Halloween

Here are the boys on Halloween night. Rylan and Caden were not wanting to dress up but decided to be baseball players, a big surprise! Hudson had a fun day. At school, they had a fall festival with games and treats. He wore a soldier costume that he had picked out. (I forgot my camera for that event...bad mom moment.) After school, he changed into a spider-man costume. I guess that is one positive thing about having older brothers. Hudson had several choices of costumes in a box from previous years. He really thought it was fun to keep changing costumes all day. After the boys came home from school, we went to 'trunk or treat' at in our church's parking lot. There was a football game later that night, so we made our trick or treating quick! The boys wanted to get to the game and their dad was more than willing!














Patricia with Spider-Man Hudson and Spider-Man Brian




















Caden and Conner












Rylan, Wyatt and Tyler














Janet and Jerry with Hudson






























Kamille, Hudson and Caden chose to stay at home with me and trick or treat on our street. This ghost was in our neighbors yard. I was also excited to have trick or treaters come to our house. We didn't get that when we lived in the country!



























Earlier in the week, the boys had each carved a pumpkin. Here is Caden sitting by his and Rylan's down below. Hudson's somehow had been eaten by the dog!!

Pumpkin Patch Pics

I actually remembered this year to take the boys for pumpkin pics! That is an accomplishment for me these days, especially considering Ryan has been gone all week. Rylan and Caden are now old enough to realize this is a yearly event. They don't seem to show the same excitement about it as I do! This year was extra painful for them because I made them get haircuts on the way to the pumpkins! You can imagine the grief I received. Just having to change clothes and agree to smile was bad enough but adding a haircut on top of that was just asking to much! But, with a little bribery....all went well!

Yikes! Rylan is really growing up!

Sweet Caden!

Hudson was trying to be very agreeable with this situation but we just couldn't get him to hold a 'normal' smile! Notice the scratches and bruise on his head, one is from a golf club and the other from a football...boys!

A little better but still not quite right!


Did I mention I also took my niece and nephew? Yes, five kids for pictures! It was a bit challenging but after I gave up on getting the perfect pose, it became much more enjoyable! After all, God willing we will have years for 'perfect' poses but while they are this young...I just decided to love the crazy ones!

Cobe and Landry

Fall In New England

We recently went on a fall foliage cruise. We visited a few places in Canada and came back into the U.S. to visit Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York. The first thing we noticed on this trip is we were among the youngest on the boat by, let's say, 25 years! We definitely understand...it is hard to get away this time of year with school schedules! We were blessed to have Ryan's parents help us in this area. They stayed with the boys and carried on thier normal daily schedules, which was extremely helpful. Other than the market going WAY down while we were gone, our trip was very pleasant and a welcome break from daily life. We were able to stay one night in New York before getting on the ship. We visited a few of NY highlights and saw South Pacific.

From New York, we sailed all through the next day and night until we reached Halifax, Canada.We went on a double decker bus tour through the city. This photo to the right is in their public garden. After this tour, we took a bus to a beautiful fishing village called, Peggy's Cove. This is a picturesque village that has been in many famous paintings and photos with a 'lonely' lighthouse standing on the rocky shoreline. The photo below is of the village, followed by a photo of the lighthouse. We didn't get many photos of this lighthouse because it was freezing cold and windy!

Here is a sign warning about the rocky shoreline, cold water and slippery rocks you had to walk on to get close to the lighthouse. My hair was always in my face here. The wind was crazy!!

We left here and sailed to St. John's, Canada.
Here we took an all day tour to a small fishing village called St. John's. We were looking at the Bay of Fundy, which has the highest tides in the world. We also got to see some fall foliage here as we traveled away from the coastline a bit. To the right, the locals say this is the only place in the world where you can get to covered bridges in the same photo...interesting, huh???

Some of the fall colors we saw along the road back to St. John's. We were able to get some fairly good photos while on the bus. Even though Ryan made fun of me, my tendency to become motion sick gave us a front row seat on most buses!

On the shore along the Bay of Fundy, caves are carved by the waves of the high tide. Obviously, we were there at low tides. We walked in the caves. It was amazing to see the power of the sea.

Next, we headed back to the U.S. This was our favorite spot, Bar Harbor, Maine.

We toured Acadia National Park. It was very nice. We saw lots of beautiful leaves and interesting rocky coastlines.

My parents traveled with us on this trip. Here is a photo of them with our ship faintly in the background At this spot, we had stopped for fresh blueberry pie and coffee. We all agreed it was the best blueberry pie we had ever had!

Mom and I among some beautiful trees in Acadia National Park.

We left Maine and set sail for Boston. We took a city tour and then took the subway toward Fenway Park. Our boys had begged for souvenirs from Boston, specifically Boston Red Sox merchandise. I guess I am to 'new' of a fan to the sport of baseball to truly appreciate the greatness (as Ryan says) of Fenway Park.

Our last stop was Newport, Rhode Island. At this point, we were tired of tours and decided to venture through this city on our own. We found a place to eat that had great clam chowder and seven flat screens for Ryan to watch the t.u game. We found these little motorcycle type vehicles to rent. We drove around the mansions on the cliffs along the shoreline.

We ended the day back on the ship with this gorgeous sunset. We feel blessed to have had a safe trip, a good time with my parents and very thankful to Ryan's family for keeping the boys back home!

Hudson's 1st Kiss

I guess I need to mark it on my calendar or make a scrapbook page...not sure what to do with the information I received from my youngest today. I picked Hudson up from school today. Before we could get to our car, he told me he kissed Lauren. Who is Lauren was my first question, to which he replied, 'my girlfriend'. He has been saying he has three girlfriends at school, which just happens to be how many girls are in his class. However, apparently he has decided there is something special about Lauren. So, he tells me he kissed her on the head when they were playing in their room. It is what he said next that scared me the most....'and I liked it!' WHAT??? You are three! Oh my, we are in so much trouble with this one!

After we picked up the other two boys, I began asking them about their day. Luckily, kissing was not mentioned in their daily activities. Hudson took this opportunity to tell them about his day. Rylan and Caden just laughed and laughed. Then Rylan made a comment that scared me more than Hudson's comment, "and he told you that Mom?"
"Well, of coarse Rylan. That is just the sort of thing you share with your Mom," I said.

Oh my...I am not ready to be a mom!!!

We Survived!!

Well, it has been a few weeks since I posted about my anxieties surrounding Rylan's party which involved a sleepover. However, the good news is, we did more than survive. It was a wonderful time and I hope the boys all had fun too. They were a great group of boys! The evening included, backyard tackle football, bowling, pool, "doorbell ditching?", and lots of food and playstation. The most pleasant thing was truly the boys. I enjoyed each of them. It was fun to get to know Rylan's friends better. Here are some pics from the evening.

This was taken at the beginning, just before the tackling began. A few boys are missing in this picture.

Rylan wanted to have a pinata. I thought this was kind of silly b/c at this point anyone of those boys could have ripped into it with one swing. Ryan made it harder by pulling it up and down...made those boys mad!!








































Here is a late night shot in our playroom. Lot's of playstation action. Notice Caden in the picture below holding 'bunny ears' behind Caleb. That is pretty much how Caden participated in the evening but the older boys were so nice to put up with him!
















Some of the boys asked to go 'doorbell ditching' around 10:00. I laughed and remembered doing something similar when I was younger! I tried to tell them they would get caught...too many boys to hide! After a while, I remembered our friend across the street was out of town. Ryan had been house sitting for him. I finally gave in to their request. The rest of the story went like this.

"Ok boys, one house only! But I have to warn you he is a grumpy old man. If he sees you, he WILL yell at you."

'Ok Ok. We won't get caught. We promise (as they jump up and down with excitement).'

The boys begin to make their plan, who will ring the doorbell, who will hold our backyard gate open, who will be the watchman, who is to scared to go, etc. :) I decide to position myself outside #1 to get a good laugh and #2 to make sure they only went to this one house. They ran across the street and rang the doorbell. Then they took off as fast as they could into our backyard.

"Oh my!! Did you see his lights come on?" "I heard footsteps!" "I think he is coming outside." "Hurry close the gate!" (remember there was really no one home!)

"Boys, you better get inside and stay there until morning."

"You are right, Mrs.Reagan!" And in they went for the rest of the night!!

I did explain our adventure to several of the parents as they picked up the boys. They laughed!! Most said, oh I remember doing that when I was young!

Happy 9th Birthday, Rylan! We love you and thank God for you each day!

Thoughts From Caden

I am writing this to mostly remind myself how funny kids can be at times! Over the weekend Caden began a conversation about recipes. Out of the blew, he asks me if I thought Wendy's would share their SQUARE hamburger recipe with him because he really likes them best. I told him probably not. He then stated, "well why not? Are they afraid I will open a store and sell square hamburgers too?" In which I stated, probably so. Caden then reminded me about one day last year at school when he asked one of the cafeteria workers for their recipe for chicken rings. He said the lady at school just stared at him. "Why don't people share their recipes with me?, he asked. "I just want eat too!"

Got to love him!!! If we had to pick one...Caden would be the one who usually makes us laugh!

I Seem To Be The Mother of A 9 Year Old!!

I used to love planning birthday parties when the boys were smaller. It used to drive Ryan crazy, the time and money it took! But, it seems the last few years, the type of parties they want have changed. They no longer want the cute invitations and bounce house type events. Last year we offered Rylan $100 if he agreed to not have a big party but have only a few (3) friends over for a camp out. He thought that was the greatest thing ever! Ryan thought so too, MUCH cheaper and less clean up! Someday, Rylan will realize he really didn't get the best side of that deal but at 8 that $100 bill looked really GOOD! So, I find myself here again. Rylan's birthday was actually last weekend. He is begging to have a sleepover ( the previous 1-2 hour parties are not suitable anymore). Somehow, I agreed and Ryan thinks I am crazy. Is this what 9 year olds do, I keep asking myself? He asked to invite 10 boys. Since, he is the oldest, I haven't had the 'honor' of hosting this before, I (at that moment) thought 10 seemed reasonable...that was on Tuesday. Today it is Thursday and I am wondering if I can plea insanity and get out of this sleepover with 11 (we had to add one) 9 and 10 year olds plus our other two. That makes 13 BOYS!! YIKES!! Anyone care to join us? Friends and family who read this, please do not get your feelings hurt b/c you were not sent an invitation but instead, rejoice! We are NOT inviting you because we truly want to remain friends with you! :) I have asked some of my other friends, who have older children for advice on what to do with them all night. Most have replied, how many did you say? So far the advice I have received is this: lock them in the backyard, keep feeding them, set a bedtime of 10PM, make your house seemed 'spooked' so several get scared and ask to go home, make them swim for the first 4 hours. Well, I am going with the 2nd piece of advice...feed them! I went to Wal-Mart today. Here is a list of the food I purchased for the army of boys coming over: 20 hamburger patties, 16 hotdogs, 3 gallons of milk, 5 bags of chips, large box of rice krispie treats, cookie dough to make 4 dozen chocolate chip cookies, ice cream and cones, popcorn, candy (for the pinata), chex mix, goldfish, apple slices (sure they will go for that), sunny D drinks, capri sun drinks, small cans of various soft drinks, water bottles, and finally an adapter so 5 kids, instead of 2 can play on the playstation at one time! Wish us luck! We definitely need it!