a spooktacular day.

What a fun-filled day we had this year for Halloween. It started off with Lincoln wearing his Darth Vader costume to school. We headed to the school to watch the kids parade in their costumes which was super cute. We spent the afternoon gutting and carving pumpkins. See the masterpieces below. We then ate a quick dinner while listening to Lincoln ask if it was time to start trick-or-treating every two minutes. He was super excited.

Beer Man made an appearance again this year. Cassidy kept saying, "Dad's gonna beer up!"  And he did.  He even won a prize at one of the neighborhood houses!  Below you can see Beer Man, Darth Vader, and SuperWhy ready for action.

Here are Lincoln and Cassidy gathering loot.  It seriously took about 1/2 hour for Cassie to even be willing to go up to people's doors and put her bucket out. Once she finally understood that she was going to get candy she decided that most houses were worth walking to the door for.

Cassidy's kitty pumpkin and Lincoln's Angry Bird pumpkin (props to Matt for doing this one).

Matt's Frankenstein pumpkin.

A superhero closeup.

Lincoln showing off his goodies.

And Cassidy excited about her goodies.

If you can't get enough of the Halloween pics, you can see more here:  Halloween 2011.

angry birds.

So Lincoln really wanted to be an Angry Bird for Halloween this year. He got started playing it on Matt's phone and we now have "Angry Bird Wednesday" in our house. Wednesday is the day Linc gets to play if he's had good behavior.

We looked around for a kids costume but they were pretty hard to come by, were fairly expensive, and I think weren't really sold in a size small enough for him. He ended up agreeing to be something else for Halloween, which you'll see when I post Halloween pictures in a few days.

He did want me to share a pic of himself and his little Angry Bird key chain, which he likes to keep on his backpack.

Ahh...fads...

leaves, leaves, leaves

Who doesn't love playing in the fallen leaves? 

We raked all of our leaves into a big pile under the tree swing so that proved lots of fun for the kids.

YiaYia, Papou, Linc & Cassie.  The kids have ammo in their hands in this pic!

Me and my babies.

Lincoln and "Pillow".  Seriously, this is Lincoln's best friend. He talks (in the most high-pitched, annoying voice imaginable). His mouth is the corner of the pillow and he really has quite a personality.  We've banished him to Lincoln's bedroom, but I allowed him to come out and play with Linc one afternoon so I had to snap a pic of Pillow having fun on the swing.  I think Linc took him for rides on his Razor scooter as well.

Happy Fall!

pumpkin patch.

My parents came to visit for my birthday weekend and we spent one day doing one of my favorite fall activities -- visiting a local pumpkin farm. The day was unseasonably warm (80 degrees on October 8th!).  We had a great time taking a hayride out to the pumpkin patch, eating cider and donuts, playing in corn, running through hay and corn mazes, etc.

Here are my mom and dad as well as Matt and Cassie on the hayride.

Big brother and little sister surveying the pumpkin field.

YiaYia, Papou, and Cass with our pumpkins.

Father and son - a couple of true Detroit/Michigan fans.

More pics from Stade's Farm are here: Stade's Farm

are you ready for some football?

Lincoln played his first organized sport this fall -- flag football. He was in a league of 5- and 6-year-olds. It was a super fun time. The coaches were two very kind and patient dads and the boys really started learning the ropes on the football field as the season progressed.

Here is the team at the end of their first practice. They named themselves the Blue Sharks since they had blue team t-shirts.  GOOOO Sharks!

Here is Linc getting ready to hike the ball.

Kickoff!

Good game, good game, good game.

Lincoln is a pretty fast runner and he worked hard trying to get flags all season. He finally had success in his last game, getting two flags and scoring a touchdown. Great way to end the season. To check out more pics from the season, go here: Flag Football

He proudly displays his team picture and trophy on his dresser and has said that he can't wait to play again next year.

kindergarten!

Lincoln officially started school in August this year. He's in a.m. Kindergarten and loves taking the bus to school. Here he is on his first day.

A Lions fan through and through.

Here is Cassidy proudly greeting her big brother at the bus stop after school. 

park exploration.

While Matt's mom was here in mid-August we also visited some of the local parks. Here there are on the spider web.

Here are dad and Cass enjoying the slide!

And Dad and Linc doing some running on the soccer fields. 

 A couple of cute ones of Lincoln up high on the spider web.

While our taxes here are astronomical, at least we do see where some of the money is going -- we have tons of great parks in the area and we utilize them a lot with the kids.

Kohl Children's Museum

We visited the Kohl Children's Museum with the kids and with Matt's mom in August. What a fun place! It was like a mini city for the kids to explore with a grocery store, library, auto shop, sandwich shop, vet clinic, doctor's office, science room, music room, etc. Super fun!


Here's Linc racing cars in the auto shop. 

And here is Dr. Gough working in the nursery.

You can check out all of the pics here: Kohl Children's Museum