Living up to her name

There's a reason we call her Becca the wrecker.

Exhibit A: While most people put the silverware away when emptying the dishwasher, it's apparently much more fun to take it all out of the drawer and put it on the counter:

Exhibit B: Helping to make Ernie's coffee in the morning:

Exhibit C: Yes, this would be the wallpaper in our dining room. However, as luck would have it, we have never liked that wallpaper and have been planning to take it down since we moved in 4 years ago. Thanks to Becca, this project will be moved up on the to-do list.

Halloween

Here are some pictures of Samuel and Becca from Halloween last week:

Both kids loved trick-or-treating. Becca understood a lot more than last year, and was thrilled to walk up to each door and get candy. In between houses, I put her in the stroller and she did her best to eat a lollipop right through the wrapper.

Flashback: here's Samuel wearing the same lion costume a few years ago:

Sam 10

There is a cartoon that Samuel loves called Ben 10. Ernie found it for him a long time ago, and he has been watching it every morning since. I think it must be very popular with boys this age because I see tons of Ben 10 stuff at the store (including in the Halloween costume aisle this year), and last year our neighbor had a Ben 10 birthday party when he turned 5. By far, Samuel's most played with toy from last Christmas here is a Ben 10 watch called the omnitrix. In the show, Ben 10 uses this watch to turn into different aliens. (can you tell I know WAY more about Ben 10 than I ever wanted to?)

Last week Samuel found an old t-shirt and painted it to look like Ben 10. He painted the shirt entirely by himself. Here he is:

And here is a drawing he made recently of Ben 10:

Becca, by the way, does NOT like Ben 10. Every morning when it comes on, she says hopefully, "Ben 10 done?" about 20 times before it is actually done. My thoughts exactly, Becca. Apparently it is a show only boys like.





(as a side note, blogger's spellcheck just wanted to change omnitrix to dominatrix. That would be QUITE a different cartoon, I think.)

Been Boo-ed?

There's a fun thing going on in our neighborhood right now. It's like a secret santa, except it's for Halloween so it's called Been Boo-ed. Someone left us a bag of Halloween goodies on our porch (we have no idea who it was.) Along with the treats, there was a note saying we needed to then make up bags for 2 other neighbors and deliver them in secret. There was also a ghost picture to put in our window to show we have been boo-ed so we don't end up with another treat bag (although I doubt Samuel would mind that!).

Samuel is at a really fun age for stuff like this right now, so he could not wait to give out our bags. I let him choose which people we gave the bags to, and he chose his 2 most favorite girls from school.

Here is the stuff we put in our bags (all from the Dollar Store):

Here's a bag all ready to go:

 

Here is Samuel delivering the first bag. We did not have to be very sneaky at this house since we knew they weren't home:

 

Here he is walking up the 2nd house, where the people were definitely home:

Delivering the bag as quietly as possible:

After he dropped off the bag, he ran back to me, laughing hysterically. I didn't get a picture of that part because we wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible so we were not discovered.

There are still a few weeks until Halloween, so if you want to start something like this in your neighborhood, the website is Been Boo-ed. We had a great time!

Two!

Becca turned 2 this weekend! We had a MUCH smaller party for her than the big one we had for Samuel the week before (sorry Becca-in-the-future, if you are reading this, your brother's party just took way too much out of us.)

Here are some pictures of my birthday girl at her little family party. The dollhouse is an awesome garage sale find for $10. It came with tons of people and furniture and everything! And it folds up when you are not playing with it so it doesn't take up lots of room! And the refrigerator really opens! And I'm thinking maybe I should look for one for MYSELF at a garage sale :)

(pictured in the background of that last picture: jealous older brother sulking in corner, who apparently forgot he received approximately 1 million new toys from friends at his party just one week before.)

Here's a little video of her eating cake and playing with one of the toys from the dollhouse that plays a song:

Seriously, could she be any cuter?

Ka-chow!

(Fair warning: this is a very picture-intensive post)

Samuel had his 6th birthday party this weekend at our house. We had a Lightning McQueen theme since he has loved the movie Cars for years now. It was really easy to find toys/decorations for the party - I just went through the playroom and took out all of the Cars things we have acquired over the last few years.

The invitation:

 

Samuel and Becca checking out some balloons before the party started:

Samuel in front of of the decorate-your-own-cupcake table. He wanted that instead of a cake this year, and not only was it a LOT easier to prepare, but the kids had a ton of fun.

We made some cardboard race cars, using 3 of the cars from the movie as inspiration. Here are Lightning McQueen, Chick Hicks, and the King. 

Each party guest got his own driver's license, since we were going with a driving/race car theme:

In the movie, Lightning McQueen ruins the road in Radiator Springs and has to make a new one, so one of the games the kids did was to put together a cardboard road puzzle:

Decorating cupcakes:

 

Racing in the cardboard race cars:

 

 

 

We also did an obstacle course in the backyard and colored wooden race cars (thank you Oriental Trading Company - they have awesome stuff for birthday parties!) but I didn't get pictures of either of those things. The kids all seemed to have a great time!

Splish Splash

Here are the kids having fun in the bath this week:



Cast off!

Samuel got his cast off last week. His arm healed just fine. Our weather even cooperated enough to be super hot one afternoon so he could go swimming at the pool one last day before it closed for the season. He is very happy to be done with the cast, although he did keep the shell of it as a souvenir. We made sure to rip out all of the lining inside the cast and throw it away because it was disgusting. Having never had a cast myself, I didn't realize how icky it would be when they took it off. Trying to have a 5-year-old kid in the summer keep his cast clean and dry was quite a challenge. We are all glad he is done with the cast now!

 

Note to Self: Add Band-aids to the Shopping List

As you can see below, Becca has recently discovered that she loves band-aids. She can go through a box in no time flat!

Kindergarten

School started here on Monday. Samuel is going to morning Kindergarten this year. He gets to ride the bus, which he is super excited about. In fact, I think he is more excited about the bus than actual school.

We visited his classroom last week to meet his teacher and check the room out. Here he is hanging out in his locker:



The first morning:



Waiting for the bus. (Becca was quite upset that she did not get to go on the bus, too. She kept saying "Becca go school bus! Becca go school bus" after it pulled away.





To celebrate the first day of school we went out for ice cream at a new place here called Spoonz. They let you fill up the container (which you can see is about the size of Becca's head!) yourself and then add toppings yourself:



So far the first 2 days of school have been good for Samuel, but the nights have been hard. He keeps waking up and then not being able to fall back asleep. I think his mind is so full of all of the new things he is seeing and doing that he just can't relax. Hopefully that sorts itself out soon. If anyone has any suggestions on how to make sleep easier right now, it would be very much appreciated!