Trick or Treat...

Like the previous posts surrounding Halloween, here are our little men all dressed up and ready to hit the streets looking for candy.  They are giving their best, toughest looks here and they do seem like quite the fearsome duo.  This year was probably the warmest Halloween that I can remember, as it is usually freezing or snowing or both.  What a great change!  They also are now getting over so the area they wish to cover for trick-or-treating has really started to grow.  Simply covering the block and the next street or two over isn't quite sufficient anymore.  They sure are growing up fast.

Halloween is a go!

Once again, we visited Costco for our Halloween costumes this year.  Although I am not totally sure how these guys even identify who these characters are (based on the fact that we don't let them watch the movies that have these characters), but Gavin chose to be Iron Man and Gage chose to be a Power Ranger.  Above, Gavin is showing how strong he is.

Here is Gage showing how strong he is, as well.  He hasn't quite figured out the "flexing" thing yet, but he quite the brute in any case.  The other funny part is that he is a tall guy, but also isn't very girthy as you can tell by his sagging belt.

More Leaves...

Even after all the work seen from our previous post with raking, our lawn was once again covered with leaves.  This started out as a leaf raking adventure and soon turned into finding some bugs and other creatures in the grass.  I think in this picture they captured something inside their viewing box and were checking it out.

After a while they returned to the task at hand and the crazy amount of leaves to rake.  Gavin took charge with the big rake and Gage did what he could with the smaller plastic rake.  We are thankful for all the help we can get, even if it means I (Brent) need to get out all the bags to finally bag up the piles of leaves before my grass dies under them.

The free adventures at Rock Creek Farm...

We have a fabulous farm near us where we like to go during the month of October.  We try to go once with Daddy to actually hunt for the pumpkins in the patch, but the other times we go are just to enjoy free adventure, which is the best part of Rock Creek Farm.  Other places make you pay an entrance fee, but at this one the only time you need to pay is when you want a pumpkin.   Otherwise, you can sit on tractors...

and play in jumpy castles...

and paint pumpkins...

and sit in combines...

and pose for sweet pictures like this one.  Man, for as much as Gavin beats up on his little brother, he also looks out for him SO much and enjoys his companionship more than he realizes.

Carving Pumpkins

We usually have many good pictures of our pumpkin carving festivities.  Apparently this year, we only took this one quick shot.  We did pick out some great pumpkins at the local pumpkin patch and made some nice Jack o' Lanterns.  The kids love carving because they get to cut stuff with giant knives and get messy from all the pumpkins insides.  At least they look well prepared with newspaper and paper towels.

ABC Kids Climbing

After watching years of Gavin and Gage attempt to climb every object and wall in our house, we finally decided to sign them up for a real rock climbing class.  It also helped that Gavin was growing a bit tired of soccer and needed something else active to do.  We found this climbing gym that was catered specifically to kids called ABC Kids Climbing.  It also was awesome that Gavin and Gage were able to both be in separate 90 minute classes that were at the same time.  Gavin started in Super Monkey's 1 which is a 5-12 year old class and Gage started in Monkeys 1 which was a 3 to 4 year old class.  Above you can see Gavin starting his first day on some of the Bouldering routes in the gym.

This is Gage getting in on the fun climbing as well.  In his class, one of the techniques they first use is to hide beanie babies or some other stuffed animals at increasing heights up the wall to entice the kids to go climb and get them.  It worked like a charm and Gage has basically been able to comfortably climb without fear.

There is also a top-roping section of the gym.  This is Gage heading out one of the routes there with his teacher (Mrs. Reilli) bole'ing him from down below.

Here is another pictures of Gavin doing some bouldering.  The routes are all color coded so you are only supposed to be able to touch the holds with your route's color tape linked to it.  This is a more advanced concept and often in the beginning the kids use whatever they can grab.  They were hooked after the first class, and although fairly expensive, they have an instructor to about every 3-4 kids.

Raking Masters

Gavin and Gage (by default) have recently taken to raking leaves.  Although it seems a bit like child labor, we don't even have to ask them to do this.  It might be Gavin's organization coming through or maybe it's just the fact that they can use "big person" tools to rake with.  In any case, we are not objecting to the effort. 

Our tree in the back drops a ton of huge leaves on the lawn and even Gavin can't believe how big the pile was.  I think this was just moments before he started diving and rolling through the pile.

Grandpa Brandt's funeral...

This is my sweet niece, Camille, who I got to see at my grandpa's funeral in Kansas.  Brent and I went back for the service (left the kids in the care of Brent's parents at home), and Zach and his family drove from Texas to be there, too.  Grandpa Brandt was 92.5 when he died, and though we miss him here, I'm so glad that he's with Jesus and all the special people who had gone before him.  Funerals are sad, but they also pose the neat and rare opportunity to bring family together.

Hunting pumpkins...

Gage looks like this was some serious business, doesn't he?  Daddy met us after work to go hunt down the perfect pumpkins in the nearby patch.

We found a couple of good ones and one to honor my grandpa, who went to be with Jesus in October.

Way to get 'er done in the work clothes, Babe!  We like picking out the pumpkins with you.