My shoulder-less boy

All bundled up in his heavy winter coat for the first time this year, McKay says with great concern in his voice, "I don't have any shoulders!"

Me:  "Yes, you do, sweetheart, they are just hiding inside your big coat."

McKay then sticks his hand down the neck of his coat, feels one of his shoulders, and says, "Oh yeah!  That's good, huh Mom?"

I sure do love that little boy!

Halloween Festivities

This post is apt to be huge, considering I am lumping all of our Halloween festivities into a single post.  Consider yourself forewarned.  

Last Monday night, we participated in the annual Kaiser Family Pumpkin Carving Contest.  This is something my family has done for probably five or six years running now.  And there is certainly a good incentive to participate--a $20 cash prize!  We always email pictures of our carved pumpkins to my family, and they email us theirs, so we can all see each other's and cast votes.  This year McKay wanted a Tow Mater pumpkin:

And of course Ty chose to do McQueen:

By the end of the night Ty was a mess.  That tends to happen when he stays up late!

But in the end I guess it was worth it because Ty was the winner this year!  He was thrilled when his cash prize arrived:

 

And just in time, too.  He bought the new Cars 2 DVD with his winnings.  Appropriate, I suppose, considering his jack-o-lantern.  ;)

On Thursday we went to a special Music Makers, where all the songs were Halloween-themed and the kids got to trick-or-treat to each Mommy!  The boys loved it, but I didn't get any pictures.

Friday we invited our entire Sunbeam class to a party at our house.  Sometimes I think I must be a little crazy.  Nine 3- and 4-year olds.  Yikes!  I was grateful a couple of the moms stayed and helped out--it could have been pretty wild all by myself!
We played pin the head on the skeleton:

And a fun game called Grab the Ghost:

Then we did the pumpkin beanbag toss.

And we finished off by decorating cookies.

I would say it was a success!

On Saturday we had our ward party.  There was dinner, carnival-style games, and a trunk or treat.  And I just have to add this in here:  one of the games was a shooting range where the kids could shoot monsters with nerf guns.  Ty had the best score of the entire night, of any age kid!  He shot down all six monsters in just four shots.  Apparently he was acting well his part of Woody!
Here are the boys checking out their loot after the party:

On Monday Ty had a party at preschool.  Daddy was able to get off work early so the two of them could go together.  It worked out perfectly that way--McKay and Mom got a good nap in to prepare for a late night of trick-or-treating!

 

After a dinner of mummy dogs (which the boys LOVED!!), we went trick-or-treating around the block.  The weather was perfect, and it was a lot of fun, although Ty commented at the end of the night, "Wow, trick-or-treating really wore me down tonight."  Love him!

YEE-HAW!! 

The boys finished the night with hot chocolate in pumpkin cups that G&G Marchant sent in their Halloween package.  

It was a LOT of Halloween this year.  My friend Beth cleverly coined the term "Halloweekend" to describe all the time we spent celebrating--and it's certainly a fitting word.  I am pretty Halloweened out, I would say.  But we spent this chilly, snowy morning getting all our Halloween decorations down and Thanksgiving up.  Crazy that Thanksgiving is just three weeks away!