Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012 is here. Jackson and Shane picked out their costumes in August when the first Halloween catalog arrived at the house. True to form, here they are-
Jackson is Batman and Shane is Spiderman. This afternoon they will go trick or treating in Cushing Square and then we will trick or treat tonight with mommy and daddy.

Notice the abs on both boys- Gone are the days in which mommy could pick out cute costumes, we are into superheros all the way! Love you guys. Next to dressing up, the boys are psyched to use their flashlights from Uncle Adam and Uncle Dave that they received for their birthday!

We had a GREAT night trick or treating. Both Shane and Jackson at first were more interested in handing out candy to trick or treaters than getting candy- we sat on the porch waiting for the kids to come for a while and they were pushing each other to give out the candy. We left a BIG bowl of candy out for kids to take a piece or two so that there would be enough for everyone but we swung by the house 20 minutes after we left and all of the candy was GONE- we suspect the group of teenagers in front of use took it all. But we were out for about 10 minutes when we bumped into some friends from school- the parents were at the bottom of the stairs waiting for the kids and I heard a mom say - that batman just hugged Matthew! I turned around since I had a batman and low and behold it turns out that he was a friend from school. So we joined their group - about 8 small superhero's, villains, skeletons and a few babies. Anyhow, the boys went crazy! They were yelling at each other- more houses, candy, candy- "come on guys" there is a house over here". It was GREAT! All the kids had fun and I think I even might have gotten a babysitter out of the night- one of the new houses up the street- she was giving out candy- 18 years old so we'll see. The boys had a BLAST and that was what is important.

Fast forward to this morning- I thought they would have slept late, NOT! They were up at 5am and when I cam into the kitchen they were both sitting on the kitchen counter eating candy! here they are last night assessing the evenining's haul of candy-

Shane Happy 4th Birthday!

Dear Shane-
Happy 4th Birthday! I can't believe that you are officially four years old! It seems like yesterday you were just born. We have had a lot of accomplishments over the last year- no more diapers! (YEAH!!), you are riding a bike, you can climb onto the counter and get into EVERYTHING- even things high up, you can hop the baby gate and go upstairs any time you like...the list goes on and on regarding your accomplishments for the year but I'll stop here for now.

You had a fabulous birthday party complete with a visit from Spiderman! But you were very shy around him and didn't really want much to do with Spiderman but you did have a great time with your friends. You are getting more and more into writing and coloring- you have any activity book that you do almost every day and Uncles Adam and Dave gave you a Leap Pad kids computer for your birthday! and you love it- in some regards Shane, it is like watching TV so I have to control the usage but the programs on there are all about the alphabet and making letters so it is a delicate balance!

Even though you are 4 now, you are still very much into your snappy- you even call it him sometimes. We are trying to get snappy away from you but that is a big challenge. Yesterday, Trish hid snappy and you were freaking out b/c you couldn't find it! My Little Shane you need to leave the snappy upstairs on your bed where it belongs!

 

You and your brother are still like two peas in a pod, for the most part you play well together but you certainly have your moments in which you fight like crazy! Yesterday you were fixated on a tonka truck bridge that was missing a piece and you and Jackson wanted nothing more than for me to find this one particular part of a bridge! You enjoy snowball's company and like to pat him when ever you can. You are very much attached to Daddy these days, and you get very upset when he is not around. 

 

You have a new saying for mommy- you squeeze my cheek and call me "Bella" (meaning beautiful in Italian) and sometimes you also say- mugga mugga mugga- I love you from the Daniel Tiger Show. You are a sweet little boy Shane and I love you with all of my heart. (There is enough room in there for you and Jackson). You are mommy's sun, moon and stars. Happy 4th Birthday little buddy.
Love always-
Mommy

Jackson Happy 4th Birthday!

Dear Jackson-
This Sunday, on the 28th of October you turned FOUR YEARS OLD! Three is gone and four is here. Happy Birthday little guy. We celebrated your birthday the superhero way with the real life spiderman coming to visit you and your brother for the party! You were all into Spiderman and had a great time with him, even though "Batman is your favorite" you didn't take any issue that Batman didn't come to the party. We had a great party at home with your friends from school, but you missed the fact that your cousins weren't there. We did however facetime with them and that seemed to suffice the need to have them there. Your birthday cake was a batman one and we sang happy birthday to you individually- I think all in all it was a great party.

Jackson at the moment you are into "cozy" things- cozy jammies, cozy sweaters, cozy blankets etc. Not sure where the coziness has come from but you like cozy things. We have had a great month together and done a lot of things together as a family and alone with mommy and Nana. You had a few months in which you were treated like royalty because you had something every weekend day! We went to the circus, Salem for haunted happenings, parks, Nana's house and much much more.

You and your brother continue to get along for the most part but you certainly have your moments in which you fight and push each other around. I wish this wouldn't happen but I have no control over it. Daddy has been working a lot so you have had some mommy days which have been fun. I can't believe that you are four years old- gone are the days of diapers, not being able to communicate with you, putting things on the top shelf so you can't reach, baby gates ( you now hop the gate) and much more. I love you Jackson Reid- you are mommy's sun, moon and stars.
Love always-
Mommy

Family photo 2012

Jackson in Orange, Shane in Red.
The calm before the storm- Hurricane Sandy that is. The Hurricane hit a few hours after we took these photos.

More birthday photos

 jackson and Spiderman at the parthy.

 Jackson an spiderman at the party

 Shane says hello to spiderman.

Shane and his cake- spidey is in the background.

misc. photos from the month

 even at 4 years old, boxes are still fun. This is the box their legos came in from their cousins!

 Sticks at Nana's house- Shane brown, Jackson red.

 Salem haunted happenings- kiddie train ride (before Jackson's melt down)

 Uncle Jays visit to Boston- Nanna's house

 My three guys at the cirucs.

 Jackson and Shane goofey faces and all at Drumlin Farm.

 Smiling Shane at Drumlin farm.

 Helping daddy rake the leaves before the big storm comes. Both boys wore"Safety goggles" like Daddy.

 Nana's hat at the Salem Haunted happenings- Peabody Essex Museum

 My very own batman- Jackson.

 Jackson turns 4 at his birthday party with friends.

 Jackson at the Topsfield fair.

 Shane as spiderman- Halloween costume.

 Nana and Spidey at the boys birthday parthy.

 Shane's very own hat that he created at the Peabody Essex Museum.

 Potato sack slide ride at the Topsfield Fair.

 Look at all the loot the boys won at the topsfield fair!

 Shane and Spiderman- Spidey was the special guest at the boys birthday parthy

 Shane turns 4 with his friends.

Twins- can you tell who is who?

Daddy's halloween party at the gym

Last night was the Halloween party at Daddy's gym. The boys wore their costumes- Jackson was batman and Shane was spiderman. Neither one of them wanted to wear their masks but they enjoyed their costumes! I (mommy) tried to get them to eat supper before they left with no luck, but no worries, Trish stepped in and Mommy and Daddy left and both boys ate their entire dinner of fish sticks! So off they went to the party with Daddy.

When they got home, both boys said that they had FUN! Daddy reported that they tried to play Dodge ball with the other kids. But Shane and Jackson didn't quite grasp the dodge ball concept 100% so instead of trying to avoid the ball, they continued to chase after the ball! Shane didn't like being "out" and I guess he cried, but Jackson had no problem with it and just continued to go back into the game and play even if he was "out".

And what would a Halloween party be without Candy? Well they did receive candy and they enjoyed it. Jackson had one piece left by the time he got home and he wanted to eat it like it was going out of style! I said No, he had enough already. But he persisted and I took the tootsie roll away. So, I bring Shane upstairs to get ready for bed and when I came down to get Jackson he was sitting on the counter with scissors in hand- he found the tootsie roll, got scissors opened up the candy and ate it! He had a BIG GRIN on his face for that accomplishment- sneaky little guy!!! Both boys brushed their teeth extra long since they had so much candy! 

Jackson's morning puppet show

The boys got the final loot of action figures from Zach this week. (Over the summer Zach sent out his action figures that he was done playing with and there were a lot of them!). So this morning, I was down stairs with Nana getting ready for the day when we heard Jackson yelling from Upstairs "puppet show is ready". Nana and I went upstairs and Jackson had brought upstairs the train tent and all of his action figures and was having a puppet show in the Thomas the Train tent. (He basically was putting action figures out the Thomas window and waving them around but none the less he put forth a great effort and was clearly very proud of his puppet show).

Hypothesis

Jackson told daddy that he had a Hypothesis.
When Daddy asked him to say more about that, he didn't have much to say but still it was cute.

pizza party

here are some photos of the boys at their friend's pizza party at Chuck-E-Cheese.
jackson is smiling, Shane is concentrating too much on his food to look at the camera.

Bikes

The boys got bikes from trash and Nana for their birthday.
Sunday was a glorious day and we rode them for the first time today! No pictures because we were busy with the bikes but it was very exciting! Shane and Jackson took a little while to get used to the bike but after about 20 minutes they were both pedalling independently. The one challenge we have now is that they are looking down at the ground and not forward and they keep just going in circles and the tighter the circle gets the more apt they are to get knocked over, but we'll keep practicing.

Mommy was super happy about this, I smiled all day and even now just thinking about you on your bikes makes me smile. You boys have gotten so big, I can't believe it! You are riding bikes now! I'm sure by this time next year the training wheels will be gone and we'll be riding all over the place together as a family.

Next time we go bike riding mommy will try to take some photos and post them here.

Birthday celebration

We had our 4 year old birthday celebration with our friends yesterday and it was super fun! It was all about superheros- Spider man even came! We have a Halloween party this afternoon and mommy will write more about the party tonight.

So our birthday celebration was a success! We had about 25 people at the house and while it was a bit crazy it was fun and full of laughter and joy! I think maybe next year we outsource the party to a venue but for this year it was perfect. We had pizza and sandwiches galore and the highlight of the party was SPIDERMAN! Yes, the real spidey came to our party and made balloons for all of the kids, took photographs and had cake with us, he was really great. Shane was a little grumpy when spiderman got there but he could have just been overwhelmed by everything? Spiderman made both of the boys yellow giraffes and Shane said that he wanted a rainbow, don't know where that came from but all of the kids had a great time. Shane and Jackson ripped open their presents so Mommy isn't 100% certain who gave us what gifts  but there certainly were a lot of toys and presents to be had. Both boys received superhero PJs and in fact today (Monday) Jackson wanted to wear his batman PJ top to school- it took a lot of negotiation to change out of his PJs for school today.

I love you Shane and Jackson!!!!!! Happy 4th Birthday Celebration.

Jackson funny face.

Shane funny face drawing a picture for Zach.

Washing Vegetables for Trish's super drinks.

Shane drawing a picture for Zach. Sorry- this one didn't rotate appropriately!

school drop off by mommy

Today I had the unique pleasure of dropping the boys off at school. My morning meetings were all cancelled and I thought that I'd go into work late to be able to bring the boys to school. As I would expect, they are very proficient in going to their cubby, changing shoes putting their stuff away etc. and they were very excited to show me their classroom. While I was there i noticed my favorite color chart and this is what it said for my two boys:
Favorite Color Orange: Jackson because "I Like it and oranges are orange"
Favorite Color Green: Shane because "My onsie is green".

I thought that was very cute. Both boys seem to be doing very well in school although Shane was a bit clingy this morning.

On another note both boys passed their "Fish" swimming class and were recommended to go onto the "Penguin" level. Small glitch is that penguins are all filled up for now so they will have to repeat the fish class and then next term we will do Penguins.

This weekend is the boys birthday party- should be fun, we are expecting about 25 people and yes, we are having it at home- I might regret it afterwards, but i think we can stand the craziness for one day!

Fall happenings ....

Fall has hit us in Belmont, we have had some cold days and some beautiful fall colors on the trees. This weekend was the perfect fall weekend. On Saturday we picked up Nana and we headed out to Salem MA for the Children's Halloween festival. (After we searched for bunnies up in Nana's yard). We visited the Peobody Essex Museum and made hats, watched a puppet show and had great balloons made for us. Actually, Jackson got an amazing spider man but he didn't like it and Shane just wanted a green balloon but it was fun none the less. We joined the crowds for lunch at a local pizza place across from the haunted happenings photo saloon so while we dined (haha) we watched folks get dressed up like witches and warlocks and get their photographs taken. Then we hit the town in Salem. There was a children's festival on the common so we headed there. Salem was PACKED! with little  and big people of all ages and in all sorts of costumes. There were lots of rides and bouncy houses at the Children's festival and only one melt down by Jackson on the kiddie train - lets not forget the popcorn, they had to have popcorn. It was a good day- Both boys fell asleep in the car on the way home and then went directly to bed at 6:30.

Jackson is having some trouble these days going to bed and last night was one of those nights, but after 20 minutes of screeming and yelling he passed out on his bed.

Today we went to the greatest show on earth- the Circus! Had a great time with great seats and will post some photos in a bit.

Daddy's new thing: instead of piggyback rides up the stairs at home, he flies the boys up the stairs!

Topsfield Fair 2012

We made it to Topsfield today. We thought we would get there when the gates opened at 10am but due to a sneaker fight with Jackson it took as 45 minutes to get out of the house. None the less, we hit a little bit of traffic and made it there in good time. We didn't get to see half of the fair as the boys (including Daddy) were very into the carnival games, winning cheap prizes that cost a fortune and going on rides. We did catch a horse show, bikers and amazing balloons! We even pat some bunnies. I"ll post some photos of the boys on rides later. It was good fun and of course the fell asleep in the car on the way home so bedtime will be crazy tonight!