Happy Halloween

 Apricot bugs

 Fruit Kebob swords

 Cupcakes the kids made during our Hurricane days

 The candy give away bucket which was the perfect amount this year. 

 Before they got dressed with our giant pumpkin

 Our jack-o-lantern pizza

 Pikachu the Pokemon and Soldier Aidan

 Nick wanted to make sure Daddy saw his tail

 The two soldiers. Can you tell who we miss this year?

 The boys with best friend and neighbor Caroline who is the main character in Brave.

 The pumpkins finally put back outside after the Hurricane.

 The little neighbor boy who was Thomas the Tank Engine.

 All the neighbor kids.

 Trick or Treating

The pumpkins all lit up!

Happy Halloween. We had a great night. Nick was the Pokemon Pikachu and Aidan was an Air Force soldier. Aidan begged me to dress up with him so I was a soldier too. Can you tell we miss Jeremy? We live in the best neighborhood to be a kid. So many people decorated their houses and everyone was out just hanging out in the streets having block parties. Our neighbors again put on this awesome FBI crime scene display where he laid in the body bag and scared kids all night. It was awesome. We had a huge potluck with the neighbors in our little pipestem and just hung out. I took the kids down most of the whole block and when Aidan got tired Mr. Chris took the big kids the rest of the way so we could come back. They got so much candy it is ridiculous. Nick has two full pumpkins of candy and they each had at least 10 full size candy bars. I will let them devour for a few days and then we are going to donate it somewhere because no one needs that much candy. Hope everyone had as much fun as we did.

Pumpkin Carving

Today we finally carved our pumpkins. We carved two and painted three of them. Caroline came over and helped paint one. Thankfully my Mom was here to help scoop out the guts because that is usually Jeremy's job. I hate that part of carving pumpkins. I don't mind doing all the cutting. Nick actually carved his own this year. The boys enjoyed all of it especially the painting. After Aidan was done I was commenting that his pumpkin was cute but a little crazy with the whacked out teeth and Nick said without skipping a beat that it fit Aidan perfectly because he is cute but a little crazy. We all had to laugh because well it is fairly accurate.

Aidan at Karate Graduation Night

For the last four weeks Aidan has been doing the introduction to Tae Kwon Do after school at his school. He has loved every second of it. Tonight they had their graduation performance where they showed off all they learned. They earned their uniforms and their first belt and got to break a board. He was so happy after he broke his board and you should have seen how excited he was to get his belt tied on. We decided to take advantage of the Springwoods student discount and sign up for once a week for at least the next 6 weeks. We will re-evaluate at that time. Here is a video of his board break and him getting his belt tied on for Daddy to see.

Aidan breaking his first board

Aidan getting his white belt

Nick's New Hair Cut

Nick and Aidan both got hair cuts yesterday. Nick is trying to grow his out so he now has this new do where it is spiked up in the front which he loves. He makes me spike it up with gel every morning. Afterwards, we went to Chick-Fil-A for their school's fundraiser night.

Sight Seeing with my Mom

Yesterday I took my Mom sight seeing. I was finally able to see some of the Memorials on the south end of the Mall. We saw the Jefferson Memorial, George Mason Memorial, Roosevelt Memorial, and Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. It was a gorgeous day to be walking around the tidal basin. The colors along the water were gorgeous and it was 83 degrees outside. The Roosevelt Memorial may be my new favorite Memorial. I loved the waterfalls and all of his quotes in the stones. It was so serene over there. He was a very wise man way ahead of his time. I didn't know he served so many terms as President either. Jefferson is also a powerful memorial as he has a lot of quotes in there that apply directly to our current day like how we should fear the day our society turns away from God. It is sad how integral a role religion played in our government in the early years and how now you get berated for even putting the two things in the same sentence. I love all the history in this area and every time I go I found out new things. Next up on the to do list is Arlington National Cemetery and The tomb of the Unknowns.