Halloween 2012

Our Halloween fun started the weekend before Halloween when we headed to the pumpkin patch!  I have been wanting to take Kyler to a pumpkin patch the last couple of years, and we just haven't done it, and I knew this year Norah would be old enough to enjoy it too, so we picked a Saturday and went! We went to the one just north of Waverly.  It was a cool morning but we had a great time.  We got there right when it opened, so there weren't that many people there yet.  Here are some pictures from our trip to the pumpkin patch!

Kyler, Norah, and Daddy in the truck!

Norah driving the tractor!

Kyler taking a turn!

Checking out the ducks

I don't know if you can see, but Kyler is over to the left and there are four turkeys over to the right that he was chasing, it was pretty funny.

On the "Haunted Path", it was just fine until the end...

Riding a horse in the animal barn, Kyler had a great time on here!

This huge bird was "talking" to us the whole time the kids were riding their "horses", I was afraid it was going to come after us!

Going down the slide!

Having fun on the tire horse!

Norah taking a swing

We had a great time at the pumpkin patch.  It was just the right size for our kids, older kids would be bored I think, but it was perfect for Kyler and Norah, we hope to visit again next year!

I don't have any pictures from this, but the Sunday before Halloween we went to Bethany Bible Chapel again this year for their Western Town Trick-or-Treating.  We did this last year with the Reisetters, and even though they weren't able to go with us this year, we still headed over.  It's really neat because in the gym at Bethany, they have all these cardboard store fronts set up like a western town.  People are then dressed up like the person at the store, a teacher at the school, a sheriff at the police station, a conductor in the train, etc.  The people at the store then hand out candy as you walk by.  It's great because it's all inside and perfect for little kids.  

The night before Halloween, we decided to carve our pumpkins!  I think this is the first time we have carved pumpkins with Kyler.....we have bought pumpkins, but I don't think we have actually ever carved them until this year. :)  Kyler really wanted to do a Twins pumpkin, which Erik was all about, and I really wanted a "face" pumpkin.  Well the Twins one took a little longer than we expected and so that is the only one we ends up doing.  The kids were interested at first, but after about 5 minutes, it was Erik by himself. :)  Here are some pictures of our pumpkin carving extravaganza!

Norah checking out the inside

Watching closely...

Norah sticking her hand in...

Working on cutting out the design...

Almost done :)

Here she is!

All lit up!

Our pumpkin!!!

Halloween morning we decided to paint some of the miniature pumpkins that we grew in our garden this summer!!  We had quite the crop, probably 10-12 pumpkins total, so I thought this would be a fun activity for the kids to do!  Kyler and Norah each painted two pumpkins.  Norah thought that the "stick" end of the paint brush worked better than the "brush" end. :)  

Kyler working on his pumpkin

Norah concentrating hard....

Using the "other" end :)

The kids took naps in the afternoon, and then as soon as they got up, we got them dressed in their costumes to take a few pictures and make a couple of stops before real trick-or-treating started.

Miss Norah the Kitty Cat!

Kyler the Tiger and Norah the Kitty!

My two cute Cats!

Our first stop was at Henry and Geneva's house!  (Geneva babysat me when I was little).  

Kyler and Henry

Norah and Geneva

Everyone!

After Henry and Geneva's, we stopped by Erik's parent's house to trick-or-treat there and show them our costumes.  I don't have any pictures from this stop.  After Erik's parent's, we came home and had a quick dinner, handed out some candy while we ate, and then headed out to trick-or-treat on our street.  We went up and down our block, and then loaded up in the van to head to my parent's house for our last stop of the night.  Here are a couple pictures from my parent's house:

Miss Kitty in her chair :)

Kyler and Uncle Ben

We had a fun Halloween with all the different activities we did.  Kyler really understood what Halloween was this year and is already taking about what he wants to be next year.  Norah caught on quickly and loved wearing her Kitty costume.  If she sees her costume she says "Kitty, on!" because she wants to put it on again.  Both Kyler and Norah collected quite the bag of goodies, and have enjoyed eating them for dessert.  We hope your Halloween was as fun as ours!

Kyler is 3 1/2!

Since I still do monthly "updates" for Norah, I thought I should do one for our big man Kyler!  Kyler turned 3 1/2 on October 12th!  We are now on our way to being 4 years old, and I can't believe it!  Kyler is fully potty trained and wakes up from naps and nighttime completely dry, but I haven't been convinced to let him sleep in underwear yet. :)  Kyler still loves trucks and big machienes.  He could spend hours and hours in the sandbox playing with his cement mixers, bulldozers, and dump trucks.  Since they have been re-doing another part of 18th street again this summer, we have spent many mornings watching them work on the road.  I'm not sure what we are going to do when there is no more road construction! :)  Kyler also loves baseball.  Erik is turning him into a Twins fan, but since Erik brought him back a LA Los Angelas hat from California, he now likes that team too. :)  Kyler loves to play baseball in the back yard, and now wants us to pitch him the ball instead of hit it off the tee.  He also really likes to watch the move "The Sandlot", and wants a pair of PF Flyers so that he can jump over the fence and get baseballs like Bennie in the move. :)  Another favorite thing of Kyler's are his trains.  We have lots of different trains, and he knows all of their names.  He loves to build a track and then drive his trains around the track, until Norah comes and destroys it.  Kyler also still really likes his Cars Guys (aka, his die cast Cars and Cars 2 movie cars).  It is not uncommon for him to take one or two of them with him to church or other places.  Kyler also really enjoys building things.  He really wants to help Erik work on the basement, but sometimes that doesn't work out so well.  

Kyler does great with counting things.  He can do great from about 1-20, but sometimes misses a couple numbers in the teens.  He also does pretty well with the alphabet and is recognizing more and more letters.  Most stories that are in the past usually start out with "last night", even if it just happened earlier that day, but he is starting to do better at using other past tense phrases.  He has a great memory and remembers many different details from things he did or places he went.  Kyler still takes a nap most days.  He can get by without a nap, but you can tell by his attitude if he doesn't take one. :)  He really enjoys playing with Norah and other kids.  He often asks if Norah can come in and play with him.  If she doesn't listen to him, he comes and asks me if Norah can come play with him. :)  He also likes playing with his buddy Ayden and is often "calling" him on a pretend phone to see if he can come play.  Kyler is enjoying preschool more and more, and I am sure it is because he has gotten to know some of the kids in his class.  Here are some pictures of our 3 1/2 year old!    

  

Showing off his excavator!

Trying on our winter coats!

Swinging in the new swing!

Having a s'more!  Since they had s'mores in The Sandlot, Kyler had been asking to have one, so one evening we had a fire and roasted s'mores!

Enjoying the fire!

One of his many train tracks :)

The Chicago Marathon 2012

Back in February, Erik and I signed up to run the Chicago Marathon.  We had been thinking about running a marathon, and decided this was a good time to do it.  Both kids are fairly young, but still pretty self-sufficient.  We had thought about doing the Twin Cities Marathon in Minneapolis, but my brother really wanted to do Chicago, and since we needed my parents to come along and watch Kyler and Norah, we ended up deciding to do Chicago.  My parents had actually run Chicago about seven years ago and Erik, Ben, and I had gone along to watch, so we kind of had an idea of what it was going to be like.  The marathon was the 7th of October.  We left to head to Chicago on Friday afternoon right after lunch.  We stopped at one of those oasis places over the highway to eat dinner outside of the city.  After dinner we continued on into the city.  Our hotel was right downtown on Michigan Avenue.  It took us a while to figure out where our hotel was in comparison to where we were going to park, so we finally got to our room about 9:30 at night.  

Saturday morning we got up, ate breakfast and then took a school bus to the Marathon Expo.  Kyler and Norah both thought it was pretty cool to be able to ride in a school bus. :)  We checked out the expo for a while, got our race packets and then loaded up the bus again to take it back to our hotel.  When we got back to Michigan Avenue, we found a Noodles and Company and got some lunch to take back to our hotel.  After lunch the kids took naps and we just relaxed a while.  After naps, we got ready to head out to dinner at a place just around the corner that we had made a reservation at back in August.  We enjoyed a great pasta carb-loading dinner and then came back to the hotel to get ready for bed and to run.

Sunday morning came nice and early.  Our alarm went off at 6:00 am so we could get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, and then walk to the start of the race.  The start line was just a few blocks down the street from our hotel, so we were able to walk there.  We had to be in our "coral" by 8:45.  Then at 9:00 our "wave" (the non-professionals) was off!  Ben took off and we lost him as soon as the gun went off.  Erik and I ran together for the first 3-4 miles, and then his knee was starting to bother him, so he slowed down a bit.  Erik ended up making it to mile 12 and then his knee was hurting him so bad, he was walking and limping, so he stopped and took a bus to the finish line.  Ben finished the race in about 3 hours and 50ish min.  I finished in 5 hours 12 min.  

Overall the race was a great experience.  Erik and I had always said we had wanted to do a full marathon.  We have done the 1/2 at Sturgis Falls several times.  I have done it 4 or 5 times and Erik has done it twice, so we wanted to do the full.  Erik was disappointed that he wasn't able to finish, and I was sad too because I wanted to be able to say we had done it together; but he just couldn't do it.  His knee started to hurt him towards the end of our first 18 mile training run.  He made it 3 miles into the 2nd 18 mile training run, and then went home to get his bike and bike the rest of the way.  He had been going to physical therapy for the few weeks leading up to the marathon, and we were hoping that would have helped him enough to finish but it didn't.  He wasn't even able to walk without limping so he knew finishing wouldn't happen.  I'm really proud of him for making it as far as he did though, almost 1/2 way!  I am excited to say that I finished!!  I was hoping to run it a little faster, but after talking to people who have run multiple marathons, they have all said, "oh for your first one you just go to finish".  The amount of people along the way was crazy!  If you ever want to try a marathon, Chicago is a great one to do because there are SO MANY PEOPLE along the course.  There are people the whole way, and most of the way they are 2-3 people deep, more in some spots.  And they cheer and yell at you too.  There are bands playing and people playing loud music to encourage you.  There were definitely times along the way where I wondered why I was doing this and wondered if I could make it to the finish, but I just kept going.  I did walk along the way, and then would run and walk some and then ran the last couple miles.  It was a great experience and I haven't quite decided if I want to do another one yet or not....I'm guessing I probably will at some point!!  Here are some pictures from our weekend!

Kyler hanging out in the hotel!  First hotel experience for both kids!

View of Michigan Avenue from our hotel room

View the other way down Michigan Avenue

Here we are!

At the expo

Getting ready to go!

If you look closely, you can see Erik and I's name.  Nike does this huge board with everyone's name on it.

Out to eat the night before the race!

Ready to go!

During the race.....(we aren't in the picture)

More of the race (still not in the picture)

Our two fans!  They tried to see us, but we never saw them and they never saw us :(

Ben with our parents after the race

Hanging with Kyler after the race

We made it!

All done!!