Pre-School Halloween Show

You're in for a real treat here....
Luke's class performed some Halloween songs, while in costume, at school today. Luke was very into it (he's the doctor located front and center), which was a nice change from last year, when he refused to stand up and sing with the kids.

Soccer

Tonight was Luke's last soccer game and I finally brought the good camera...

 We arrived a little early so Anna loved running around on the field with Luke...

Luke is on the ground in this shot; as you can imagine, he runs really fast and ends up on the ground a lot...

 All but 2 kids on team are in Luke's class, so they have had a blast running around (and fooling around) together...

 With a little bit of soccer sprinkled in... 

 I'm not sure if soccer will stick for him (though I hope so), but it was a good first experience with a team sport.

Neighborhood Party

Monday night we went to a neighborhood Halloween party at our local park. I picked up a back up costume for Luke (Doctor scrubs) since I didn't want him to trash the kilt & pipes, and Anna also wore a different costume (we now have 3 for her--all hand-me-downs)...

 There was a little pumpkin patch...

 And the kids painted their pumpkins. If they didn't get messy enough doing that, they also devoured chocolate cupcakes that had about 5 inches of frosting on top...

 We walked to the party with our neighbors, Sofia (pictured here), who is Anna's pal, and her older brother Shaolin, who is Luke's buddy. There were probably close to 200 people there and it was really fun; we have a really awesome neighborhood.

Trunk or Treat

Tonight we went to a Trunk or Treat party at Luke's school. If you're not familiar with Trunk or Treat (I think it's a Utah thing), a bunch of families park their cars in a big circle, dress up their trunks in Halloween decor, and hand out candy. The kids also did a Halloween parade and sang some songs for the elderly folks at a nursing home located next to the pre-school.
Anna is dressed as a bumble bee (obviously) and Luke is a bagpiper. Luke's costume includes a 35-ish year old set of kid-size bagpipes, knit cap, and custom-made kilt, which matches the kilt worn by the FDNY pipe and drum band. They were Keith's when he was young and sometimes marched in parades with Bill and the band, so they are very meaningful and we're excited to have them. Bill also sent out the band's patch (which is sewn on Luke's shirt). 
We have a neighborhood Halloween party on Monday, followed by real trick-or-treating on the 31st, so we'll make good use of the costumes. And actually, the kilt is really long on Luke, so he'll be able to wear it again next year if he wants!

Phone Pics

I just downloaded some photos from my phone - kind of a random selection, but all taken in the last week...

I haven't had the good camera to one of Luke's soccer games yet because I'm always toting Luke, Anna + at least one of Luke's friends, but I'll try to bring it next week for the last game. So, here's a blurry pic of half of the team. Luke is third from the left and all but the second kid in line are in his pre-school class...

On the carousel at the zoo... it was in the 70s through last weekend, hence the short sleeves...

 Anna at gymnastics class. She's just as physical and agile as Luke was at this age...

We discovered a huge, brand new playground about 15 minutes from our house. The kids loved it...

Luke had two friends (Fisher, top and Rex, bottom) over to play and for lunch after school on Monday. Anna was very excited to be hanging out with the big boys...

I captured this cute pic this morning to send to Uncle Chris for his birthday. About fifteen seconds after this was taken, Luke crashed his dump truck into Anna's legs, knocking her over and sending her to tears. 

Saturday Morning at the Breakfast Table

Keith pulled the video camera out this past Saturday, to capture a little of our everyday banter. Anna's talking quite a bit these days, including a lot of repeating what others say (especially Luke). One of the funny things she does is immitate "Swiper", the pesky fox in the Dora the Explorer series, who says "Oh Meannn" (Oh Man, dragged out and with a squeaky voice) when he is caught trying to swipe something. Anna loves to say it and it's pretty cute. You'll see it here...

Strider

For Luke's second birthday we got him a strider bike-- it's a bike without pedals, which teaches kids to balance on two wheels so the learning curve with a real bike will be less steep. Since he's a stubborn kid, who likes to do things on his own terms, he hasn't touched it since then. Though his friends are zipping around town on their striders, Luke still wasn't interested. And he recently told us that he doesn't want to go on the strider, he just wants to move straight to a "pedal bike." 

Until this week. Suddenly, he's all about the strider! 

Here he is showing off a little...

On the Rock

Today we went rock climbing with our friends the Leys. Their 6-year-old daughter Carson loves looking after Anna (who was snooping in their cooler all day)...

 It was Luke's first time climbing outside (he has been on an indoor climbing wall once)...

 And, as you might suspect, he was a natural - scampering up the rock almost quicker than Keith could keep up!

 Rappelling (going down backward) was a bit tricky for him, understandably..

 So Annie helped him out...

 He seemed to enjoy climbing...

But he probably liked running around and climbing in the woods even better (and Anna was right in there with the big kids)...

Luke and Fisher are classmates and they live down the street from us, so they play together a lot...

 While the adults climbed, Carson was the activities director. She can really get those boys running around doing funny things. In this photo she was a teacher, having them guess letters that she was making out of sticks...

It was a fun afternoon, and probably the last nice one before it gets really cold & snowy/rainy this week.

Fall

It's been a while. We've had a really busy fall so far, but somehow didn't take many photos.

We have lots of Halloween activities coming up so will have more to share over the next week. But in the meantime, here are a few pics of the kids from a weekend visit to Sundance to tide you over.