Halloween

The boys went trick or treating with their friend Ayonna (Snow White).

We really didn’t have many trick or treaters at our house…so next year, we may need to have a different plan!

Cattleman's Steakhouse

Cattleman’s is a legendary steakhouse not far from El Paso. It is a HUGE ranch and has been the set for many movies – the one I most remember is Courage Under Fire several years ago with Meg Ryan. (leave it to me to remember the military one) It’s also been used for the Jessica Lynch story – I haven’t seen the movie, but I know the story.

Anyway, there’s also several different kinds of animals and we had a great time wondering around checking it out and then enjoying dinner – where we could see coyotes right outside the window. The boys had control of the camera at points – there were some good shots but none of the coyotes!

See if you can tell which ones the boys took…

Nick's Party

Earlier this summer, we went to playgroup at a park on the other side of base. I’d been thinking about where to have Nick’s party (not at our house) that he would have the most fun. We had all kinds of ideas. When we got to the park, THAT was it. There was, coincidentally, a rocket ship bounce house set up and Nick was THRILLED. So he had the rocket ship bouncehouse & a party at the park. It was a gorgeous day and a lot of fun!

We also couldn’t decide on a theme – so I got stickers for all his favorites right now (super heroes…) put them on cookie sticks or tooth picks and put them in the cake & cupcakes. Probably the easiest cake I’ve done since I started doing cakes for their birthdays – and it was a hit!

Carving Pumpkins

The weather here is so warm that I was scared to carve the pumpkins too early after seeing some around the neighborhood rotting pretty quickly.

So, Pawpaw & Nana got to help with the carving/decorating when they came for Nick’s Birthday

Matt's Truck

On October 18, Matt called and informed me that he had been in an accident with an 18 wheeler construction truck on his way to work.

He is fine – his truck…not so much. It’s at the “truck hospital” now, getting fixed.

Brothers

It’s some of my favorite times when I catch moments like these. They are becoming a little more frequent as they are entering stages of their lives where their already small age difference is becoming less noticeable.

Now, they are in the same “class” when I take them to hourly. That happened for the first time this week. I thought Nick had to be potty trained (and he is just at stubborn and controlling on that front as Jake was last year) so I took him to the class that goes up to 3. When I went to pick him up, the ladies told me he was moved to the same class as Jake – and that Jake took him under his wing and showed him around. The teacher in their class told me that Jake tried to take Nick to the potty. Jake tries to be quite the parent sometimes, too.

Varying poses of Nick

Nick is a VERY busy boy. Every now and then, we catch him relaxing and our favorite times are first thing in the morning when he is extra cuddly and we LOVE that! It only lasts a minute before he’s off and running.

SE New Mexico State Fair

We had great time at the SE New Mexico State fair in early October.

We enjoyed a petting zoo where we fed lots of different animals.

Really Mom, Must we stop for ANOTHER picture??

Nick really got into feeding the animals.

It was a great night capped off by a rodeo. Only, we were pretty low and people found it oddly entertaining to stand RIGHT where we were watching completely blocking our view. So, naturally, our interest waned quite quickly. It was okay, we’d had a full afternoon of animals, rides & fair food!