Halloween- Monsters

Anytime we talked about Halloween costumes, Cooper kept saying that he wanted to be a blue monster.  I don't really know where he picked that up from, but he answered the same every time he was asked.  Cooper wanted to be a blue monster and he wanted Hudson to be a green monster.  We decided to make these unique and specific costumes....but had trouble finding green for Hudson.  We switched Hudson to red after checking with Cooper that it was okay ;)

We went to a local church for a fall harvest party.  Cooper enjoyed the games and Hudson enjoyed candy.  He got a piece as soon as we walked in the door and was ready to eat it.  Thankfully we were able to space it out a little!  Cooper also loved jumping in the bounce house with his friend Parker.

We ended the evening out at our friends' house.  We took the boys to trick or treat around their neighborhood and then just hung out there for a while, enjoying music, popcorn, visiting trick-or-treaters, and of course...a little more candy.  In the words of Cooper as he knocked on each door, "Trick-or-treating!" and as we finished at each house, I would ask, "What do you say?" and he would respond with "Happy Halloween!" (I was going for thank you...but whatever.)

Fun times with these little boys. Cooper is already thinking of what he will dress up as next year. He originally said firefighter, because Parker borrowed his firefighter clothes (that Cooper didn't really know he had because we had put them away since he wasn't quite ready for dress-up when he got them). Since then, it has changed to an astronaut (which would be super cute) and then just today he told me he doesn't want to be a firefighter or astronaut anymore. He wants to be a cow. So there's that. I'm sure it will change a hundred more times before next year and I'm sure he has no clue just how far off Halloween really is. 

"Trick-or-treating"! 

Mizzou Homecoming!

The boys and I went up to Columbia to celebrate Mizzou's 104th Homecoming.  It is so fun being close enough that we can easily go and watch games or attend other events.  Eric was gone during homecoming weekend, but I decided I would tackle the festivities with the boys.  On Friday night, we met up with the Carsons and Nelsons for pizza at Shakespeare's.  And because I was flying solo, I didn't take any pictures then....you know, just trying not to lose one of my children.  Cooper was well entertained with the dough ball that they give you to play with, and Hudson, well he was occupied with a lot of snacks.  We got there at the perfect time to snag a table and have a short wait time on pizza.  After dinner, we drove to campus to the BSU.  The BSU (Baptist Student Union) was celebrating 30 years of being at their building on campus and had events all weekend to celebrate.  People from the BSU were crucial to my spiritual growth in college and provided me with several of my best friends.  Friday night was an ice cream social and then we went over with some friends to House Decs in Greek town.  House decs are these skits put on by the fraternities and sororities....basically they all end with Truman the Tiger saving the day or helping to win the game.

Hudson and I enjoying our ice cream

It was SO good to see sweet friends Nicole and Alex

Waiting on a skit to start

Sweet brothers holding hands as we walked back to the car

We made the drive back to Jefferson City and I got the boys to bed quickly, knowing we were going to get up the next morning and make the trip back up to Columbia.  The homecoming parade was going to start at 9:00am, so we needed to be there in time to get parked, walk, and find a place to sit.  There were SO many people at the parade, but thankfully we found a good spot to watch and the boys had a lot of fun.  The parade was 2 - 2 1/2 hours long.  After it was finished, we walked around campus for a bit and then as the boys began to get tired and hungry (and a little cranky and fragile), we left to grab a nutritious lunch at Sonic and drive home.  We got home just in time for nap time :)
I wasn't able to see all of the friends that came in for homecoming since we had to leave before the tailgate, but it was good to catch up with those I saw.  And I didn't lose my kids (although there was a scare when Cooper was sitting and hiding behind some bushes).  I'm thankful for the fun weekend--and that Eric came home :)  I respect those who do this whole parenting thing on their own...it is hard work...and I only had to do it for 4 days.

MIZ-ZOU!

Boone & Cooper collecting all the candy!

Ashley came in from Atlanta

Little Grace (and her family) drove in from Bowling Green, KY

How to keep him in good humor? ...all the candy

Sweet boy (who loves sweets)

Two of my best friends/roommates/bridesmaids from college

These two are only 10 days apart in age and always have fun together.

Jeff, Brett, & Casey (and Harley who made lots of friends)

(We didn't attend the actual football game.  It was a 6:00pm kickoff, and I would have been crazy to attempt that on my own.)

Weekend with our nieces

Our nieces came and stayed with us for the last weekend in September.  My brother and sister-in-law were planning to be out of town for an adults' weekend with my sister-in-law's family.  We tried to think of fun things we could do to stay busy and make it a fun weekend.  Our friend Bri told us about going to the South Farm Showcase last year at Mizzou and how much fun it was.  It ended up that our weekend with the girls was when the showcase was being held.  It is a completely free event (besides some things you can buy if you choose) and is ran by CAFNR (College of Agriculture, Forestry, Natural Resources).  The South Farm is a part of Mizzou used for research and teaching.  Some of the activities at the showcase were launching a weather balloon, cockroach races, tomato and pepper tasting, corn and straw bale mazes, an exotic animal petting zoo, sawmill demonstrations, milking a cow, running the bases and so much more.  It ended up being a perfect weather day and there were so many things we could do.  We got there and parked, and then started with a ride on the golf cart up to the main area (which our niece Kaylen was SO excited about).  Hudson rode in the stroller, so I pushed him and we followed along behind.

 We then got a hay ride to go to the barn.

Hayride

Petting (and feeding) the cow

Eric had to go first to stick his hand in the fistulated cow.

 Milking the cow:

Hay maze:

 Face painting:

We played soccer and putt-putt on the turf:

We also picked out little pumpkins, Kaylen talked to some students about bugs and plants, and ate tiger-striped ice cream!  We ended our few hours at the farm happy, hot, tired, and ready for lunch!

That was our main activity out of the house.  It's a lot of work to get 4 kids ready to go, loaded up, and then to keep track of them out somewhere.  The rest of the weekend, we played, went to the park, decorated cookies, painted pumpkins (from the showcase), watched movies, made build-your-own pizzas, and had a fun time!

Thanks for coming and spending the weekend with us, Kaylen & Clara.  We had so much fun!  

September Cookies

I have been absent from blogging....and not really for any good reason besides just not taking the time to sit down and do it.  So I thought the easiest way to ease back in would be with a cookie post.  Here are the cookies we made in September.

Baby Shower cookies

Cookies for the Rock Bridge Bruins cheerleaders

Wedding favors

Wedding favors

Special cookies to ask "Will you be my flower girl / ring bearer"?

50th Birthday cookies used during a family birthday celebration in Hermann.

Jake and the Neverland Pirates cookies for a 6 year old birthday party!

House warming cookies to welcome a family to Mizzou.

New York City - Day 4

It's time to finish up about our trip to New York.  It has been two weeks since we were there, so I need to write before I start forgetting things!  When we were planning for our vacation, we found out that our friends Jon & Sarah would be in NYC at the same time.  They were planning a trip to watch a couple of days of the U.S. Open and our time in the city was going to overlap.  We talked about meeting up for a meal, or doing something together, and then ended up deciding to go to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum.  We actually spent most of the day with them...and had so much fun!

We met up and rode the subway down to One World Trade Center.  This building is now the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere at 1,776 feet.  It was so crazy standing beneath it and looking up, not being able to really see the top.  We had decided a few days before to buy tickets to the museum ahead of time, just to guarantee that we would be able to go in at the same time and hopefully mean we wouldn't have to wait.  We got there around 9:30am, and after going through security, we were able to go right in.  (By the time we left, it was a pretty long line outside waiting to get in). 

I didn't take very many pictures.  It is a somber place to be....and something you really just need to experience.  We watched a short video before going down to the museum.  You make your way down in the original footprint of the WTC (70 feet down) and pass this remnant of stairs.  The Vesey Street "Survivor" stairs are the way that hundreds escaped by fleeing down these stairs.

There is this incredible mosaic as you make your way downstairs.  My picture doesn't do it justice (bad angle) but the quote is "NO DAY SHALL ERASE YOU FROM THE MEMORY OF TIME" -Virgil.  It is made of about 3000 tiles that signify the clear, blue sky from that morning on September 11th.   

There are some artifacts (like the firetruck up above) out in the walkway of the exhibition level, and places to read about each and every thing that you see.  But then there are two main parts of the museum-- the historical exhibition and the memorial exhibition.  You are not allowed to take pictures in this part of the museum.  We went into the historical exhibition which walks through the entire day of events of 9/11.  It focuses on each of the four planes from that day, talks about the WTC bombing from 1993, NYC before the attacks, NYC after the attacks, the terrorists...pretty much everything.  The memorial exhibition focuses on those that lost their lives that day.  We went through the entire historical exhibition, but did not go through the memorial exhibition.  The website says that the average visit is about two hours.  We had already been there longer than that and honestly, it's something that I can only read and watch for so long.  It is horrible what happened that day.  There has been good to come from it--in stories of heroes and the way people talk about it uniting the city.  All that to say, I don't want it to come across disrespectful that we didn't go through the memorial part.  I definitely have honor for those that lost their lives.

We made our way outside to the memorial fountains.  These two fountains sit in the blueprint of the twin towers and have the names etched around the outside of all of those who died that day.

Another look at One WTC. 

This white building (below) is the World Trade Center Transportation Hub.  It is inspired/designed to look like a bird being released from a child's hand. 

After we finished at the World Trade Center site, we walked towards Battery Park and grabbed lunch at Shake Shack.  I didn't take any pictures there, but the food was really good and we had been told by a lot of people that we needed to eat there.  Thankfully, the Battery Park location was not nearly as busy as several of the other NYC locations that we had passed.

We then made our way down towards the Staten Island ferry, passing the New York Stock Exchange (pictured above) and Wall Street.  We were there the week that things weren't going so hot on Wall Street (maybe that's every week?)  All I know is that I probably wouldn't have wanted to be down there during a stressful business day.  Anyways, back to the ferry.  Several people had talked about how riding the ferry provided a great way to see the Statue of Liberty and for free!  The ferry ride is 25 minutes each way...so we literally rode it to Staten Island, got off, got back on, and rode it back to Manhattan.

After getting off the ferry, we rode the subway back up to Midtown and walked around for a while.  We stopped in Bryant Park and then walked to Grand Central Station.  I just wanted to see the inside of it...and all it's grandness ;)

We finished our time with Jon & Sarah at John's Pizzeria.  They have eaten there before (including the night before), but the food is really good and we ordered pasta instead of pizza.  After dinner, we separated ways-- they needed to prepare for going to the U.S. Open and we needed to find some souvenirs for the boys!  We ended up with a NYC teddy bear, some M&M's from M&M World, and a pullback taxi car.  We also stopped at Junior's to get some cheesecake to go, since I think it's a requirement to have cheesecake while in New York.

Red Velvet Cheesecake

A couple of last pictures of our hotel, the Warwick.

Our flight was scheduled to leave at 11:05 on Monday morning.  We made reservations to have breakfast at Sarah Beth's before leaving on Monday.

Sarah Beth's - Central Park location

Farmer's Omelette (leeks, ham, potato, gruyere) and pumpkin muffin

Fat & Fluffy French Toast with strawberries

Farewell NYC!

So there is the rundown of our first trip to New York City.  We had so much fun...and thankfully walked a ton to help with all of our shakes, cheesecake, pizza, etc.  One thing we didn't get to see (that was on our list) was the Flatiron building, and one thing that we didn't eat that was recommended was a deli.  Neither of us love deli sandwiches....so we skipped that NYC thing.  We had planned to try to get tickets to see Jimmy Fallon, and actually made it into the reservation calendar (this whole process that you have to try for tickets a month in advance), but then he wasn't taping on the Friday that we were there.  Boo!  If we end up back in the Big Apple, we definitely would go see another (or several) Broadway shows.  I think we would both be interested in going to Ellis Island too.  We had both sides of people telling us to go see it/best thing ever and skip it/takes all day long.  We were trying to cram so many things into our short time there that we didn't feel like taking an entire day to do that.  But next time!  I'd also be interested in going to a Yankees or Mets game, since I think it's fun to go to different baseball parks.  We also thought it would be fun to watch a movie in Central Park, but we weren't interested in the movie that was showing while we were there.  Let me know if you have any questions from our trip...or if I didn't explain anything well enough.  I also want to say that we are so thankful for grandparents that are willing to watch our boys and give us a little time to get away.  I know the boys can be a lot to keep up with and we are so grateful for our parents taking off work and rearranging their lives around our little guys.  Both sets of grandparents watched our boys in August for an extended period of time....so grateful! 

Thanks for reading along with the #BigAppleBarbs :)



And here are the links back to the previous days of our trip:
Day 1 - click here
Day 2 - click here
Day 3 - click here