Polar Express

The boys love to read and watch The Polar Express during the Holiday season. So, my Mom and I took them to Branson to ride on the Polar Express. We surprised Lance by picking him up early from school and we surprised Grayson by picking him up early from Mothers Day Out, we didn't tell them where were going until we got in the car and they were SO excited!

Here are some pictures from our fun afternoon!

Mimi and her boys before we boarded the Polar Express

Showing off their new trains they got.

Testing the hot chocolate

Mmmmm....

Getting their tickets punched

The hobo - Grayson was NOT a fan!

Merry Christmas!!

Santa

We went to see Santa the other day after school and the boys were so excited. On the way to the mall, we talked about what they were going to ask Santa for. Here are their lists:

Lance:

1. Bicycle

2. Wii games

3. Race cars

Grayson:

1. Bicycle

2. Fire truck

3. Kitchen

Their lists change daily with new additions! They both have been good boys this year and I cannot wait for a memorable Christmas morning this year!

Merry Christmas!!

Christmas Parade

This morning we bundled up and headed to the Bentonville square to watch the annual Christmas parade. The boys loved watching all the floats and most of all collecting the candy that they were giving away! Both of them had bulging pockets by the end of the parade. Here are few pictures we snapped mostly as we were waiting for the parade to start.

Pancake Breakfast

Lance's school hosted a pancake breakfrast for a fund raiser a few weekends ago. A local restaurant is generous enough to donate their facility for the school to have this great event. Lance was beyond excited when he brought the volunteer sign-up sheet home from school.

Here is Lance, our waiter for the morning. He was so cute - he was nervous at first but once he got the swing of things, he did great! His favorite part was cleaning up the tables.

I love this sweet boy and his heart to want to help others - he is such a sweetie!

Quick Weekend Getaway

A few weekends ago, we loaded up and headed to Branson with our good friends Chad and Allison. It was basically a quick trip for the guys to go fishing - we headed over Friday afternoon and came back Saturday afternoon. Allison and I were able to squeeze some Mexican food and a little shopping in, well, as much as you can squeeze in with a 2 and 5 year old. The guys still owe us a shopping day :)

Here are the guys before they headed down to river to fish, looking good I might add! Sadly, this was the only picture I got from the whole weekend :(

School Fall Party and Trick-or-Treating

Yesterday we had a busy day with both Lance's first school party followed by a fun evening of trick-or-treating.

Lance got to wear his Halloween costume to school all day! Then that afternoon they had their costume parade and fall party. We had a great time at the party - the kids got snacks, had a craft to make and Mrs. Wallace finished up with a Halloween story.

Lance and his friend Carter getting their snacks

Lance at his table enjoying his snacks
Grayson enjoying a cupcake (one of his favs)

Mrs. Wallace reading a Halloween story to the kids

(notice who is front and center)

Lance listening to the story

Lance and Mrs. Wallace

Our first stop for trick-or-treating was at Mr. Rick and Miss Vicki's - this has been an annual stop for us since Lance's first year of trick-or-treating. We just love to look at all their beautiful fall and Halloween decorations and love to get to see this sweet and very-special-to-us couple. This year, Grayson was a bit more "active" and it took us several times to get a good picture in front of their beautiful fall tree - we get a picture in front of the tree every year.

Here is a look at a few of our attempts of the picture in front of the tree.

And, this is the best one that we got.

I'll take it! :-)

Next, we headed over to our good friends the Greenfield's home and had some yummy soup before we headed out for some trick-or-treating around their neighborhood. The boys were so excited to get to go trick-or-treating with Carter-Wayne and Sawyer. We all had a great time.

Before we headed out

(Grayson was not in the picture taking mood at this point)

Grayson and Sawyer

My football player

We had such a fun and busy day! We all were exhausted at the end of the evening!

Look Who Lost Their First Tooth.....

Lance woke up Saturday morning and announced that he had a loose tooth!

While we were eating Nana's birthday lunch, he took a bite of his cheese burger and the tooth fell out - I think he was a little surprised when it fell out and didn't hurt.

Here is our big boy and his cute new smile :-)

Happy Birthday Nana!

Today we celebrated Nana's birthday! Tom organized a "surprise" lunch to honor this special lady on her day. We all pitched in and had a yummy lunch, complete with birthday cake made by Kyla!

It took Nana and all the Grandkids to blow out the candles ;-)

After we had lunch, we headed outside to take some pictures of the pretty fall flowers and leaves.

All the grandkids

Nana and her grandkiddos

All of Nana's kids

The grandkids in their favorite climbing tree

Grayson giving Nana her birthday kiss - sweet boy!

Happy Birthday Nana! We love you and hope you enjoyed your day! Thank you for your constant love and support for our family!

Trunk-or-Treat

Friday night, Lance's school hosted a Trunk-or-Treat event. This was our first experience with trunk-or-treating and we had a blast. It is a really neat idea and the kids had a great time.

I must say that our night started out a little rocky when our little giraffe was less than excited about getting his costume on - but once Lance showed him how the whole trick-or-treating (or trunk-or-treating in this case) worked, he was on board. Grayson has a bit of a sweet tooth and once he figured out that if put this "animal" costume (as he call it) on and goes up to people with his bag open and they will put candy in his bag, he was all about it!

Mommy with her little goblins .

(Disclaimer: we are not OSU fans, this outfit was bought for the the sole purpose of its color, Lance wanted a football uniform like his Daddy's football team)

Lance grabbing some candy to fill his bag.

Checking out his candy.
Grayson in the background talking to a puppy.

I thought this was a sweet picture of Lance and Daddy.

This picture cracks me up -

it looks like Grayson is just standing there saying Give.Me.Candy!!

Loading up once more.

Happy little giraffe!

Our little trunk-or-treaters

We had a great time trunk-or-treating and look forward to the event next year! The boys are looking forward to trick-or-treating with friends on Monday - more pics to come!