Trick-or-treating

We got together with a lot of our neighbors for an early dinner & then put the kiddos in costumes & went trick-or-treating around the neighborhood once it got dark. Here are a few snaps of them all in costume & in action. William was Buzz Lightyear from the Disney Toy Story movie and Daniel was Nemo from Finding Nemo. Be sure to click for more!

Trick or Treat

Classroom parties

After their trick-or-treating was done, they retired to their classrooms for a little Halloween party. William got to play "pin the cross on the Pumpkin" (well, it IS a Methodist pre-school!) and frost Oreo cookies, and Daniel got to eat a very large, frosted pumpkin cookie. Apparently, he didn't want to get his hands all yucky, so he made the teachers FEED it to him! My little aristocrat!

Halloween Parade

Halloween party

The kids did a Halloween parade at their school where they got to trick-or-treat through all the offices. Daniel's class made pumpkin masks (which he HATED & refused to wear beyond the first two minutes) and William's made pumpkin hats. They only painted one side of them, though, so in some of the pics he looks a bit like a little pilgrim! The last picture is of William & his good friend, Stephen. Be sure to click the picture for the rest of them.

Blinkin with one eye

 

So, Summer and Kaitlynn were over here the other night & I was teasing Kaitlynn and winking at her with alternating eyes. She was giggling & trying to do it back. In true William fashion, he didn't seem to be paying much attention to either of us. Then, a couple of days later, he's having lunch & says, "Look, Mommy. I can blink with one eye." Needless to say, I was pretty impressed. Check out his effort!

Punkin Pickin'

The boys took a field trip to Eckert's Farm in Millstadt, IL with their school to do some pumpkin (or "punkin", as Daniel says) picking. It was originally supposed to be a week ago, but got rained out, so they rescheduled for today & it ended up being in the 40's, of course. It was pretty pleasant in the sun if you were appropriate bundled, but downright freezing in the shade. The rule is that the kiddos must be able to carry their own pumpkins out of the field in order to take them home. Daniel really took this to heart & we had a couple of meltdowns as he tried unsuccessfully to pick up & carry some of the large ones. We finally found one that was semi-orange that he could actually carry & everyone was happy! William is the one in the red coat & Daniel is in blue with a grey hat on--the one with the pom-pom on top & the ear flaps. The picture of him on the ground with the other blue-coated boy is him & his friend, Will, who are making dirt angels with their feet in the parking lot. Boys!!! They had a blast & that's all that matters, tho, right?

Finally.....McQueen slippers!

 
 

So, most of the boys' friends have these slippers. They're Lightning McQueen from the Disney Cars movie. Who'd have thought they'd be so hard to find in the correct sizes???? I guess every little boy (and maybe girl?) in the Belleville area needed a pair because our Wal-Mart was consistently out of them. We finally found a couple of pairs & the boys were so excited. Here they are showing them off!

Bowl-a-rama

One of my friends here is also currently missing a husband (maybe we should put a listing on a milk carton?!?!?), so we've been trying to get together on weekends since that tends to be family-time for most people and our families are one short. Her little girl, Kaitlyn, is in William's class at school, & she and the boys get along really well. This weekend, we decided to take advantage of our weekly free bowling at the bowling center on base. One of the perks of having a deployed hubbie is that a lot of the facilities on base give you a discount and sometimes outright free stuff! The bowling center has this little metal "ramp" (for lack of a better term) that the kids place their balls on & then they push it down the ramp & it rolls down the alley. The kids did great with taking turns and keeping track of whose turn it was. I think Summer and I could have left them there alone, they were so proficient. Hmmmmmmm.......
**Be sure to click the pic**

bowling

Horsey-back riding lessons

So, before we saw Backyardigans Live, I let the boys watch the TV episode it was based off of. In the TV version, the "mighty knights" ride horses on their quest to find the runaway egg, Egbert. Sounds, exciting, right?? Long story short, William wasn't too sure how all this show-stuff was going to work, so I attempted to explain that we were going to see the Backyardigans perform on stage and what exactly that entailed. What he got from that was that we were going to ride horses on stage with the Backyardigans. He wasn't too disappointed when that didn't happen (I think because the show was SOOO fabulous!), but he did start asking when he was going to get to ride horses for real. And, he has a bouncy horse in our basement that he loves, so he was sure to make the distinction, "And NOT a bouncy horse, Mommy. I want a REAL horse!" So, I hopped on the internet and found a place about 15 minutes away, & here are the pics from our first outing. Daniel couldn't WAIT to get up there, but William was his usual reticent self for the first few minutes, and then did great. The horse's name is Smokey and both boys LOVED him. When he'd get stubborn and refuse to continue walking, they'd yell, "Giddy-UP, Smokey!" We're going to try to make it a weekly event. Check back later today for added video clips!! Be sure to click on the pic of WILLIAM to see all of the pics.

horseyback riding lessons

 

Coming late April 2009......

 

 

Little Palen #3!! In case you missed the lilypie to the left of the screen, we're expecting our third child this spring. My EDD is May 3, but since it will be a C-section delivery they take it at 39 weeks, so the EAD (estimated arrival date?) will be sometime around April 26, 2009. I've waited to post because I was thinking I might be farther along than that (due to EARLY morning sickness & fatigue that ended just a couple of days ago in addition to the fact that my belly "popped" WAYYYYYY earlier this time than with the other two), but the US I had this morning confirmed I'm just past 11 weeks. We'll find out the sex at my 20-week US (baby being cooperative, of course!), so stay tuned for further updates.

Our blog's name

Okay, so unless you live on another planet, you're aware that for several months now, my name has been pretty famous. I'm starting to think that if one more person says, "Really???" after I give them my name, I'll just tell them that of course that's not my name--I just like to pretend to be famous people & I USED to tell people my name was Lindsay Lohan until she became such a flake. In a month, my name will either be much less famous (Oh, God, please no--Nobama!), or much more so. I've decided that if they win--Go, Republicans--I'm going to have to change the name of my blog to the OTHER Palen family @ blogspot.com. Opinions, please?

Our new furniture

new furniture

We have been meaning to get a new casual, everyday table for a couple of years now, but other priorities (i.e., moving, our basement exploding, etc) kept getting in the way. With Scott gone, I took it upon myself to find & purchase a table. It's counter-height, but the kids love it & have done fine with those when we visit friends. It seats four, but has a self-contained leaf that opens it up so it can seat eight. We bought 6 chairs, so two of them will sit at our bar until they're needed. The boys also both got beds. We've put off buying one for William because we wanted to get matching ones in anticipation of them sharing a room one day, so we wanted to wait until Daniel was ready for a big-boy bed. Daniel also got a dresser and a mirror. The painted room that's decorated is William's (we've switched it around recently) and the bed without the mattress/box spring is Daniel's. My next mission is to get it painted & buy a mattress & box spring because he's very ready to move in there!!

Backyardigans Live

Today, the boys & I went to see the Backyardigans, LIVE! show in St. Louis. I was a bit leery about taking them both by myself, especially since William has been doing a bit of acting up since Scott's been gone. I needn't have worried, though, because the boys were both angels for 99% of the show. I think they were so mesmerized by the singing & dancing & flashing lights that it never occurred to them that I was by myself with (gasp!) NO OTHER ADULT AROUND! The rules said no cameras or videos, but judging by the amount of flashbulbs going off, I was the only one who actually decided to follow the rules. So, no pics from this end, but here is a link if you're interested in checking out the show that we saw.

Hey, Mr. Fireman

fire truck

So, apparently this week was Fire Safety Week. Now, I don't think that's anything anyone who doesn't have kids or doesn't work in a school would necessarily know, but I'll tell you what: Fire Safety Week is now the highlight of my kids' year. The fire truck showed up at school with real firemen AND they turned on the siren & the lights. Click the picture for the full realm of pictures, and if you pay attention, William is the one in the long-sleeved white t-shirt with the navy pants. In the close-up, you can see his slack jaw. Moments before, the fireman turned on the lights & the siren. That was his reaction!! They haven't stopped talking about it since.

Happy Early Halloween

Happy Early halloween

My mom & dad sent these shirts to the boys for an early Halloween present. You can't tell from the picture, but the Spiderman lights up anytime they move. They wore them to school today & all of their friends were impressed. Daniel's teacher said one little boy followed him around all day trying to touch the light!! **Be sure to click the pic for more. There are some bonus shots of them playing in the backyard this afternoon**