Our Frogs

For Natalie's birthday back in June, Nana and Pop Pop got her some tadpoles, which we have grown into 5 little water frogs.  These guys are pretty cute.  For some reason, they remind me of Kermit.  When we came back from our Thanksgiving trip, our neighbors Steve and Jean had bought the kids a filtered tank (their Christmas present).  Holy cow, does it make these little guys easier to take care of!

Here is a pic of them in their old tank:

Grant's 3 year stats

Height:  38" (64th percentile, up 3" from last year)

Weight: 35# (81st percentile, up 6# from last year)

And you wonder why my back hurts all the time!!!! 

Happy Halloween!

This is the last year we went trick or treating with the Kelley family.  We are sad that they moved to Westborough, but happy they bought a great house with a pool that we can come visit!  We were all thankful this year that we were somewhat spared from Hurricane Sandy and we were allowed to go trick or treating!

As we've all done for the past few years, we went trick or treating in the Walnut Hill area.  Grant definitely had a better idea of what was going on this year, and wanted to eat every piece of chocolate he could get! 

Little Buddy and Bugaboo, ready to go get some candy!

Here comes Mater and Aeriel, ready to hit the houses and say trick or treat!  Grant said the funniest thing in the car earlier in the morning on Halloween.  We were talking about trick or treating, so I said, "Grant what do you say when you go up to someone's house for trick or treating?" and he said, "Trick or treat!"  So I said, "Then what do you say after someone gives you candy?"  (The proper response is "Thank you!") but Grant says, "I sick of peanuts!"  Oh my gosh, we laughed so hard at him!  He's allergic to peanuts and they make him very sick, and I was actually surprised that he understood!

 Here the kids are with Jackson and Samantha, and you'll notice there's STILL candy in the bowl at this house!  It will be a few years before they raid it and take it all!

They look thrilled to be taking pictures in the middle of trick or treating!

Here's Natalie picking out some candy.  She was so sweet this year- I didn't even ask her to do this, but at every house, she would ask if there was any candy with peanuts because she couldn't have any.  Even though she really can, she did that for her brother!  There is one house over at I think the corner of Harvard and Sawin, and they always have a haunted house in their garage.  Well this year, Natalie totally wanted to go in!  So she and Todd went in- and then she came out and wanted to go back in with me!  I tried to take Grant in, but he was scared after about 2 steps, so we went back out.  It was a pretty successful Halloween, with not much whining (until we got home anyway!)

Grant's Preschool Class Picture

Grant is in front, between his lady friends Reese and Skye, with his hand in his mouth!  Oh Grantie, you're so funny!

Fall pictures

We have had a nice fall, although our leaf guy hasn't showed up yet and it's November.  So we got Grant and Natalie out there to work on the leaves for us.  It was fairly unsuccessful, but they DID have fun jumping in them!

Silly kids playing in the leaves! 

Grant had a blast using the snow shovel to try to throw the leaves up in the air.

Um, where are my kids!?  Buried in the leaves!

 This picture was taking just a few days before Hurricane Sandy came through and now all of the leaves are gone.  

Every year, we've had a leaf guy come by and clean things up- twice during the season.  He hasn't been here once, and it's already November!  What a mess!   Hopefully he'll be coming this week- we think they were waiting until after the storm. 

Kindergarten Halloween parade

Todd surprised Natalie and showed up at the kindergarten Halloween parade this year.  Only the kindergarteners get to dress up and march around in a parade while the older kids cheer for them.  I'm so sad I missed it!

Natalie's reaction when she first saw Todd was so cute- she was so excited and surprised!

Here come the kids!  Ms. Baldassari, her teacher is on the left in the yellow fairy costume.

The kids from the other grades line up along the parade route and cheer for the kindergarteners! 

Grant's 3rd Birthday

Big boy turned 3 on the 30th!  We had a quiet birthday at home this year.  He actually got to stay home all day with daddy and sis since the schools were closed.  

Grant making silly faces before we enjoyed cupcakes!

 Yay for cupcakes!  (He literally made this face when he saw the cupcakes!)

Now we're talking guys.  I'm happiest when I'm eating a cupcake.  In fact, Natalie asked him what his favorite food was while he was eating this, and naturally he said, "Cupcakes!"

 After dinner and cupcakes, we opened a few presents.  Happy birthday little buddy!  We love you so much and are so thankful for every day that you're in our lives!  You are the funniest little guy, always aiming to please... A little boy who loves trucks and construction equipment and the movie Cars! 

Hurricane Sandy

We got a day off of work on the 29th (and the kids got the 30th off school too because some schools didn't have power yet) due to Hurricane Sandy making landfall in New Jersey.  It leveled a lot of areas in New York and New Jersey, but we were pretty much spared here.  We had some gusty winds, but nothing major.  We didn't even have too many limbs or branches down, and we never even lost power!

Hurricane's around here pretty much mean a lot of laying around and watching movies!

Or goofing off as the Three Amigos!  Would you say that I have a plethora of pinatas?  Or perhaps a plethora of sombreros!

Natick Spooktacular

This year, with the impending effects of Hurricane Sandy headed our way, we weren't sure we were going to be able to go Trick or Treating.  So we dressed the kids up and went down to the Natick Common for the Natick Spooktacular.  It was actually super fun!

The kids were so cute dressed up in their costumes.  We colored Natalie's hair red so that she could look like Aeriel the Little Mermaid. Grant was a character from the movie "Cars" - Tow Mater, the tow truck.

 

The first stop at the Natick Spooktacular was at the "try-to-eat-a-donut-on-a-string-without-using-your-hands" booth.  As you can see, Natalie was doing a pretty good job at this!

Meanwhile, Little Buddy just grabbed ahold of that chocolate donut and went to town!  Forget the rules, I'm hungry for donuts!

 The fire department also did a Punkin' Chuckin' event where a firefighter climbed up to the top of one of the ladder trucks and dropped pumpkins on a target (and in a trash can!)  Grant had his fingers in his ears the whole time, although he did talk about it later as if he enjoyed it!

Next, the kids got to go around to the various businesses around the downtown Natick area and get candy.  Grant just wanted to eat whatever he got, immediately.  

The Vitti girls came with us- and you can see all three of the girls smiled nicely for the camera.  We tried to get Grant to join in the picture, but he just wanted to stand against the wall behind the girls!

After trick or treating was over, we went back to the Common and ran around a bit.  We had to stop and take a quick candy break.  You can see Grant was having some difficulty with the Tootsie Roll he was eating.  He did not care for all of that stickiness in his teeth! 

Tilly and Salvy's Pumpkin Festival

Tilly and Salvy's Bacon Street Farm is a great little shop that sells local, fresh and organic foods.  Every year, they have a pumpkin festival, in which the proceeds go to Natick Public Schools, so of course, we had to go support that.  It was a REALLY nice late afternoon when we went.  The kids really enjoyed the bouncy house (Natalie), the mini trampolines (Grant) and the pumpkins, which you can see Grant just made himself at home on the pumpkin pallets.

This looks like a perfect place to drive my cars around.

Look out Mr. Giant Pumpkin, here comes my white race car!

Natalie and Daddy coming back over to us after playing for a while on the bouncy castle.  And in case you were wondering, they raised over $5500 for Natick public schools this year!!!