Halloween Activities

Rett wanted to be Batman for Halloween, but I didn't have any in his size in our dress up clothes, so I bought him a muscle one from Walmart. At first he really didn't want to put it on until I told him he could trick or treat in the pantry and get a candy. Then he was all for it!

James' school had a storybook parade for Halloween, each kid had to choose a book and write a proposal on what character they were going to be from the book and why. James wanted to be a police officer so we found a book that has a police officer in it for him to bring. His favorite part of the costume was the emergency whistle!

All the parents lined up in the parent pick up line while the different classes walked by in their costumes, holding their books. They were all so adorable! Some of the costumes were pretty creative too.

This is the principal at James' school. She was a convincing Alice from Alice in Wonderland and she was taking pictures and oohing and ahhing over everyone's costume.

Rett liked the costumes, but wasn't a fan of waiting for it all to start.

Three of the teachers had such a creative idea to be the fairies from Sleeping Beauty and they used pastel colored plastic tablecloths as their dresses. So cool!

We discovered a new corn maze this year. They had a hay fort, a tiny corn box, a hay ride, and duck races to play with once you were done with the maze. James and Rett loved the duck races so much they played with it before and after the maze.

Heading into the maze. James was the leader and would tell us what direction to go into. He started looking at the ground at the shoe prints for clues on which way to go. Then he would check the "spy drone" on his wrist (imaginary) and see if we were going in the right direction.

I told Rett to smile and he just opened his mouth wide. That works.

When it was time for the ward trunk and treat I asked Rett if he wanted to be Batman or a race car since I found a race car costume in the back of a closet. Rett yelled, "Batman racecar!!" So he went as both.

The hayride was full of kids so James and Rett went on it without us. I walked along for a little while because I wasn't sure if Rett would get too scared, but he was loving it!

After all the Halloween activities it was finally time for actual trick or treating. They both ended up with a lot of candy this year, it seemed like everyone would see them and say how cute they were and then put huge handfuls of candy into their buckets. James had to dump his out into a bag in the stroller several times throughout the night!

Once it got dark, we made our way back to our house and dropped off Rett and my mom. Then James, Anthony, and I got into the truck and drove to the spooky haunted house area of our neighborhood. It was awesome! At this house, once you made it past the decorations and the guy with a chainsaw to ring the doorbell this is who you got candy from:

There were a few houses that had haunted walkways through their front yard and we walked through a couple times. James was nervous, but said he liked it after we got through. Once we finally made it home it was hard to peel the kids away from their candy to get them ready for bed. Having Halloween on a school night is really hard! The next day Rett kept asking about going trick or treating, and he keeps asking every few days. Even now when we go to someone's house and ring the doorbell, Rett says "Candy?". I think he is going to have a hard time waiting until next year :)

End of October

My mom has taken up the hobby of riding motorcycles with a friend of hers from church. They rode into Daytona for Biktoberfest and stopped by the house so the boys could check out the bike. They loved it! James especially loved the helmet, he said it made him look like someone from Star Wars.

We took a trip to the bouncy house place and Rett actually loved it! Last time he was too scared to do much but this time he was all for it. He still wanted one of us to go with him everywhere, but it was progress!

Now that Rett is out of his crib, he has discovered that he can come out of his room when he is supposed to be sleeping. The first few times, he would come out slowly with his hands over his eyes, thinking that meant we couldn't see him. So cute!! This time he came out and sat down to see what we were doing and when we said, "Rett! You are supposed to be in your room!" He would immediately cover his eyes like this.

The library had a firefighter storytime so I went with Rett and a friend of ours from church. We don't usually do storytime because Rett isn't a fan of the songs or sitting still, but I figured he would like this. He didn't like waiting for his turn to check out the fire engine, he was picking up sticks and acorns and throwing them around, but other than that he liked it.

Sitting inside the fire truck. He has a bandaid on his his knee that you can see and a couple of others on the other leg. He is so clumsy!! He runs around everywhere now and will just trip and fall all the time, like he ran too fast for his coordination.

Taking a picture with the firefighter all suited up. They put on all their gear to show the kids they don't have to be scared if they see someone like this in their house. Good luck! It is a kind of scary outfit. Rett refused to go up to him.

Rett and Jade. They are 4 months apart, but Rett still calls her "Baby Jade".

Checking out the fire hydrant.

Anthony had a one day conference in Jacksonville so I went with him while my mom watched the boys. We stayed in the hotel the night before and since they had a late checkout, I had the entire room to myself while Anthony went to the conference. I could do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted! It was heaven!! The hotel was right on the river, this was the view. 

After staying in bed as long as I possibly could (when you get used to getting up so early it is hard to sleep in), I started looking on my phone for things nearby I could walk to. I found a website for this popular used bookstore so I decided to walk there. It was so cool! Rows and rows of books.

This entire row was children's books. I had so much fun looking through everything and finding some from our favorite authors.

My cute kid.

Trying to make a sad face at me.

Rett fell asleep on the couch, so James insisted on getting a picture of him. So cute!

Beginning of October

James got a hold of my phone and took a selfie!

I boiled some quail eggs just to see how I liked them. They taste exactly the same as regular eggs, but you can eat them in one bite!

We had a thunderstorm come through our neighborhood with unusually high winds (a few weeks before Hurricane Matthew) and it took down a few trees. Our neighbors across the street had a tree that just snapped.

Rett walked up to it and started trying to pick it up. He was grunting and pushing and then he said, "Too heavy!" I love that he thought he could do it.

I was so surprised that Rett fell asleep on the couch early one morning after taking James to school, so I took a picture of it. Then about 30 minutes later he woke up crying with a 102 degree fever and vomited everywhere. Poor baby! He was miserable for about 24 hours, but then he was fine. No one else got sick thank goodness!

During the thunderstorm, a small snake came up to our front porch and hid behind our screen door. Anthony caught it for James and put it in a spare aquarium (Of course!) I am planning to use him at our 11 year old scout day camp for animal identification and then let him go.

Some red okra from our garden. So big!

When Hurricane Matthew was projected to hit our area, we started to get a little nervous. Since we live so close to the beach, our neighborhood is in an evacuation zone (something you don't think about when you love living close to the water!). I wasn't too concerned about damage to our home, but I was worried about how crazy every one else in town was acting and what traffic would be like if they ordered mandatory evacuations. The hurricane was projected to hit late Thursday night and during the day Friday. James still had school Wednesday, so we decided to go to my brother's in Gainesville Wednesday night. School was canceled Thursday and Friday and Anthony's work closed for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. 

All during the day Wednesday I prepped the house, packed our bags, and cleaned everything. I don't know why, but somehow it just felt better leaving everything clean :) Our landlords had hurricane shutters in the garage that already had screws placed in the exterior walls of the house, so I pulled them all out, figured out which windows they went on and put them up. We took the tortoise and the cat with us, Anthony brought all his coral to a friend's house who had a generator for his tanks, and we put a tarp over the quail and gave them extra food and water.

It barely rained in Gainesville while we were there, so we spent our two days there trying to wear the boys out. We went to the natural history museum and checked out all the exhibits. It is such a cool place! Rett really was happy, I don't know why he made that face.

They have exhibits with different ecosystems that you walk through and there are all kinds of animals around you in the display. They look so life like! This rattlesnake was hiding in the cave section. James saw it and said, "Look! A diamond rattlesnake!" Anthony couldn't have been prouder that he knew that.

Checking out the microscopes.

They have a kids play area with all kinds of educational toys, so we played there for a little while.

Hands down James' favorite part about visiting Daniel was walking his dog Henry every chance he could get. Henry is an old dog and a basset hound, which makes him pretty low key. I think he got more exercise in the two days we were there then he has had in a long time! Henry weighs more than James, so a lot of times he would be pulling James around.

Rett figured out how to climb out of his pack and play, so it was really hard to keep him in bed at night. We didn't want him to wake up James, so if he was too loud we would let him come out in the living room with us. Usually his excuse for coming out is, "I hungry Mommy!" so I gave him some crackers. He took them to the stairs and was stretched out happily watching us. This kid is so cute, it is hard to be firm with him!

Friday a lot of places were closed for the hurricane, but we still needed to get out of the house or the kids would bounce off the walls! So we started driving around and ended up showing James places we lived and worked in Gainesville. We drove past the house I grew up in from age 5 to 14. I couldn't get over how much smaller it looked. All my memories of it are from when I was little, so I think of it as being so big. It was for sale, so we got a flyer to look at the pictures of the inside. James said, "Can you believe this house is free because it is on sale? We should live in it!" I wish!

Then we drove past the house I lived in from age 14 to when I went off to college. The owners have done a lot of work to the house, including putting in a spa type pool and redoing the barn. It looked so different to me!

There was a curfew in place for our county during the hurricane and you could get in big trouble if the police caught you driving around before 8am Saturday morning. So we decided to leave Gainesville early in the morning and get back home right after the curfew lifted. There were trees down all over the neighborhood and the city was working on clearing branches off of the streets, but our house and yard looked almost exactly how we left it! We just had to clean up some pinecones and branches that blew into our yard and sweep. The power didn't come back on for another 2 days, so it was hot inside the house. Plus, no power means no tv or netflix. Torture for parents of small kids :) They helped me sweep the driveway and ran around a little bit.

The schools were closed for two more days after that since it took so long for clean up and for the power to come back on, so James has had 5 hurricane days off of school this year! They are going to have to make them up at some point. I just hope they don't cut Christmas vacation short.

Since Rett learned how to climb out of his crib, we took it down and moved him to a mattress on the floor. I'm pretty sure his room will never be clean ever again :) After a night of sleeping on the crib mattress, I ordered him a twin size. My big guy looked so cramped on that small mattress!