School Pics

I don't usually put these up on our blog, but then I thought "Why not?" This, after all, is our own little family scrapbook. So, here are our fall, school pics. Reagan and Cole are growing way, way too fast!

Maybe ....

Cole cracks me up sometimes. We were driving to soccer the other day and we saw a huge flock of geese. I pointed them out to Cole and he asked "They are flying .... west?" I answered "No, they are actually flying north." He sat for a few seconds and then asked "But aren't they supposed to be flying west?" I said "They usually fly south for the winter, but right now, they are flying north." Again, he sat for a few seconds and then he said "Well ... maybe they are just working out and then when it gets really cold, they will be ready to fly south for the winter." Yep - I'll bet that's it Cole.

Silly boy - I love him!

Indoor Soccer Begins

So, we ended our first season of Blue Knights Soccer. I was just ready to breathe after going to two practices and one game a week when we received an e-mail asking if our player wanted to play winter soccer. Steve and I discussed it and figured that since it was only once a week and since we wanted Cole to get his skills up even more and since Cole WANTS to play, we signed up. Well, the indoor facility is on the other side of the valley from us. Like seriously - take the road west to the edge of the earth and make a right. It is crazy, but we have freed up two other nights, so, we are in. Cole likes it. It is just practices now - they do drills and have scrimmages. Apparently, after the first of the year, we will start having games, but for now - once a week is great. Plus, they said this is much more casual, which is good because we travel in the winter. Anyway, Cole is enjoying being with his soccer friends and enjoying learning more. Yeah - indoor! (right?)

Happy Halloween!!!!

Our Halloween this year was different, but good. We got up early and put our costumes on to go to school. This time, I had searched the web and found the white tiger makeup that I wanted. We copied it as closely as we could and Cole looked great. Unfortunately, Reagan had no activities at school that the parents could be involved in. Cole, on the other hand, had a Halloween parade - yeah!!! He was so cute - he walked with his classmates out to the parking area. The walked up and down the area so that no matter where a parent was, he was guaranteed to see his child. Then, they lined up for a class picture. Their costumes were great (even Cole's too small white tiger outfit). He was excited to see Steve and me and we were thrilled to see him.

 

I had requested of Cole's teachers (from seriously the first week of school) that I be permitted to help with their class Halloween party. They waited until two days before Halloween to let me know, but they decided to have me help. I did the same thing I did when Reagan was in kindergarten. I went in and took a picture of the class before their Halloween parade. Then, I went and had copies of the picture printed out. Later in the day, I went back in with the prints. I had previously ordered little foam picture frames with various stickers that the children could put on them. They made these crafts for part of their little class party and they turned out SO cute! They also danced to Halloween songs and sang songs. They were adorable.

 

After leaving Cole's class, I walked to Reagan's class to see if her teacher wanted me to take a class picture of them in their costumes. She was SO appreciative. She mentioned that she had been trying all day to get another teacher to come in and take a picture of their class. She also mentioned that she still had the picture I had taken of her class when Reagan was in it. Like I said before, I did the same thing when Reagan was in kindergarten, so, for her to still have the picture was so sweet. I took some pics and headed out.

 

After school, we headed home for piano lessons and then to reapply make up and give our costumes a once over before heading out to a neighbor's house. A girl that goes to school with Reagan moved into our neighborhood. Her mother invited our family to join them for trick or treating. Reagan and this girl have had some problems, so, Reagan didn't actually want to go. I reminded her how Steve and I don't let her trick or treat to any houses that we don't know. I explained that since her friend is new in the neighborhood, she doesn't know anyone and might not be able to trick or treat since there is no one that they know. Reagan agreed to go and we headed off. There was so much food. The mother is a great cook and she had made soup, treats, sandwiches and tons of munchies.

 

We left their house to trick or treat for a while and then she asked us back to hang out for a while. By the time we were done, it was late. The public schools were out the day after Halloween, but not our school. In fact, Reagan had 3 or 4 tests the day after Halloween. Even though it was late, we did stop by Kathy and Dick's (Reagan and Cole's grandparents in the ward). Of course, they had full on gift bags for Reagan and Cole! Reagan LOVE LOVE LOVED the fashion design book that she was given and Cole couldn't wait to build the Lego set he was given. Kathy and Dick - you guys are too good to us!!! After we left their house, we had to go home - it was late for our little students.

   

I felt badly that we didn't get to go on our usual trick or treat route and see many of our friends and neighbors. In fact, we were getting texts through the night of "Where are our Petersen trick or treaters?" I've posted before about Reagan and Cole being treated so well on Halloween. Our neighbors and ward members are so kind to us, especially Dick and Kathy!! So, it was a different Halloween than we've had before, but we had fun nonetheless. We got dressed up, had our parties and headed out to trick or treat. Yep - life is pretty good. We will just have to plan next year to make SURE to see all of our trick or treating friends.

 

Halloween Decor

I think Christmas is my favorite holiday, but Halloween is a REALLY close second - at least for decoration purposes. We added a few things this year (of course) and my sis once again helped me make the magic :) I posted about our decorations for fall. We had pumpkins everywhere! When I told Steve that my sis was coming to help me put up the Halloween decorations, he said "We have like 100 pumpkins in this house - isn't Halloween pumpkins?" I laughed. When I told my sis what he had said, she replied "Oh he'll KNOW when we've put up Halloween." So funny!!!!!

 

It has now been a year that we have been changing out the decor above the cabinets in the kitchen. I'm so glad we do! It is hard work and takes a lot of time. Amber and I are up and down ladders, balancing different decorations, but it is so worth it. It totally brings together the decorations in that room.

 

Once again, I am SO into the purple of Halloween. I used to only decorate with orange and black, but to add in purple - and green! - is so fun. It just makes the other colors pop. I also love to change out the pictures in our family room for Halloween. I take out all the pics in the 10 or 12 frames in that room and put in pics of Halloweens past. It is fun to see Reagan and Cole's costumes through the years and to have pics of our family on different Halloweens.

 

We have several luminaries that we put candles in - Frankenstein, a cat, pumpkins, and haunted houses. Bath and Body Works puts out a new Haunted House each year. They have been my source for many of our decorations, but the manager in the Southtowne store told me they were moving away from decor and just focussing on candles, lotions, soaps, etc. It's true - although they had a new haunted house this year, the Southtowne store only received 2 to sell - crazy!! Luckily, I was watching online and ordered one right when they came out. I didn't see any "decorations" for Halloween in their store this year - too bad. Oh well, we'll just find somewhere else to get our decor :)

 

Just like last year, my "favorite" decorations are the Halloween trees. There is a six foot tree and two three foot trees that are black Christmas trees with purple and orange lights. Whip some ornaments on them as well as some ribbon and voila! you have a gorgeous decoration. I love to see them lit and when you drive into our circle, you can see this orange glow emanating from our house. It looks so nice!!!

 

After Halloween, I told Steve that I wanted to hit Tai Pan to see what was on the "75% off Halloween" sale. He just laughed and said "I don't know where you would put one more thing." Oh, don't you worry Steve, Amber and I will find a place. (Tee hee)

Ward Halloween Party

We had such a fun time at our Ward Halloween party. It wasn't as well attended as it has been in the past, so we missed some of our friends, but we still had a great time. Our new next door neighbor joined us so he could meet people in the neighborhood. I made tortilla soup and cupcakes (the YW were in charge of the cake walk). Each of the auxiliaries had games for the children to play and there was soup and rolls for dinner. They also had a photo booth set up with a photographer so you could take family pics; however, we were so busy doing everything else that we didn't even get to that. Steve was suckered into … er asked to participate in a skit that our former bishop did - it was pretty funny.

Reagan was a Snow Queen and Cole was a White Tiger. Oh what we went through to get Cole's costume. He knew he wanted to be a white tiger, but it took me a while to find the costume. Once I did, I ordered it online. After two and a half weeks, I received an e-mail that said "We are refunding your money, this item is out of stock." What the what!?! I don't want the money back, I want the costume. So, I found another one online, this time through Amazon - thinking it would be more reliable. Uh - maybe not. After a week, I had the same experience. They refunded my money and said the item was out of stock. Now, I needed it inside of a week for the ward party. I freaked out and contacted Amazon. They suggested I order another one through another of their suppliers. Problem was, now I would have to pay as much for shipping as I paid for the costume itself. Luckily, the Amazon rep offered to refund my shipping cost. Yeah! The costume came the next day and we were in business. One problem though, the costume was a bit too small for Cole. It said up to 6 years old, but I guess he is a big 6 because the little shoe covers were over his shins. Well, after all that we went through to get this costume, we decided just to go with it. He loved it - it didn't matter that it didn't fit perfectly. Next up was how to do his make up. I watched some videos online and we were running a bit late, so, we did the best we could.

Regardless of our costume issues, we had a great time at the party. We saw our friends, played games, won treats and prizes, ate cotton candy and danced in the dark with glow sticks. Yep - it just doesn't get better than that :)

A Dapper Young Man

I think I've posted before about Cole's fashion ideas (remember the Shaun White belt?). Well, it continues. We were getting ready to head out to our nephew's wedding reception when Cole asked if he could wear his white hat. He was referring to his Easter hat. Since it is a white fedora with navy on it, I didn't figure it would match his purple and grey. However, knowing his penchant for hats, I had ordered and just received a grey fedora. I unwrapped it and he was thrilled. He looked so dapper. At the reception, we had a fan blowing on us and we were cold. Cole was actually shivering. I gave him my black scarf and my gloves. He rocked them. He was so cute in his little hat and scarf.

He definitely has opinions on what he wants to wear and how he wants to wear it. For example, I have traditionally put him in an oxford and a sweater vest for church and dress up functions. However, for the past several months, he hasn't wanted to wear a sweater vest - he wants a jacket or suitcoat. I don't know if he is trying to match Steve or if he just likes a jacket or what. I have to respect his decision because almost everything he chooses looks great. It just cracks me up that he is so young, yet has these opinions. His most recent request is for a bow tie. I have never really liked them, but I see the YM in our ward wearing them, so they must not be totally taboo. I'll keep my eye out and we'll see if I can find one that I can live with :)

Keep up the good choices Cole - you look awesome!!!!

Cornbellys at Thanksgiving Point

Each year, Thanksgiving Point has this fall festival called Cornbellys. They have food, games, bouncy bounce, a princess area, rubber ducky races, a corn maze, and a spooky beast you can walk through. We try to hit it every year. This year, we invited the Pesci family to join us. With Joe out of town, Jennifer, Eric and Claire opted to travel south with us. We had such a fun time.



We played, we climbed, we bounced, we raced and we ate. There was one area where you could use an air gun and shoot rubber balls at another team. Well, Jen and I sent Steve in to be the "responsible" adult. Yeah - so much for that. Steve was shooting Cole in the bum, shooting Reagan in the stomach and almost shot Claire in the face. Yep, those kids thought it would be great to have him on their team, until he turned on them :)  I still think we beat the other team, but - truly - no one was safe.



After that we played with a huge pumpkin shaped balloon and raced rubber ducks. We listened to a pumpkin princess tell a story and we climbed on the huge fort made out of hay bales.



As the sun went down, it cooled down a lot. We figured it was time to call it a day. While we were walking out, Steve paid for a "bounce back pass" so we could come again at a cheaper rate. Our Cornbellys experience isn't over yet .... it's just over for today. Brrr - let's get some hot cocoa!!!