Let the Countdown Begin...

It's official, Halloween is only a month away - yay! Last year we pulled out all the stops and went crazy decorating the exterior of our old house, but this year is going to be even better. We've already sketched out the holiday design that we want for our new house/yard, and the best part is the fact that this year there are prizes to be won! Our home owners association has a contest for who can come up with the best Halloween yard decorations (they do it again at Christmas time too), and we'll be in the running to win a $100, $75 or $50 restaurant gift card. Last year we had Uncle Joe at our house scaring the kids at the door, but since he's going to be busy putting on his own Halloween show at his house this year, we're going to streamline the collaborative mishmash of EVERYTHING related to Halloween that we had in the yard last year and turn our focus to gravestones, skeletons, bats and spiders. I can't wait - it's a lot of work, but it's going to be awesome! Here's just a reminder of what it looked like last year, for those of you who didn't get to come experience it for yourself. Photos just don't do it justice since you can't get the full effect of the lights and fog.

Devil Spawn and Pirate Boy in the Boneyard

The creepy corridor (before we stashed away the ladder lol)

I'm also very happy to announce that the boys' Halloween costumes are 100% completed! I put a lot of time and effort into these darn things, everything from hand knitting the two custom hats to cutting, gluing, painting and sewing about a million little odds and ends. They're not the world's greatest costumes, but they're DONE, and honestly, that's kind of all that I care about anymore lol. The boys like them, and really that IS all that matters. Just to keep the creative juices flowing, I hand painted a Halloween shirt for myself last night too (who says that only the kids get to have fun things to wear on holidays?). I can't take credit for the design, because I stole the picture from someone else who has more drawing talent than I do, but I did take the time to meticulously paint it all, so that has to count for something :P

The characters of Yo Gabba Gabba - the green guy on the right is Brobee

Sawyer's Brobee costume (we'll paint the smiley mouth on his face)

The Brobee hat - knit by Mommy - with felt covered sponges for the "spikes"

Sutton is going to be DJ Lance Rock

He even got a Mommy-sewn boombox trick-or-treat bag!

My Halloween day shirt - Mommies get to have fun too!

Tonight we're going to the costume shop to check out this year's new costumes and decorations. Mitch and I still have to figure out what we're going to wear to Kari and Joe's party, so hopefully we'll be inspired by something. We're also going to get this really cool (and surprisingly cheap!) ghost costume to stuff and set out in our front yard cemetery. Look out, $100 gift card here we come!

The Story of Portraits

The boys have only had their portraits taken together professionally once over the past two and a half years, which is practically a sin against mommies. I wasn't even the person to take them the first time! Grandma took them to Picture People awhile back, because Mommy knows better than to try to wrestle in public with two alligators who are on different nap schedules. Actually, considering that they were both being photographed during what should have been nap time, the photographer managed to get a few cute pictures that time around (good work, Grandma!).


Lately the boys are starting to work their way towards being on the same schedule, so I decided that it was time for me to finally gather up enough energy and courage to attemp to venture into the world of mall portraits myself. Besides, I had bought cute matching shirts for them to wear to Jessi's wedding, and since we didn't end up taking them with us to the wedding, I ended up with cutesy shirts and no occasion to wear them. I just wanted an excuse to dress them up (nevermind the fact that they both look like they could desperately use a haircut!)!


I scheduled the appointment confidently and then begged Holly and Hattie to come with us in case I needed an extra set of hands. Thank goodness I had them with me, because I definitely needed both the physical and mental backup! It was pretty much the nightmare I had worried it would be - mid-session poopy diapers, neither kid wanting to hold still or sit down, and both kids completely freaked out by the photographer (trust me, lady, thrusting a rainbow mini-blinds duster in my kid's face is NOT a good way to make a cranky toddler laugh). They were far more interested in running out of the studio and back into the lobby to punch the buttons on the portrait preview computer than they were in sitting on a fake rock and having some crazy lady with a rubber duck on her head trying to make them smile and hug each other. I guess that's what you can expect when you use the coupon for the discount portrait package. Believe it or not we still managed to get a few good moments. This is what we ended up with...




Brotherly Love on the Rocks LOL



Collage Portrait of the Other Poses
(Click the picture to make them larger)


I'm actually decently happy with what we got, considering I know how hard it was to even keep them in the same spot for more than 2 seconds! I have several sizes of these, and I'm going to possibly order more if needed, so if you want one just let me know what size you'd like...seriously, you may want to place an order and stock up now. It might be another few years before I'm willing to try taking portraits again ;)

Out of the mouth of Sawyer

I just thought this was too cute not to share. Kids really do come up with the funniest things sometimes!

This morning we passed an armored truck on the way to daycare, which I’ve always called “money trucks” when talking to the boys. Sawyer posed one of his typical and (usually!) obviously answered questions:

S: “Mommy, what’s in money truck?”
H: “Well, Sawyer, what do you think is in a money truck?”
S: *thinking long and hard* “Ummmm…a LOT of piggy banks!”

I couldn’t help but start cracking up!

Meet Jack & Sally

Sutton and I had a fun weekend hanging out at home together while Mitch and Sawyer were out of town. We spent some time hanging out with his aunties and cousin Stella, and then we went to the pet store to get Sawyer a surprise for when he returned home. Sutton helped to pick out two goldfish for his big brother and then looked all around the pet store at the birds and other small pets. He especially took a liking to an escaped cricket that was hopping down the cat food aisle. Sawyer loves his new fish, and has named them everything from Nemo, Dory, Dora, Boots and pretty much every character from every cartoon he knows. We finally agreed that they will be named Jack and Sally - technically from the movie Nightmare Before Christmas - but to Sawyer they are "Jack [from the] music show" and "Sally [from] Cars." Whatever. Unfortunately we already lost poor Sally yesterday morning, but she quickly found a new doppelganger replacement thanks to PetSmart's 14-day guarantee. I'm fine with having the death talk when we lose a pet, but seriously, not after the first flippin' day!



Jack & Sally, Sawyer's new goldfishie friends, hanging out with Diego


Sutton's specially requested dinner - apple oatmeal! But don't let this picture fool you into thinking he has mastered the use of a spoon...





He's such a smiley little guy


Taking a deep interest in reading the phone book


His most favorite game EVER - it's called "Off, On" - repeat ad nauseum

Fire Engines, Whee Woo Cars, and Tanks, Oh My!

This weekend Mitch and Sawyer are in southern California visiting Mitch's parents and his grandma, while Sutton and I have been hanging out here at home. I spent Friday night working on the kids' Halloween costumes with Holly, and I'm happy to report that both Sawyer and Sutton's costumes are actually almost done - yay! I'll post pictures of the finished projects when they're actually 100% complete - probably Sunday or Monday night. I'm REALLY glad that the costumes are as far along as they are, because I honestly thought I'd be scrambling the night before Halloween trying to get them done. I most definitely wouldn't have been so motivated if it weren't for Holly and her enthusiasm driving me forward (thank you!). I was hoping to finish them tonight, but I'm exhausted. I stayed up extra late last night (it's always sooo hard for me to get to sleep when Mitch isn't home!), and then Sutton decided to give me a wake up call at 5:30 a.m. this morning.

While we were having fun playing with Kari, Jessi and Stella today, Mitch and Sawyer were enjoying some sort of law enforcement open house/fair thing in Simi Valley. Mitch just sent me a slideshow of photos from today, so I thought I'd share them since they were pretty cute. As I said to Mitch, "Fire trucks, balloons, and bouncey houses? He must have been in heaven!" I guess I'll get to hear the rest of the details when they get home tomorrow evening. Until then, I'm going to try to get some sleep!


Sawyer and Bubby, his great-grandma


Taking a ride in the fire engine

A Little Dirt Never Hurt

It seems like almost every night Sawyer is begging us to "please play in dirt," so we gave in the other night and let them have at it for a little while before baths and bedtime. There's a quote that I've seen on scrapbook supplies that reads "Boy (n): a noise with dirt on it." I always thought that was kind of obnoxious and stereotypical, but it's proving to be true in the Kundin household! These two are both definitely noisy and dirt-prone. It's astonishing how filthy two little boys can get when you give them permission to play in something messy! Sawyer likes to take his big boy shovel and repeatedly fill and dump his dump truck while Sutton prefers to take gigantic handfulls of dirt and pour them on top of his own head. It always makes for a funny photo op, so here they are in all their glory (along with some other not-so-messy pictures from the past few days). Enjoy!

Head -to-toe dirt really makes his blue eyes stand out lol

Look at this mischevious smirk - this is about two minutes after I sorted and completely cleaned up ALL those toys!

At least they were enjoying their new mess and having fun together!

Sutton LOVES his special puppy that he made at Build-a-Bear with Grandma

Sawyer and Mitch are driving down to So Cal tomorrow, so Sutton and I will get to spend some one-on-one time this weekend for a change. I'm sure there will be lots more pictures to post later!

Week/Weekend

It was a week of haircuts around here...first, Sutton got a little trim in the back because his curls were admittedly getting a little unruly. As a Mommy, it's just so hard to give into the fact that they actually need that first cut! I didn't want him to lose all of his curls and his little wispy baby hair, but in the end it looks better, and he still has plenty of curls to work with. He still needs a trim in the front, but I'm going to have to wait until he's sleeping, because it's nearly impossible to get the scissors that close to his eyes while he's awake. Then Mitch shaved his hair short again, which wasn't anything really unusual or spectacular, but it definitely caught Sawyer's attention - he kept telling him "I like you haircut" about a dozen times over dinner the next night. On Thursday I managed to sneak away for the morning and went and got Jessi to cut my hair too. She gave me a long a-line cut, shorter in back and longer in front. I really like that it still looks somewhat long-ish when I look in the mirror, but it's MUCH faster to dry and straighten my hair now, which is always a good thing! Finally, the kitties both got shaved down and trimmed up by the groomer, and the boys had a great time peeking into the grooming van to watch the kitties take their turn. Sawyer didn't get a haircut yet, although he needs one, but now he's telling me that he only wants to get his cut if he can get it done in a van like the kitties did - silly kid!

Just a little trim in the back - the curls are still crazy though!

My new haircut - yay!

Poor cat looks ridiculous after his haircut - he loves it though!

Photo by Sawyer

On Friday I spent the day Halloween costume shopping with Holly. Our kids are all going to dress up as characters from their favorite TV show "Yo Gabba Gabba," but since the show is new, they haven't come out with any costumes yet...which means that us crafty mommas have to get rather creative in trying to figure out how to turn our kids into lovable furry monsters. I spent the rest of the evening working on Sutton's DJ Lance costume, and I'm actually pretty excited with how well it's coming out. I'd say that his is about 2/3 of the way finished, which is good, because Sawyer's costume is going to be 1,000 times harder to create! Now if the weather would just drop about 10 degrees, then I'd really be feeling like fall is just around the corner - I can't wait!

Sawyer is going to be Brobee (the green monster), Sutton is going to be DJ Lance Rock (the guy in orange) and their pal Hattie is going to be Toodee (the blue one)

On Saturday we took the boys to two different PetSmart locations because it was the weekend of their fall pet adoption faire. I promised Sawyer we would go see some puppies, but unfortunately both locations only had cat adoptions going on that day. Luckily for me there were plenty of people in the store with their dogs, so he had a good enough time checking out the grown up dogs...but he has still been asking me every day when are we going to go see some puppies. As much as Mitch and I have said that we're not ready for a dog right now, the discovery of yet another snake in our yard over the weekend is making me re-think that decision. Apparently dogs are great at keeping snakes away... which means I want a dog, NOW. Not that we're actually going to get one, because we truly don't have the time or money to bring another living thing into this house, but I sure would like something to scare the snakes away!

We followed up our PetSmart trip with a visit to Wesley Park in Rocklin, right near our old house (sorry, I forgot my camera at home!), which has two perfect-sized play structures and a HUGE grassy area for them to run around on. If the boys' birthdays didn't fall during such unpredictible weather times, it would probably be a great place to have a birthday party. We finished up our jeep ride adventure with a trip to Big Spoon for some frozen yogurt and brain freezes.

He's starting to love posing for the camera

Look who finally decided they like pasta!

This boy is SO ready to play tee ball

Erik, Jessi and Stella came up to our house on Sunday to watch football with us. This weekend we taught Sutton how to say "Touchdown!" while throwing up his hands, so now we've got two little munchkins running around seeing who can cheer the loudest. Sawyer is so funny - one minute he's yelling "Touchdown!" to the football players, and the next minute he's yelling at them to "Slam Dunk!" I guess he still doesn't have the lingo down completely! Though the boys are getting more interested in watching football with Mitch, a whole entire day of football is still a bit much, and Sawyer will inevitably start asking to watch the Cars movie instead. Good thing it's only one day a week...well, one whole day on Sunday and then Monday night. I guess that really IS a lot of football when you're only two and a half. Too bad I don't have a chance to win something cool like Lasik again this season. It definitely made the football season more interesting and fun last year!

Sutton swinging with Aunt Jess and cousin Stella