Halloween 2012

Since we are the new kids in town (not to be confused with The New Kids on the Block), we headed to another family's house to go trick-or-treating (is that even a word?).  They live in a neighborhood where all of the houses are pretty close together so we just had to hit their street and a cul-de-sac and call it a night.

Here are a few pics and a couple of funny stories.

Once again, Spiderman gets the bad guy.  (Love Fletcher's face).  Most of you know that Fletcher is my typical first born rules follower.  He is not one to get in trouble at school or church (home is a different story).  We were walking through the neighborhood and a police car with its lights on came driving slowly down the street.  It was just patrolling the area because there were kids everywhere.  Fletcher's friend started yelling, "Hey!  Here's your escaped prisoner.  Here's the bad guy.  This is who you are looking for!" Fletcher was so nervous, hiding behind Kevin and telling his friend to stop saying that.  I wanted to stop the officer and get a picture of Fletcher in the back seat of his patrol car, but I didn't want to keep the officer from doing his job.  I don't think Fletcher would have wanted to sit in the police car, even as a joke.  Luke, on the other hand....

 The other family has 4 kids.  They went with a super hero theme too.  Green Lantern, Iron Man, Wolverine, Supergirl and Incredible Hulk dad.  They all had fun pretending they had caught the bad guy - Fletcher.

 It's all about the pose.

A few weeks before Halloween, Luke and I had the following conversation...

Luke (while wearing his costume):  Mom, I want to be Spiderman when I grow up.
Me:  Oh really?  That's cool.  You do know Spiderman isn't real, right?  (While I want to encourage his imagination, I don't want him living at home with me when he is 30 because the superhero thing didn't work out.)
Luke:  Yes, I know Spiderman isn't real.  He's really Peter Parker.
Me:  *sigh*

The Pepper Festival

This weekend Kevin's worksite hosted a Pepper Festival. It was put on by a local group here who supports what is known as the farm to table movement where what is eaten whether it be at home or in a restaurant is grown locally thus supporting local farmers and receiving the benefit of fresh, nutritional food. Wow, that was a really long sentence!  I'm thinking my English teachers would not be proud.

There were lots of booths with area restaurants all serving samples that included...peppers, all locally grown. Because I have germ issues, I am not necessarily a big fan of the buffet or "free sample" concept.  All those filthy hands touching food that I might be putting in my mouth. Yuck.  But I was ok here because the workers at each booth were either handing out the samples or they were nicely arranged in individual serving cups or napkins on a big platter.  Touching more than one was a big no-no.  The food was very random.  I didn't realize you could put peppers in just about anything and call it a delicacy.  Some were just downright weird.  Peppers in ice cream.  Peppers in chocolate cake.  RC Cola with peppers served with homemade moon pies.  Some were really good - poblano pepper and chicken soup, pepper pizza, bacon with a pepper sauce (who doesn't love bacon), pimento cheese with a pepper jelly and the list went on.  The kids weren't crazy about trying any of it.  A nice lady at one of the booths (Mexican restaurant) gave each of them a cup of plain tortilla chips and they were happy.

The thing the kids loved the most was the Bubble Guy.  Each bubble wand had two sticks with two pieces of rope attached to the end. One rope was a larger "U" shape and the other rope sort of connected the top of the "U".  (See picture).  The ropes were soft and flexible, but had a thickness to them (maybe 1/2").  All around the field were buckets with bubble solution (I saw the guy filling up the buckets and what he had looked like Dawn dishwashing liquid mixed with water or something).  Dip the wand in the bucket. Wait 5 seconds.  Pull it out.  Spread out the sticks and wait for a gentle breeze to "blow" your bubble.  When the bubble is as big as you want it, pull the sticks close together, causing the ropes to collapse and close the bubble.  The boys could have done this all day!  The Bubble Guy also had some really big wands and some adults were out there making HUGE bubbles.  Fun to see and even more fun for the kids to pop.

Obligatory festival face painting.  The kids had Awana Sunday night after the festival.  We had to go straight there and did not have time to go home and wash off said paint.  I heard them in the back of the van talking about how they were going to scare the kids at Awana.  I am sure the Awana teachers love us now.  The boys were sad when we made them take the paint off before bed because the bedsheets and school are more important than their happiness.  We are so mean.

A Few Beach Pictures

We went to the beach a couple of times in the last few months both at Spring Break and again this summer.  I didn't take a ton of pictures, but here are a few of my favorites.

Good-bye Summer!

Hello?

Is anybody there?

I know.  It has been 6 months since I've posted anything.  One half of a year has gone by.  Several or 8 things have happened.

I made a goal to start blogging again when the boys returned to school which is today for Fletcher.  Tomorrow for Luke.

In the days and weeks ahead, I'll try to catch you up on all of our adventures.

A few things are changing though.  For starters, I'm only going to put up a post on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I used to put something up every week day.  But that gets overwhelming after a while.  I know sometimes people get frustrated when they look at a blog and nothing new is posted.  So for now, just know to check Snickelfritz Lane on Tuesdays and Thursdays for new posts.

We said good-bye to summer by spending the Labor Day weekend with our friends in the mountains.

Here are a few pictures from our weekend.  We ended up at a really cool park on Beech Mountain.  I've seen lots of parks, but never anything like this.  Things were made out of these really thick ropes.  Lots of bridge type things to climb on.  Swings made of canvas.  Rope spider web.  The boys loved it.  And the parents had fun too.

(Haven't the boys grown?  Since my last blog entry, Luke turned 5.  Yikes!  Where is the time going?)

If You Could See Me Now

Forgot these were on my camera. 

One particularly cold Saturday morning, Fletcher decided he wanted to put on his insulated camo outfit and go outside to look for deer (or maybe birds or squirrels).  Luke wanted to do it too.  However, Luke's camo is just a thin costume from the costume box so I had to dress him in lots of layers first then put the costume over it because there was NO WAY he was wearing a coat over his camo. 

 The looked with their binoculars. 

 And talked a significant amount.  I just watched from the window.  No way was I going out there.

 They talked a lot too.  And yelled.  And Luke might have even sang a couple of songs if I recall correctly. 

Can't imagine why they never saw anything.

A Few Thoughts About Valentine's Day

1.  I'm glad my friend has a playroom with a chalkboard wall.

2.  Yes, I got a rather strange look from the Home Depot guy when he asked, "What do you need the PVC pipe for?"

3.  I am glad my boys are young enough to still put up with my crazy whims.  I know they will see these one day and say, "Mom?!  Seriously?!  You made me give these to my class?!"

4. Sticker placement is not important to Luke.
5.  Kevin helped me and the boys assemble these on Saturday.  I know how he really feels about Valentines Day (he thinks it is a marketing ploy for Hallmark and flower growers to make more money).  The fact that he helped tells me how much he loves me. 

6.  Without Valentines like these, I wouldn't get to have conversations like this:
(Before we assembled everything)
Luke:  Mom, what are those?
Me:  These are the Valentines for your class.
Luke:  So I'm going to give those to all my pretty girls?

Cultural Enrichment

Well, at least my children can say they've had a variety of cultural experiences.

Big Foot in action.