Halloween

Today the focus was just enjoying Halloween together. Phil got in super late last night so we were just really glad to have the time together.
We've been waiting to carve our pumpkins until Daddy came home.
Daddy had to help with Joshua's. Still not quite coordinated enough.
Jeremiah drawing his design on his pumpkin.

Finally after dinner it was time to get dressed up and hit the road. Joshua was Spiderman and Jeremiah a pirate. He did still change his mind 3 times just today on what he wanted to dress up as. Unfortunately for him Mommy doesn't have any spare dragon costumes just laying around.
It was over 80 degrees here today. Weird, I know. Joshua was especially sweaty from his little mask. Nevertheless, the candy was still totally worth it.
I'm pretty sure Jeremiah ate his entire weight in candy tonight. Tomorrow is when candy moderation begins. I figure they can have one night.
Our pumpkins. In order they are: Jeremiah, Joshua, Phil and me. Mine was the pumpkin Joshua picked out on his school field trip that he then decided he didn't want to the be the one to carve. Both of the boys are hand drawn. Jeremiah said his looked scary. Josh was focused on shapes this year. Phil did his freehand. I am majorly impressed! His candle just wasn't cooperating when I took the picture. Mine... well... I did whatever the pumpkin would let me and worked hard at it! The pumpkin had the toughest skin I've ever cut through. The booger hanging out it's nose is my way of getting revenge.
So goodnight, Halloween. We enjoyed you a lot! Until next year!

A Drive

Today I was feeling impatient waiting for the night to come around when Phil would be home. I'm still impatient, but a drive out to Pungo (the country part of Virginia Beach) helped a lot!
We had no plan of where to go. Just drove around looking at interesting things. This is a great time of year to do that!
Completely on accident we found this educational little gem.
It's a 1 room schoolhouse from 1915. It was an elementary school in Virginia Beach for "black students." This lead to a really interesting conversation between Joshua and myself about how people used to think there were differences between people just because the color their skin happened to be. They were wrong, but it took them a long time to figure that out. Joshua got it, I think since he corrected me in saying that they're actually brown, not black.

The windows are barely doing their job of keeping out the elements, but I was able to sneak a couple pictures through them.

Then we stopped by a farm stand. We had visited this one to pick strawberries in the spring. It wasn't manned, but you could pick up things on the honor system. We got some potatoes, apples and flowers. I love locally grown produce! This is dried okra (intended for decoration).



The best part of our whole adventure this afternoon: the sandbox. It wasn't a box at all really. Just an area of sand with all sorts of toys for the boys to play with. I'm pretty sure they played for over an hour and still didn't want to leave.
What is it about sand mixed with toys? Nothing else holds their interest for nearly as long!
The boys helped me pick some flowers and then I dragged them back home. Maybe we'll be able to make it back again sometime before winter kicks in. It was a perfect afternoon!

Leaf Collecting

Last night we went leaf collecting. About 1/2 a mile away is a beautiful patch of trees. Nothing extraordinary about them until this time of year when they turn all sorts of beautiful colors. We went to go take some to bring home with us.
For Joshua this was a time to talk about seasons. With a little help he identified all four and we talked about the weather during the seasons as well.
For Jeremiah this was a lesson in color identification. He found yellow, green, orange and red leaves. Some of the colors were hard to identify because they were a blend of several.


Overall we just had a really good time. We were maybe gone for 45 minutes from the house with the walk and the time spent there, but it was all our favorite time of the day. We all were still laughing when we were walking home.

My Latest Project

Last night I had some very weird dreams. I'll save you the unfortunate details, but all in all it made me realize just how little we've done to this house since we've moved in... even though so many things had irritated me beyond belief. One of those things was the bathroom flooring. Both bathrooms were awful, but mostly the spare bathroom. Rosy colored rose diamonds? Really did not go with our pirate theme in there! Here is what it looked like when we first moved in. It's the first bathroom you see. I know the flooring isn't really clear. I was probably trying to hide it from pure embarrassment.
So today I picked up some ridiculously inexpensive linoleum floor tiles. I tore up the old ones and magically found what has been making an irritating odor in our bathroom since we moved in. Moisture and mold under the tiles that were already there. At my brothers advice I've had a fan in there all day. I'll put a space heater in tonight and hopefully tomorrow it will be nice and dry so I can finish up my project and get a wax seal on it.
This isn't how we'd like it to permanently end up looking, but I'm feeling a lot better about it then I did when it had roses all over.

Fall Things

With the coming of Halloween bring all sorts of Fall festivals and fall-based fun. Fall is one of my favorite seasons, I'll admit. Unfortunately our weather here this season has been a bit bi-polar. Early this week I reluctantly turned on the heater after just having had the A/C on the week before and now we're back to running the A/C again. In spite of that, we're trying to get out and enjoy the seasons festivities.
Last night was the fall festival at Joshua's school.
The face painting was the highlight for sure!
Josh tried the cake walk but unfortunately didn't get to bring one home. It all worked out, though, since I just took a cake out of the oven anyway.
Then today we went to Hunt Club Farm. It was good fun for the four of us to get out and enjoy the warmer weather today.
This is Jeremiah up on a playset being a pirate.
For some reason it was next to impossible to get both boys with faces and eyes both pointed toward the camera, so yes, this is as good as it gets.
They had this huge stack of hay to play in. It was our favorite part I think. Good clean fun. Hard to break hay and hard to break yourself with it either. Every time you fall you're greeted with a nice soft pile of hay.
Josh was jumping and rolling down it. Jeremiah was a bit more hesitant. Finally got him to take the risk.
Not so easy to convince them to smile when they're sweaty and worn out from playing on a huge pile of hay either.
We were able to take a hay ride as well, which was pretty fun.
We even picked up a couple more pumpkins so we could all have our own.
With the weather (theoretically) gradually cooling off, all the leaves changing color and all this fun stuff to do how could anyone not love this season??

Joshua's Emotions

I figure it's probably alright for me to blog about this now since it will be completely off limits 10 or so years from now. Joshua is getting quite in touch with his emotions lately. Most importantly, he's come to realize that him feeling specific feelings can affect his parents. Maybe if Mommy sees that I'm really sad about a decision she's made she'll change her mind.
Tonight it came to a pretty hillarious pinnacle. I honestly don't even remember what it was that made him upset. Maybe I wouldn't play Candyland with him for the 4th day in a row. Not sure. What I do remember vividly was Joshua walking into the room looking pretty much like this:
I had watched a show or read an article at some point about kids and emotions and how girls seem to be much more naturally attuned to other people's emotions. They suggested talking with boys about it to try and give them a bit more of an advantage in this department. I found this little tool when we were at Disneyworld and every now and then the boys change it but usually it stays in it's place at "happy."
Joshua had gone into the kitchen and grabbed his tool hoping to more successfully communicate what he was feeling (as if the pink eyes and big lip weren't enough). It didn't exactly have the affect he was looking for. I cracked up laughing and grabbed the camera. Not my best mothering moment, I know. I think I made up for it later, though...
No, this wasn't a reward for his pouting earlier. I had to take this picture because a while later when I decided to give the boys a treat before bath and bed, Josh grabbed his magnet again to adjust it.

Oceana Air Show

This weekend was the Oceana Air Show here. Despite the unseasonal cold weather we had a good time. Riverine Squadron 1 was there with a couple boats (with big guns included). The boys had a good time seeing Daddy's work boats and I'm pretty sure Daddy had a good time showing them off.
Josh got the idea of the scope on his own. This worries me a little.
These are my guys and I love them so much. Can you blame me?
Josh driving...
Jeremiah shooting. Bad guys beware!!
Believe it or not, there was some other stuff there as well, though not nearly as interesting, in my opinion.
And thus begins the story of the lollipop. The gracious and giving USO had a booth there with lollipops. The boys were hungry and Phil was off getting coffee. Sounds like a good way to pacify them for the time being. It was a good idea to start with. They both really enjoyed them.
Jeremiah finished his first. Jeremiah milked his along till barely anything was left (in front of the Air Force Mustang).
Then somewhere around here he dropped it. He, of course, wanted to just wipe it off, but the idea of that just grossed me out. So we threw it away.
(This is Jeremiah saying "CHEEEEEEEEEESE!")
And thus ensue the pouting...
(with the Blue Angels in the background).
He did eventually start to get over it. Here the boys are in a very cool helicopter. Josh missed the magic of it, though.
We really did have a good time and brought a few free fun things home as well. Funny part of that is their favorite thing they brought home: a balloon. No helium. Not blown up or anything. Doesn't take much, I suppose.