Halloween and Santa pics

So I'm a little late posting, as usual. We took the boys trick-or-treating for the first time this year. We don't have a good neighborhood for trick-or-treating so we took them to the local shopping center where they collected plenty of goodies from the merchants. When we put the boys in the van to go home Brandon sobbed for his "bucket" of candy. Figuring that we only live 1 mile from the shopping center I decided it wouldn't hurt to let him hold his candy bucket for the super short drive home. Then I saw him in the rearview mirror gnawing at a tootsie roll bar like an animal. When we got to the house he had candy paper sticking to his chin with a clear hole chewed threw the wrapper. I was truly amazed at what candy fiends they turned into in such a short period of time. For 2 solid days they whined and sobbed for "more candy!" I was not a fan of Halloween during that time and that it might possibly be the most evil holiday ever invented.

Do we REALLY need to say "cheeeese" one more time?

For Thanksgiving we traveled to visit Bill's family. Here is a picture of Grandma with the boys on Thanksgiving night.

Then right after Thanksgiving Colin came down with croup (a viral infection that causes vocal cords to swell and potentially interfere with breathing). We kept both boys home from daycare for 4 days that week, and were hopeful that Brandon would somehow manage not to catch it. But then Brandon got sick too and he missed the entire next week of daycare. All I know is the next time one of them gets sick I will make sure they hug and kiss on each other, and even swap toothbrushes, on day 1 just so that we don't have sicknesses drag on for 2 weeks! They can be sick together and get it over with in 1 week.

Now everybody is healthy and we are gearing up for Christmas. Here are some pics I took of the boys the other night:

They also love to try on Daddy's glasses.




Yesterday evening we took the boys to the mall to see Santa. This required detailed planning, packing, and coordinating. So the night before I packed some wipes (to clean off any dirt or boogies from their face), a comb to tame their constant bed head, 2 clean shirts, snacks, etc. Then Bill picked them up from daycare and I met them in the mall parking lot where, like a well-trained tactical unit, we whisked them into the mall for their wardrobe change which required bribing them with plenty of snacks. Then we hustled to get in line to see Santa. Luckily there were only 2 other families in front of us. Below are the masterpiece pictures that we left the mall with.

Our next adventure will be acquiring and putting up a Christmas tree this weekend. But if there is one thing I've learned it is to keep my expectations low! And yes, we'll probably wrap a baby gate around our tree again this year.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

(Sorry for the double post. I wanted to fix a few typos and Blogger seems to always sent out a new post when I merely edit...)