Grandma & Grandpa Visit

Recently, the newly retired Grandpa and Grandma Schleicher spent an entire month in Texas, splitting their time between their three sons' homes. Our house was their middle stop. We had a delightful time during Grandpa and Grandma's visit! Jaden and Cody were so excited about the attentive playmates! :) First, the boys wanted to show Grandpa and Grandma the letter books that we are slowly assembling.

Cody says, "A is for apples."

Jaden says, "E is for eyes."

Jaden reads, "F is for feathers."

Cody showed Grandma his newest favorite pastime-- doing puzzles! He can assemble this dinosaur floor puzzle with remarkable speed for a 3-year-old, in my humble, non-biased opinion. :) All Grandma had to help with was turning the puzzle pieces over. 

Jaden showed Grandma one of his favorite activities-- matching games. He has a good little memory for this game!

Grandpa took Cody and Jaden along with him on a few of his afternoon runs. The boys loved "going so fast" in the stroller!

Thanks for the fun outing, Grandpa! (Can you tell that these tall boys are starting to outgrow this stroller?)

Another day, Grandma and Grandpa were introduced to the fun of Marble Works.

And, of course, Cody and Jaden wanted Grandpa and Grandma to read many, many books! Grandpa and Grandma even accompanied us to the library two weeks in a row to attend story time and check out new books.

On Daddy's day off, we took a full day adventure to downtown Houston to attend the Children's Museum. This was our first time visiting this museum, and we found it quite remarkable! We visited close to Halloween, so the children statues out front were all wearing funny masks. This was the character Cody and Jaden chose to stand next to.

One of the first exhibits we played with was this "ancient" payphone. :) Cody and Jaden got a kick out of the screens and loved being able to see the person they were talking with.

Grandpa lifted Cody up on this little pulley-system ride.

Cody's top choice activity was driving this full-sized ambulance. He loved being able to turn on and off the lights by himself!

We were all impressed by the authentic-looking supermarket. After shopping for some food...

 

the boys could scan their own food or type prices into the computer register. Jaden and Cody loved this realistic experience!

Jaden's favorite activity of the day was building and launching his own rocket. The picture below is actually of Daddy with Cody, but both boys worked with Daddy at different times to create their own rocket.

Jaden was very proud of his creation!

Best of all, though, was placing the rocket on the launcher inside this caged area, jumping firmly on the launching pad, and sending the rocket flying!

One of the last exhibits we saw was this Mexican-themed area-- complete with an old-fashioned van carrying a chicken coop up top! If you look closely, you can see Jaden's head poking up from the back seat.

Towards the end of our time with Grandma and Grandpa, we took them to our new favorite park, one that Matt and Kim's family call "the tire park." We could literally spend all day at this awesome park! Both boys (even though just Jaden is pictured) showed Grandpa and Grandma their newly-learned skill of sliding down the fireman's pole.

Grandma and Grandpa pretended to be a troll under the bridge for Cody and Jaden.

This may look like just a typical park bench, but it's actually a large swing with benches on both sides of a platform.

And, of course, the reason our family calls it "the tire park" is because it's full of tires to climb on...

... and tires to swing inside of....

...and tires to drive us to new places!

Thanks, Grandpa and Grandma, for being wonderful park playmates!

On the very last night of their stay, Grandma and Grandpa took Cody and Jaden on a little date-night out. Daddy and Mommy were hosting a Life Group (our small group Bible study from church) dinner at home, so Grandpa and Grandma took the boys out on the town. What a treat this was for all four of our family members! Mommy and Daddy appreciated the chance to host and visit with our new friends without distractions. And Cody and Jaden had SO much fun! Their first stop was to McDonald's for a dinner of chicken nuggets and yogurt parfaits.

Our family doesn't eat out often, so this was something really special!

The boys had a ball at the playland.

Then, it was off to a pet store to check out all the animals. Grandma and Grandpa said that Cody and Jaden could've stayed here for quite a bit longer than they did!

What a night of fun adventures! Jaden and Cody came home bursting with excitement and stories to share about their fun evening. Thanks for this night of special memories, Grandpa and Grandma! Your entire visit was a blessing to us. Thanks for spending time with us in Texas! We love you!

Halloween Fun

For Halloween this year, I really wanted to put Jaden and Cody in coordinating costumes. I'm not sure how many more years they'll allow me to "match" their costumes, so I'm taking advantage while I can. After scouring Pinterest for ideas, I landed upon a Curious George and Man with the Yellow Hat duo. Winner! Cody and Jaden absolutely adore Curious George! For the past many months, it's really been the only video that holds their attention. When I mentioned the costume idea to the boys, they were thrilled. Surprisingly (and thankfully!), the boys didn't argue at all about who would be which character. Right away Cody volunteered himself to be Curious George, and Jaden piped up with, "And I can be the man with the yellow hat!"

Now it was time to make the costumes! The only clothing item we had on hand was a pair of brown pants, so my work was cut out for me. I ended up visiting quite a few thrift stores, craft stores, and clothing stores to assemble all the pieces. Because I started the costume-making process so early, I actually enjoyed the process and the challenge of finding and creating the costume pieces. The greatest find was the yellow pants-- Sponge Bob pajama pants from my nephew Ian's drawer! Perfect! :) I was pleased with how the final costumes turned out.

Of course, the costumes look way cuter with two little boys inside! :) Cody is making his "ooh-ooh-aah-aah" monkey sounds in the picture below.

Here's a decent smiling pic (rare!) of both boys.

We had quite a few opportunities to dress up throughout the month of October, so we got some good use out of the outfits. The boys' costume-debut occasion was a Halloween playdate. In early fall, Kim invited me to join her twice-monthly themed playgroup she has with friends. Because Kim models her playgroup similarly to what I had done with friends back in Montana, this group has been a big blessing for the boys and me. For their Halloween playdate, the pic below was the only one I got of the kids in costume. By the time our other two little friends arrived, most of these guys had taken off their costumes already! Ah, the roller coaster of being three! :) The playdate was a big hit-- complete with a monster mask craft, Halloween trail mix, pumpkin rolling, pumpkin hot potato, and Halloween storytelling. My sister and her friends are a creative crew!

Sammy, Ryan Cody, Jaden, Nathan

About a week before Halloween, our neighborhood subdivision was scheduled to have a hayride, but it was rescheduled due to heavy rains. Instead, our family went over to Matt and Kim's house and played some Halloween games there. First, we made a duct tape spider web, threw plastic bugs on it, and pretended we were spiders grabbing the bugs.

Then, we played a ghost-print musical game, an activity that had been a big hit from my Halloween parties from the last 2 years. Ian, Ryan, Jaden and Cody loved it too. Who wouldn't enjoy an excuse to run around the living room?!

When the music was on, we danced/ran/jumped around. When the music stopped, the kids had to listen to directions and then find a certain shape or color on a ghost print. We played quite a few rounds of this active game!

Even Nathan got into the dancing! :)

Our next Halloween dress-up occasion was the Trunk or Treat event at our church. Don't the boys look excited?! :)

Because Jason was involved in the event, I was very thankful that Grandma and Grandpa were visiting and could join us for Trunk or Treat. It was a very crowded night, so I really appreciated the extra hands!

Cody and Jaden were a bit overwhelmed by all the people, so they stayed close beside Grandma and Grandpa. I guess I had nothing to worry about with these 2 wandering off! :)

The trunks were all decorated so creatively, mostly by our church's high school youth group kids. Cody and Jaden got a nice stash of candy.

We met up with Matt, Kim, Jon, Chelsea and all our nephews there, too. Here is the cousin costume picture!

Ian, Jaden, Cody, Nathan, Isaiah, Ryan

And a close-up of the cutest lobster and lion ever! :) 

There was music playing in the background all evening, so Jaden and Cody got a little dance in with Grandma.

Jason was in charge of manning a trunk for the evening, so he costumed-up as a Lions' player.

At the end of the night, we gave Matt and Kim's family a ride back to their vehicle since it was so dark and their car was a long way off. 

Our neighborhood hayride was rescheduled for the night before Halloween. Good thing the boys weren't getting tired of their costumes yet! It always helped to remind them that they'd be getting candy once their costumes were on. :) Here they are, ready to walk down to our neighborhood park.

Ryan, Ian, and Nathan joined us for this event too. The boys all seemed to enjoy the ride around our neighborhood in this trailer bed. I didn't get any pics of the rest of the evening, but our neighbors in charge of the event had set up a few Halloween games and gave out quite quite a few treats. It was a cute little evening. We love our new family-friendly neighborhood! :)

Finally, our last costume day was Halloween itself. We went trick-or-treating in Matt and Kim's neighborhood. By this point, the boys were fairly trained with their "trick-or-treat" and "thank you" routine. We made quite the troop going up to people's doorsteps!

Jaden and Cody didn't last long out on the streets trick-or-treating. We probably only visited 15 houses or so before our family turned back. Once we returned to Matt and Kim's house, Cody and Jaden LOVED the task of handing out candy to other trick-or-treaters. It seemed a little strange to see tall, costumed teenagers accepting candy from energetic three-year-olds in their pjs. :) Before bed that evening, Cody, Ryan, and Jaden enjoyed some storytime with Grandma. 

And that's it for Halloween 2015!