Back from Idaho

Erik was out of town this week, so the boys and I decided to take a short trip to see Nana and Papa in Idaho. We had a fun time - went to see Idaho State play Montana State in football, rode horses, went to the "fun palace" and played and played and played with Nana and Papa. On the plane

At the football game. Hard to say what they liked more, the game or the ice cream, popcorn and juice!

We went to Uncle Dave's and rode horses. Jake had no fear at all and wanted to ride again and again. Ben got on long enough to ride in a circle and get his picture taken.

Jake and Ben with Nana and Papa
This is Igor, the bird. The boys were SO curious about him. They would ask my mom to take him out of the cage, but then say "I think he wants to go back in now".
Fun Palace

Happy Halloweeeny from the Isernhagens

I just have to say.....this holiday is SOOOOO fun when you have kids. They got it this year, holy cow did they get it. We went out tonight and they got soooo excited when they saw all of their friends out in costumes. They RAN from house to house in this huge, overwhelming pack. Halloween 2007 was a success!

Jackson even got a treat from a house or two (sorry about the weird green eye pick...couldn't figure out how to fix it)

Notice the pirate ship pumpkin. It looked really good with the candlelight, but we aren't savvy enough with the camera to capture it properly.

Weekend

We went to Erik's office on Friday afternoon to trick or treat. The boys really get it this year. They have the "trick or treat" down pat! Jake is Buzz Lightyear and Ben is Woody. When anyone would ask "who are you" Jake will run around like he is flying and say "I'm Buzz....to infinity and beyond" and Ben would say "I'm Woody.....there's a snake in my boot, and this town's not big enough to the two of us". They are such HAMS!
We went to a Halloween party on Saturday night and they had a great time showing off their costumes and eating pizza and cupcakes.

Today we carved our pumpkins. We made a funny face and a pirate ship. Later, we took the boys downtown to Coors Field and showed them where the World Series is being played. It was great to see how many fans are getting into the Spirit - GO ROCKIES!!! The game is on right now....we'll see how it goes. We ended the day at the park "playing baseball like the Rockies"

Happy Halloween!!!!!!

Erik showing the boys how it's done.

Finished product! This is the first pumpkin. The other one is a pirate ship, but I didn't have a chance to take a picture of it. (later)

Playing baseball at the park. The boys have canned the tee and we are pitching to them now. It's unbelievable to me how well they are hitting the ball.

Trick or treating in Daddy's office - they haven't really learned that the candy will last for more than a minute. As soon as anyone would give them a piece, they wanted to open it and eat it (made for a long trip around the office)

They found some hard hats.

Buzz and Woody playing with Batman (at Batman's party)..

Scooping out the guts. Although I was the one that scooped most of it out at first. Something I didn't know about Erik is that he doesn't like the pumpkin guts. The boys asked why Daddy wasn't putting his hands in there and before I could answer, Erik started to do it (he knew I was about to tell them that "he is scared", so he wasn't going to have any of that.

cha cha cha cha changes.....

This was yesterday.........

This is today!

We received our first snow of the season. What a difference a day makes. Yesterday we were at the park, and today we are shoveling. It was one of those wet, heavy snows and luckily we looked out to notice our trees were getting pummeled! Our maples still have (had) most of the their leaves on them and the snow had really smooshed the branches down. Thanks to Erik and his hockey stick they are fine now. Unfortunately for some of our neighbors, lots of branches were broken (Erik tried to save theirs too, but it was too late). Erik is on his way to the Bronco game - I know, I know, it's football weather, but I think he's going to freeze his little tooty off (he loves it when I call his body parts "little" and "tooty").

It's going to be 74 degrees by Wednesday! - Yipeeee!

Pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins

We went on our yearly trip to the pumpkin patch and took our obligatory pictures - I actually think it's fun! This year we went to Grandma and Grandpa's pumpkin patch at their church (we had to support Grandpa because he is now the newly elected Men's club president and all). We really loaded up on those fun orange vegetables because we are going to do us some carvin' this year (haven't done that with the boys yet). I'll let all ya'll know how that goes.

I've finally succumbed to that fact that Fall is here. We winterized the yard today - one last mow, trim, fertilization, teak oil on the wood patio furniture, stored the cushions, etc. Fall is a great time but as Erik is always pointing out to me.....I can't enjoy Fall because all I can think about is how much I'm going to hate winter. I'm trying to be optimistic though - maybe this winter will be more of a traditional Colorado winter. You know what they say......we have 300 sunny days a year (I wonder how that statistic has changed after last winter).

Mr. Incredible

I have been trumped by Erik and had to take the "underwear model" pictures off.

Should I be embarrassed to say that the best part of potty training is how fantastically cute Ben is in those little, itty bitty titey whities? I asked him to turn around so that I could get a picture of his little bum. Who could have known what a natural he would be as an underwear model?

He is showing the m&m's in his mouth - his favorite part of potty training.

Swimming Success!!!

We had a great morning at swimming lessons. Ben loves to go to our pool, but for some reason when we went to SafeSplash for lessons, he screamed his little blonde head off and wanted nothing to do with it. He told me that he didn't want to swim with Miss Jessi (the nicest swimming teacher ever!) he would only swim with Daddy. Alrighty then.....on Sunday, Daddy took the boys to the pool where we take swim lessons and he did just fine. I think Erik must have done something to convince Ben that the lessons were fun because today, he was great! Oh, and Jake? Well, he's a natural!