Snowy Pics for Snowy Day

Another snowy day!   These are from our 1st snowy day last weekend.   It was warm enough and not windy, so we could play outside in the new snow!    The boys were super excited.   Hunter was ready to go first thing in the morning.    And we did end up going out by about 9:30 to play.

He loved it!

 So happy to be playing in the snow.

Aidan  - not so much.    He was not about to be left and thought he wanted to go outside but once out in the snow he quickly changed his mind!    Of course, because it takes about 15 minutes to get him dressed to go out for 5 minutes of snow!   The snow was still blowing around and he really didn't like it hitting him in the face.

This expression sums it up!

He also would hardly move or walk.   Combination of snow pants, boots and deep uneven terrain was too much for him.

Hunter did everything from sledding, ridding his bike down the hills and going down the slide into a mountain of snow.  

He really wanted to build a snowman.   (The face is looking the other direction.)   He wanted one built so badly...

So he could smash it to bits seconds later!   There may have even been a baseball bat involved... I'm not really sure.

Aidan tried it again later in the day and had a little more fun in the snow.   Hunter played for hours and wasn't bothered at all by getting cold.    

By the looks of things we'll have plenty of snow for awhile to keep playing in!

Turkey Craftiness

I don't usually get very crafty but I've decided to try since the kiddos seem to enjoy little projects.   I stumbled upon a few blogs with lots of easy crafty ideas for toddlers and decided we'd do some crafts for Thankgiving.   I thought it would be a good way to teach them a little something about Thanksgiving and do something fun too.

Our 1st project was making Turkeys out of the kids hand cut outs.   I guess I didn't take any pics of this.    Important lesson learned was it took me too long to cut out their hands for turkey feathers and they lose patience and interest so I need to have most of the prep work done going forward!

Next mini Mayflower ships.   This one was super easy and the boys loved playing with them.

Hunter got his army guys out right away and they quickly boarded the Mayflower.

Then we decorated and made some Indian headdress.  

AJ loves to color and gets super excited to get the crayons out.   I try to just let him color on different papers to keep him busy.

I asked H what Indians said and he said "Glory to God!"    We might have confused some of our stories : )

Turkey finger puppets.   I made extra of these brown bodies so we can make some reindeer finger puppets in a few weeks for Christmas.

Our finale was pine cone turkeys.   These were cute and fun.  I wanted to make enough for everyone who was coming for Thanksgiving dinner for at the table but only had the patience to make 6 of them.

Sheer joy of the glue stick.   He LOVES the glue stick and we had a few issues with what he could and could not do!

Finished pine cone turkeys.

I'm sure we will be able to come up with quite a few easy and fun Christmas crafts too.    A few sites I like are here and here and here.

So may good and easy ideas!!

Last Hurrah

We tried to enjoy the super nice weather of last week as much as possible.   This included one last trip an apple orchard.   It was a little cooler on this day but still good apple orchard weather.

We had the place to ourselves and this one figured out how to jiggle the corn dispenser just so to get a few little pieces of corn out to feed these hungry animals.

I pleaded with the little ones to let me get a couple good pictures of them.   As in, they are both looking at the camera and not making some sort of pained expressions.   No such luck... {sigh}

H tried but little brother was not to be bothered with camera's on this day.

The pig eating a pumpkin was a big hit and good entertainment!

Classic look... tongue out and looking mischievous.

We spent lots of time in the hay maze.   I think I need one!

I could post a string of pictures of one jumping out of the pic, looking away, saying "cheese" while looking at the sky or just not caring.    I've decided getting what I think is a good picture of both of them at the same time is darn near impossible!

But we still had fun.

And look how good this dog is posing.   He must of felt left out and jumped in the picture.

Doesn't he look so grown-up in this one sipping his cider.

And he looks grown-up in this one posing like it's a "senior picture" pose : )

Cute little orchard with some cute little boys.  

Trick or Treat

Trick or Treat!

This was our first time taking the kids out trick or treating.

Spider Man and Elmo were ready to go.

 We did our trial run at Aunt Kelly & Uncle Keith's.   I was sure Spider Man was ready to go and had his lines down.   Instead he froze and wouldn't say a thing.    After a nervous start and him saying he didn't want to go trick or treating we decided we'd give it another shot and see how it went.

Something clicked and off he went!

 First house... spidey did great.   "Trick or Treat and thank you!"   On to the next house as fast as he could go.

Even Elmo kept saying "this house, this house."  

We could barely keep up with Spider Man.

It was a big success.   The kids had a great time.

Elmo got into his candy and found out what a big blue sucker will do to his tongue!

Happy Halloween!

Trail Cam

Adam has been baiting critters with his trail cam and a pile of field corn.   So far he's created quite the night time hot spot for the local wildlife.    These pics are not good quality since they are being taken at night by an old digital trail camera ... but you'll get the idea.

Raccoon hot spot ... count them, 5 raccoons!

Small buck enjoying the corn.

My favorite pics ... raccoons and deer sharing the corn.

We had one picture with 5 deer.   This one shows 3 of them.

And even a bunny and deer eating peacefully side by side.

Camera's back up to capture more wildlife.   Now it's a matter of trying to find enough corn to keep feeding all these animals!

More Fall Fun

Have I mentioned this has been a beautiful fall yet?   It has.  Great weather almost everyday!

We visited Lowden Park in Oregon last week.

Hunter was his typical can't wait to explore self and AJ wouldn't let me put him down or go near the statue until he knew it was safe.   Too funny.. those two are so opposite!

 Great view overlooking the river.  Then we did the stairs down to the river.   They are pretty much straight up and down!

Fall colors were beautiful!

We explored the paths for awhile.   

Note Hunter getting ready to chuck a big stick in the river.

This picture makes me laugh.  These two goofballs and their smiles, what am I going do?

A little better.

Hunter was getting tired and I thought we were going to have to carry him up the stairs.   We started him out and then all of sudden he shot up the stairs.  I couldn't have caught up to him if I wanted.   I barely made it myself and thankfully didn't have to carry anyone but myself!

Another great fall day.... gotta get out and enjoy them while they last!

My Kind of Fall

It has been a beautiful fall!  We've been doing as many outdoor activities as we can and trying to enjoy this nice weather while it last.    

We went to Klehm Arboretum last week.   I had never been with the kids and found out it was free on Monday's.   

It was such a nice day and we had so much fun exploring the gardens.

It's so kid friendly with a huge children's garden in the center of everything.

A huge hippo to find and climb thru... Hunter loved this!

We went with Madigan.  She wasn't as enthusiastic about climbing in the hippo and was most concerned about her boots getting dirty : )

We found "cow-a-flower" hiding in the secret garden.

There was also a huge maze and tower and the fish pond.

The kids loved the fish pond, we had to visit it a couple of times.

It was a beautiful, fun place.  Hoping we can visit one more time before the weather gets colder.