Happy 19 months!

Daisy is 19 months today! She is such a bundle of love and ridiculously happy most of the time! She squeals with delight when she sees cats, loves her Pinky, is such a good helper to me, showing more and more independence every day.. I just know she is going to be a GREAT big sister!!

Pumpkins!

Tonight was pumpkin carving night! Ben was super duper excited, ate all his dinner & a special Halloween treat cupcake, and helped draw faces on a couple. Definitely the first year for him to be so involved, helping me cut with his safety knife. Daisy was quite content to have a pumpkin & a washable marker!

They were bouncing around like monkeys, didn't have time to play
with any settings on my camera! At least they weren't fighting :)

Voila! The gang of pumpkins.. Ben drew faces on the big one at the back (left) and the back right one. Since we had 5 white pumpkins from our garden, we did a "family"! The back middle is Mike, front row is Daisy, Ben, Jack and then me.. that is how I feel at the end of most days LOL!

Sleepy heads

I love checking on the kids when we go to bed, see what kind of shenanigans they have gotten in to :) Limbs out of crib, hanging off of bed, how many stuffed animals they have snuck in..

Ben snuck in the GIANT Mumble (from Happy Feet). My sister gave that to him three years ago, and he still loves it. Lately, he wants to sleep with it.

Pardon the shadow.. was trying to be quick (and sneaky!) as she is a bit more sensitive to the camera sounds & flash than Ben. You can tell Daisy loves her stuffed toys as well...

Sideways. But I love the hand on Spiderman. Sadly, right now Teddy (top right) is MIA in the house. SOMEWHERE. We have looked everywhere. I am heartbroken for him as this is his FAVOURITE. Has had it forever, but he is being really good, considering. I hope we find him!

Faces

Since Ben started pre-school, not even a month ago, his creativity has gone through the roof! I mean, if you know the kid, you know he has QUITE the imagination. But it has never been put to paper, so to speak. Anyways, since being in "school" he draws happy faces EVERYWHERE. On the truck in the morning when it's covered in dew, the window (by breathing on it to make it foggy!), the magna-doodle, you name it.

Here are a few :)

This one he named, Happy Boy in a Cave.

He now adds mustaches, like this one. Sometimes they even get eyebrows!

I love how he makes the eyes so wide-set. And the nose at the top!
He said this one is frustrated.

Pre-school Pumpkin Patch Field Trip

This morning we met up with Ben's pre-school for their first field trip — to the pumpkin patch! The weather was great, lots of pumpkins & the ground was DRY! Ben got to pick one out, as big as he could carry. Limited it to one, as we have SEVEN from our garden. Lots of carving this year!

Snack time in the tee-pee's!

Mmm.. timbits & apple juice!

The class!

Arrrrgh! A Pirate Party!

Saturday was Ben's 4th birthday party — A pirate party! We had a lot of fun.. the kids were so well behaved (still in shock at how smoothly it all went!). I can only hope for more parties like this in the future!

Goodie bags.. full of booty :)

We picked up this awesome paper pirate ship at Papyrus when we were in Seattle. So fun!

Pirate cupcakes!

All the kids sat so nicely at the table, eating lunch.

Lighting candles on cake.. you can kinda see how round I am :P

Argh! The pirate cake!

I don't know what she was doing/saying, but the look on her face is priceless.

Gift-opening pics are boring, but this one made me laugh.
A pirate lover has got to have a pirate raincoat!