Grant's First Gingerbread House

Okay, yes, it's from a kit.  I wasn't about to spend hours building a house that had a very high chance of being smashed before it was completed.  And now that I know how easy the kits are (and how surprisingly tasty their icing is), I may not ever hand make a gingerbread house again.

...and the next few hours were spent wearing off the sugar high from the other half of the candy that Grant ate instead of sticking on the house...

A Monumental Thanksgiving!

Not only was this Thanksgiving figuratively monumental since it was our first with Hayes and the whole Anderson crew, but it was also literally monumental since we spent a few hours between feasts exploring the National Mall...

How does he do it?

We always wondered how Grant sleeps, but we never see him since our squeaky doors wake him up if we try to sneak into his room.  Over Thanksgiving, we shared a room with him for a couple nights, and fortunately the door wasn't squeaky, so we got to see him in action...foot in the toy box one night...and feet in the rails another...guess it's best we can't usually see him since it just made me laugh and want to tuck him in properly.

The Kids' Table Debut

We arrived in Virginia not only in time for Thanksgiving, but for BobBob's birthday, as well.  And with all of the growing our family has done this year, it was finally time to let the little ones eat at their own table.

 And they loved it!

 But they weren't about to miss out on helping BobBob with his cake!

(Hayes will have to join next year...he slept through the festivities.)

HopeKids Thanksgiving Feast

Grant was very excited to have his brother join him at school for the Thanksgiving "feast"

Football Sunday

The Double Lounge:

Nine Months for Hayes

Hayes celebrated his big 9 months today:

I won't even tell you how many times I had to re-stack the nine months blocks to get a few shots.

 Hayes loves clapping for everything, including having his picture taken:

Look closely at this one and you might see his two new teeth:

Celebrating with Daddy a bit:

The closest we got to a pic of the brothers in their coordinating shirts:

Boys' Club Thanksgiving

Who knew?!

Sundays around here all too often look like this.  The boys got extra Redskinned up to go watch the game with our Redskins fan friends.  I really need to find some Cowboys fan friends out here.

Saving that for Later?

I don't know how he does it, but Hayes always ends up with food on his head.  Wouldn't have thought it possible with Cheerios, but he's good at proving me wrong.

Double Trouble

Our first (of many, I'm sure) Brothers Bath was a big hit:

Cowboy Chewbacca Trick or Treats

Apparently the Woody (from Toy Story for those not up on Pixar movies) costumes convinced Grant that Halloween means you must wear a cowboy hat, because here is out he insisted on trick or treating (though we did manage to convince him that he only needed one pumpkin):

We ran into Charlie Minnie Mouse while we were out:

Brother Playtime

Grant wanted to hang out with Hayes in the Pack N Play

Happy Halloween!

Love,

Chewie, Obi Wan, Leia & Yoda

Look familiar?  Flash back to 2009: http://rocknrolltrainrichardson.blogspot.com/2009/10/happy-halloween.html

Pumpkins

After weeks of our annual BC+C adventure at Ganyard Farm being rained out, we were running out of time, so Sarah and I took our little ones to the pumpkin patch.  We'll try to get the whole crew again next year. 

A Grant and Hayes first: matching outfits (that I bought on clearance at Target last year for just such an occasion!  Hooray that I guessed the sizes right!):

 Grant's showing Dylan how to pick cotton:

How grown up do these little buddies look?!

 My matching boys!

 Don't know what it is about pumpkins that makes kids so happy, but I like it!

A little picnic date:

 Already imagining next year when they'll both be standing!