We had a few of Aidan and Bryce's friends over for a little Christmas party this afternoon..
The kids ate some treats, exchanged some presents, and got to play like crazy people for a few hours (while the Moms got to catch up over coffee)..
I love this picture of Aidan and his friend, Eric.
This may come as shocking news to some of you, but one of Santa's elves has come to spend some time with us. A few days ago, one Mr. Blinky Sugarplum came to visit us. According to the paperwork he brought with him, his mission is to observe the behavior of our two boys and report back to Santa with some first-hand accounts on behavior. Santa's note also warned us, however, that Blinky is known to get up to some mischief.. and boy, is that ever true!
Seems like whenever we turn our backs on that darn elf, he gets up to something..
A few days ago, we came home to find that Blinky had gotten out a bunch of our Christmas movies, had popped himself some popcorn, and had make himself a big old movie-time mess on the living room floor!
Then he apparently got hold of our camera and snapped a picture of himself with the Big Guy.
And then thought it would be funny if he put on Bryce's balloon hat..
The boys went out to dinner with their Aunt this evening... and this is how they came home..
Not that this is turning into a Foodie Blog, but it's a few days before Thanksgiving, I've taken most of the week off.. and I've had this serious yen to do some Holiday Baking.
In past years, I've not done a very good job of packing the freezer full of all the good treats we like to have at Thanksgiving and Christmas... and while I've got some extra time, I figured I'd do some of that cooking so I won't have to do so much in the next few weeks.
So yesterday, with a little help from the boys, we whipped up 8 Zucchini Breads and 4 Cranberry Breads..
And then, this evening, I put together a batch of a family favorite, Squash Rolls. This time, I didn't get so much help from the boys-- turns out, letting yeast dough rise isn't really their idea of a good time. :)
This is my second time making the Squash rolls-- and they've turned out pretty well both times. But each time had its own "should it look like this" kind of anxiety. So I snapped a few 
pictures to keep as notes for future iterations of the recipe.
Raise them. Roll them. Works out to about 24 to a 9x13 pan. Then bake them... 
By the time they come out, the kitchen smells wonderful. Take them out of the oven, then spread some butter on top of them and let it melt in... Oh yeah!
They came out great again this year.. and we've still got a couple dozen in the freezer to have around Christmas.
I originally grabbed the camera to snap this picture because I wanted to try to capture the sublimnity of Bryce's hair this morning.. But instead, I caught him giving me this look, and so now you would hardly notice the hair if I didn't mention it. :)
Aidan lost another tooth this afternoon-- this time one of his front teeth! And he wasn't shy about showing it off tonight when I got home.
So it looks like the tooth fairy will be making another trip to our house tonight!
Impromptu Nap
Originally uploaded by sleepydad
Bryce was fussing to his mother the other day, refusing to take a nap: "I'm never, ever going to sleep during the daytime again!" Shortly, that is, before he collapsed on the floor, surrounded by toys, and his mom snapped this picture
Aidan's 1st grade class celebrated All Saints' Day by dressing as Saints and doing a special presentation for the whole school. Aidan dressed as St. Francis and, during the school assembly, recited a fact from a short report (5 sentences) that he wrote about St. Francis' life earlier in the week.
Halloween night, Aidan and Bryce couldn't wait to get started putting on their costumes and get out to do some trick-or-treating!
Aidan went as a member of the Lightning McQueen (from the movie Cars) pit crew..
and Bryce, as expected, went as the ever vigilant crime-fighter, Batman!
Ready to go!
Batman wears Chucks!
The aftermath...Catching up on some pictures..
A few days before Halloween, Aunt Frances and Uncle Wyatt came by and helped us to carve some pretty mean looking Jack-o-Lanterns!
The boys both really got into it... especially once they figured out that the pumpkin guts weren't all that gross...
This is so much like our Sylvie, we laughed out loud when we saw it the first time... and we're still watching it over and over again!
Since I'm out of town later this week, we celebrated Amanda's birthday this afternoon with a little dinner party. Gramma and Grampa, Aunt Laura, and Aunt Patty were all able to come over to the house to visit. We had some of Gramma's world-famous lasagne for dinner, and a masterful Halloweeney Carrot Cake, courtesy of Aunt Patty!
And somewhere in the midst of it all, Amanda opened some presents and the boys and I played some football in the back yard!
There are few things in life that my wife enjoys more than Halloween-- so we're doing it up right this year! On Friday night, we hosted a little H
alloween party for a few of our neighbor friends. All the kids and most of the grown-ups came in costume. We were visited by a Billy Goat, Darth Vader, a Blue Power Ranger, Jango Fett, a Red-Headed Cowgirl, Pocahontas, the Incredible Hulk, a ballerina, the cutest Strawberry y
ou've ever seen, an adorable (if teary) giraffe, and even a princess puppy! As for our boys, Aidan went as a member of Lightning McQueen's Pit Crew while Bryce went for his all-time favorite-- Batman!
We had lots of tasty treats and drinks for everyone, the kids did an arts-and-crafts project, followed by a round of "Monster Freeze" Dance-a-thon and I think the whole thing was smashing success.
Just wanted to be sure to post this picture of Aidan crossing the finish line at the last X-Country meet of the season.
Grampa pointed out that you can see the clock in the picture-- and it looks like Aidan finished in REALLY nice time! No, no stopwatches next year!
Thanks to Gramma and Grampa for the great picture!
Last week, the boys got the bright idea that, during the Fall community yard sale in our neighborhood on Saturday, they should put up a Lemonade Stand.
A lemonade stand! Beautiful!
As the days leading up to the yard sale passed, the idea was elaborated a bit to include some baked goods and coffee since, at 7am on a cool Fall Saturday morning, Lemonade might not be the strongest seller.
And a portion of the proceeds, they decided, should go to a very worthy cause, the Nashville Rescue Mission.
It was, in fact, a cool morning on Saturday.. but a very successful one. Aidan was a great salesman, asking "How may I help you?" of each of the people who came up to the table. And he even got to try out a little of his 1st-grade Spanish with a few of the Hispanic families that came by.
Bryce did wind up spending a little time on Time-out, though...
In the end, the boys raised $10 for the Mission, meeting their goal while also leaving enough left over to put a little in each of their piggy banks, and buy one small toy on a trip to the store with their Mom.
Turned out to be a good lesson all the way around, I think and SleepyMama did an amazing job of managing the whole enterprise!
Late Summer Watermelon
Originally uploaded by sleepydad
Blaine's mom sent us a few pictures from early September when the kids all sat on her porch to eat some watermelon..
While we're on the topic of dressing up, Bryce and Maddy (from across the street) have been really getting into the spirit the last few weeks!
Experimenting with the Blogger video service a bit here..
this is a short video I took of Aidan making his way (with style) around the dance floor at the wedding reception last weekend.
A few pictures from a really fun wedding reception we attended in Louisville last weekend.
Most everyone went in costume-- Aidan went as a Pirate and Bryce as a knight (courtesy of a great little costume his mom whipped up for him!).
Aidan may have set his sights on being a 4th grade teacher, but he may have a hard time getting there if he keeps thinking like this:
I like 1st Grade. I want to stay in it next year.
Really? You want to stay in 1st grade?
Yeah, I like Ms. Price and I like 1st Grade.
But won't you get bored learning all the same stuff all over again?
What? [This is where Aidan gives me a look like-- "are you crazy? I'll never get tired of adding 4+2 and coloring the clouds with even numbers blue and those with odd numbers orange."]
Well, okay. 1st grade again next year. But you know all your friends will have moved on into 2nd grade by then.
[This makes him think for quite a while.. and then...]
Yeah, okay, Dad. I'll go into 2nd grade next year.
