Walk with the Animals and Yard Work

Saturday we headed out to Salato Wildlife Education Center for their trick-or-treating event. We'd gone two years ago, too, and we must have had a conflict last year. We weren't there all that long, as Lewis ran from one trick-or-treating station to the next. He really got into that race car spirit. :)

Fishing

Buffalo!

And sitting by the waterfall

Later that afternoon, we raked our most leaf-heavy section of the yard (there are still many leaves yet to fall). I'd found a small rake on clearance at Target the other day that was a pretty good size for Lewis to actually help, and help he did:

He was surprisingly helpful at bringing the leaves to the pile.

Then Kevin wanted to show him how to jump into the pile...the hilarious blur below is Kevin. :)

:)

And then Lew's turn.

After bagging up the leaves, we moved over to filling some low spots:

He was sort of helpful with spreading out the dirt, but he really got into helping me stomp it down with his feet. He was really good at that. :)

And, finally, fun with the leaf blower:

Look out, Peter! :)

Lewis the Truest

Lewis is now finally getting to the point where he says enough things to say really funny things! Here are just a few that I've written down over the past few weeks. When I build up to four or five conversations, I'll post them.


While enjoying a quiet, peaceful hayride (full of people) out on a farm
Lew (yells): TRACTOR NEEDS OIL CHANGE!

Then continues to look around at the sights, saying nothing else. :)

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One night over dinner, talking about colors of hair, eyes, etc.
Mama: Mama's hair is blonde, Dada's hair is brown.
Lew: Like poop!

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Walking outside in the morning after it may or may not have rained
Lew: Rained last night!

He also says 'Cold outside' even when it isn't. Or 'Too hot outside.' I guess he's picking up on little excuses I make for us to not go outside at times... He sounds like a little grumpy old man when he says these things--it's really cute. 

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Walking into the kitchen as I was putting on gloves to mix up empanada filling
Lew: Mama's picking up poop! (because I wear gloves to pick up dog poop in the yard)
Me: No, Mama's making dinner.
Lew: Mama's making dinner poop!

:)

Trunk or Treat

Tonight we went to Lewis' school for their trunk-or-treat event! Lewis is a race car driver this year for Halloween. He's really into racing things right now, so it worked out well. We already had his costume supplies on hand--I'd bought the race car costume on 90% clearance last year at Target (so I think it was just a few dollars), and I'd found a race car driver pajama set at Goodwill a few months ago (unintentionally) for $1.50, so his costume was cheap and easy.

As I mentioned, Kevin came up with the idea of he and I joining in on the fun as the pit crew, so this week I was focused on coming up with our get-ups. I found two coveralls at The Unique (thrift store), so I added a few duct tape stripes to them to unify us (for added 'racing flair' and because they were two different colors of coveralls). I appliqued Lew's Racing to the back along with some checkered flags (his pajamas also have checkered flags, so we matched).

The final piece was our trunk decoration. I made a sign for Lew's Garage, and we put his Thomas ride-on toy and John Deere ride-on toy on display in the back of my car. We set out some of his plastic tools that a pit crew might use, and we added some glow sticks to make the candy more visible. Much to my surprise, the kiddos wanted the glow sticks more than the candy! They took all of them (which I didn't care about at all)--I was just surprised. We set the candy out and roamed as a unit for a while, and then I went back to man the car to make sure that people were taking plenty of candy.

Here are some pictures of our outing:

 Ready for trick-or-treating action!

Fittingly enough, right after I took this picture, he took off vroom-vrooming and running through the parking lot. The costume couldn't have occurred at a more fitting time in his life. Haha. :)

 Dropped some candy? Don't worry--Lew will pick it up.

 :)

 Big Lew and his pit crew

 Trying to pose, but all he wanted to do was get in the car and dig into his stash.

Ahhh, what a beautiful Rolo.

It was a fun event! I got to talk to his teacher for a little while, too, which was nice. I'm really hopeful that, come Monday, he'll be all better and can go back at school. 

Sickly Times are Here Again

Another week, another ear infection. :/ Lew started acting sick again last Friday, and by Sunday he had a horribly deep cough and greenish yellow snot. He seemed a little better by Monday (but we still kept him home from school), and then Tuesday he woke up saying that he had an Ear BooBoo. :( We went back to the pediatrician, and she found that he had another ear infection in his left ear (same as last time). 

Now that he's had two nearly back-to-back, he is on antibiotics again and we have to go back to be rechecked in three weeks to make sure it's gone. The first round of antibiotics caused no side effects whatsoever, but this time they prescribed a different one and it has caused diarrhea. I have a call in this morning to see if we can switch to something else. I also had a bad cough for a few days and now have sinus congestion, so it's been kind of a crummy week.

Monday, however, our day was brightened by a package in the mail from Mamaw Carter! Here are pictures of Lew opening it:

Room on the Broom (book) and Creepy, crawly bugs (in his hand)

m&ms!!! His favorite.

His face says it all. :)

Happy Halloween, Biscuit was the other book

Mom said she has a book about a dog at her house that they read, too. He is obsessed--we read it three times yesterday before nap, and then he slept with it under his head. No joke. He loves the 'puppy dog book.'

After reading the books a few times and eating a few m&ms, we went outside to carve our pumpkin into a Jack-o-Lantern that looks like the one in the puppy dog book:

Look out, Lew has a knife. :)

He had fun tracing the cuts I'd made, but he had no interest in helping me scrape out the guts and seeds. I later roasted the seeds, and they were awesome.

Posing with his pumpkin :)

And again :)

I told him to sit on the step and hold up his book...I guess, technically, he is doing what I said. Just not the step I had in mind. :)

Jack-o-Lantern at night

And during the day

Mom got me the big orange mum, so I added in a couple of yellow ones and a red one to decorate the front porch.

The other side of the porch

I copied the 'Welcome' pumpkin idea from Pinterest, and the gourds and white pumpkins came from our trip to the farm with Tonya and Carlton.

Thanks, Mom, for helping us get into the fall spirit. :) I'm working on Halloween costumes now--Lewis is going to be a race car driver, and Kevin came up with a last-minute idea of he and I being Lew's pit crew. So I'm working on our costumes--we have a fall festival and trunk-or-treat at Lewis' school tomorrow night, so I have to have things finished by then.

That reminds me, another bummer about being sick this week is that Lewis missed school picture day! His class had theirs taken on Tuesday, but thankfully other classes were having theirs taken on Wednesday. We dropped in yesterday, and I think the pictures will be ready next week.

Girl Time and Guy Time

As I mentioned, Kate and I got together at her house yesterday to catch up and start a few craft projects (while listening to 80s music, of course). :) She'd found some tutorials on Pinterest for potential projects, so I decided to go with some clothespin magnets for hanging Lewis' art projects on the fridge. She started cute felt scarves for both of us, but they'll take a while to finish. It was fun and was just what I needed to clear my head for a new week.

Here are our projects:

 One Completed Felt Flower (of many) and her Clothespin Magnets

And my magnets (after I trimmed the excess tape last evening)

I was supposed to use washi tape, which was $3 a roll at Target and not in patterns I liked. The light blue is washi, but the other three colors are $1 rolls of cute duct tape I found at Target. The buttons are some planes, trains, and automobile buttons I found at JoAnn's, and I cut the loops off the back of them so they would glue flat. The tutorial I used is here. Super simple. Lew loves them! I showed them to him to this morning, and he asked to be picked up to see them 3-4 other times throughout the day (I have them way up high on the fridge so he can't break them right away). :) Can't wait to fill up the fridge space with his art projects.

I also went into yesterday planning to decoupage some white pumpkins I'd picked up, but it was an epic failure. First of all, I didn't press the leaves beforehand. Secondly, my pumpkins were very small, therefore more ridge-y (and less smooth). I also used bulkier Maple leaves instead of the more delicate ones they used in the picture below, so that might have also been a problem. No matter how much Mod Podge I used, the leaves just kept bouncing back up, unwilling to stick. Super disappointing.

This is what they might have looked like:

While I was away, Kevin and Lewis held down the fort at home. I believe they watched some TV, went to the playground, played outside, and built a bonfire.

Here are a few of their pictures:

 Watching Cars

 Drooly McDroolerson from being sick

(if you look at the neck of his shirt)

 Jogging to the playground :)

It's at the elementary school across the street.

 Playing with Dada's Phone

He really likes wearing the hood of his hooded sweatshirts and jackets these days.

 Being a stinker, I presume?

That's better. :)

We ate dinner and had some s'mores out by the fire when I got home. It was a really good weather evening, yet again.

Again, Lewis didn't want a s'more, just the chocolate.

A Very Rainy and Cold Great Pumpkin 10K and Goooo, Cards!

Yesterday morning, Kevin ran a 10K at one of the new parks in town. It was the first race they've hosted, and we could tell right away that there are some kinks to be worked out. We thought we would arrive about 25 minutes before the race, but the only road that led to the parking area was a windy 2-lane road--it was bumper to bumper the whole way and took us over 30 minutes to almost get back to the parking area. Once we were close, they came by and told us to just pull over as far as we could on the road and park there (they ran out of parking spots)!

By that time, it was well past the 9am start time and was raining pretty steadily. I think they delayed the start until 9:30 so that everyone could get to the start line. Anyway, Kevin braved it, rain and all! Lewis and I sat in the car for a little bit before heading out to find the finish line. It was so cold and wet and muddy! Definitely one to remember. :)

The very cold and wet finish line

Go, Dada!

I had an umbrella, and I thought the stroller was pretty well covering Lewis from the rain. However, he kept putting his feet out... :)

There he is!

Go, Kevin! You rock!

Finished!

There was no time for chit chat after the race. Once we got over to him, he said, 'Let's go!' On the walk to the car, he was telling me about the course and revealed that the road we were parked on was actually a part of the course! We thought it would be a mess to get out, but there were enough breaks in the walkers that we were able to whip a three point turnaround and get the heck out of there.

We had just enough time to run home, change out of our rain-soaked clothes (and Kevin showered), and we got our Louisville gear on for the Red and White Basketball Scrimmage:

Coach Pitino before the game (with no zoom!)

Thanks to Kevin being on top of ticket sales, we were in the 2nd row, center court. Totally awesome seats!

This time last year we all went to a UL football game on a Saturday, which Lew sat through in its entirety. The following day we took him to the scrimmage, and I very clearly remember having to leave after like 20 minutes because he was fussing and fighting and making a scene. This time, we went in prepared. :) Our lines of defense were 1) pretzels, 2) yogurt melts, 3) Kevin's phone (to watch a show), and 4) candy. We did slowly use up each trick, and thankfully he made it through the whole game this time! He did get squirrely a few times, but overall I'd give him a big thumbs up. :)

Laying on his seat to look up at the big scoreboard :)

Being a goof with Dada (and not posing for a picture)

Looking for the Ladybirds

The Ladybirds are UL's dance team, and he really liked watching them dance during one of the commercial breaks. He wanted them to come back out (Watch girls dance again?), but they just danced the one time. We did use that as a bit of a bargaining chip, too, by telling him that we needed to stick around to see the girls dance again (which, in our defense, we assumed they would dance more than once!). 

Coach Pitino again and a couple of players

We had another secret weapon--our new friend, Simon, who was sitting in front of us. He was the sweetest boy, and he really helped us out with Lewis a few times. He talked to him, asked him questions, showed him his Nintendo game, showed him a cool UL necklace, etc. By the end, Lew was gently patting him on the back like he would do to a good buddy. :)

That was the best incognito shot I could get of Lewis and Kevin together (sorry, Kevin's head). :)

Yesterday was a busy day. After the game, we attempted (and failed) a nap, so we headed out to get some dinner and run a few errands. This morning I headed to Kate's house for most of the day to hang out, catch up, and do some crafting. Kevin and Lewis stayed back and had a Guys' Day. I have a few pics from their day and my day, so I'll save those for another post. (I still have a few finishing touches to put on my craft projects.)

Unfortunately Lewis is sick again, so I think he's going to have to miss school tomorrow (unless he wakes up a new man). I've heard it will get better as he builds up his immunities, so I'm looking forward to that. :) Maybe he'll be well enough by Tuesday!