Halloween Fun

The boys had fun trick-or-treating in our new neighborhood this year.  Both were fairly comfortable walking up to doors and holding out their pumpkin containers.  Arjen definitely wanted to skip the house with the scary guy in the window, and I can't blame him.  Creeped me out too (an upstairs window was visible from the street, and they had someone standing up there wearing a mask, wielding a stick/sword of sorts, and all in a dark room lit only by a UV light.  Definitely wins for creepiest halloween decor!)

The boys started to peter out after 10 or 15 houses, so we came home to pass out candy.  What I didn't expect, was that Arjen got almost more excited to pass out candy than he was to go collect it!  And of course, what Arjen enjoys, well Gus gets right in there and joins him.  Unfortunately, I didn't act fast enough to teach Arjen the laws of supply and demand, and his generosity handing out candy resulted in us running out after about 30 min.  Lesson learned (buy more candy!).

If I get around to taking the pics off of Andrew's phone, I'll add some pumpkin patch pictures up here too.  Just haven't managed to do it yet….

The SuperBoys

And yes, next year we'll plan for more completed costumes too!

More pieces of October

Moving in, first visitors, and just general fun getting to know our new 'hood!

Thanks to Baba, the Ice Cream Truck now drives onto our street every day at 2.  I know two boys who aren't complaining though!  Big thanks though to Baba and Dave (and Joann, Bryan, and Dorothy!) for helping us on moving in weekend!

Gus decided he'd help unpack the toy boxes in the loft - the official playspace

First playdate in our new house - Thanks for coming over Sophie!!! So glad we live so close to you now!

Obligatory goat ride

Despite the cute white pants, this kiddo had no problem joining the boys in our lovely dirt yard!

Big Love!

"hello, my name is chubby" - yes, Arjen has discovered a new favorite game, if you can call it that.  Fortunately, Sophie was a good sport.

"Mom sure spends enough time using this broom thing-y, maybe I should give it a try!"

Arjen got a new-used bedroom furniture set.  Now he has an official place to work on his laptop.  

Trying out the new birthday kite at our neighborhood park.  

Gus had to "fly" a kite too, of course!

Dinner on the patio (imagine pavers under the table, sod off to the left...or just enjoy the view with us!)

Gotta work on the "cheese!" face a bit more...

Of course, October also brings another birthday for Andrew too...Happy 38th Dad!!!  Thank you for all you do for us, each and every day!  We love you!!

"making" a birthday cake

The big guy needed a little help blowing out all those candles!

Moving is hard business.  Time for a good lounge.

Arjen got a new piano book.  Took it upon himself to set up the perfect piano playing spot, after taking a train ride to Wisconsin of course (note the seatbelt towel around his lap).  Gotta love the imagination growing with this kid!

Somewhere in this moment in time, I got the loveliest serenade ever...but I was enjoying it so much, that it's not one I get to share with anyone but Arjen.  Attempting to get video of it was a complete afterthought.  He played on his piano, and sang "our" song "Rock me Mama".  Happy tears were shed that day.  

Happy 3rd Birthday Arjen!

Hard to believe I've been logging pictures and events on this blog for 3 years now.  Even harder to believe that this tiny peanut...

...is now this kid climbing trees!

It truly is amazing to watch these little bits of yourself continue to grow, and start becoming much bigger pieces of themselves.  Thank goodness we get such a head start on life before kids show up, because I don't think I'd be able to keep up with this guy if I weren't already a few steps ahead!  Arjen, I hope you hear it from us enough, but you are one incredible, compassionate, brilliant boy.  I love every moment watching you grow up, but please don't do it too fast, okay?? 

Some birthday pics:

Even though we had just moved in to our new house two days prior, we had to do a proper birthday celebration.  Nothing fancy, but after a birthday muffin-with-a-candle breakfast (cause mom hadn't quite done real grocery shopping), Arjen got to open his much anticipated new present...

Putting on his new "ding ding" boots

Big love to Dad for the awesome ding ding boots!

strutting his stuff, in the ding ding boots

 Then, for dinner, we bit the bullet and took the kids to Chuck E. Cheese's.  I mean, what's a kids birthday without The Cheese?!?

Gus was loving the games

The boys on a virtual roller coaster ride

I think there were some mixed emotions in the smaller folks here, but overall a fun ride!

 Then, there was the Birthday celebration with the Keane fam/breaking in the new house!:

Some things Arjen remembers about his birthday this year:

"In October!"

"There's presents!"

"And People"

"We play"

"Happy birthday to you Arjen"

Happy 3rd Birthday Arjen!  We love you to the moon and back!

Cooking with Baba

...it's the newest show on the Food Network.  Have you seen it yet?  They even have the Naked Chef too!

(so it troubles my inner OCD slightly, that this post is so out of order on the blog and delayed in getting posted, but it had to be shared!)

Brotherly Love

Christmas in October!

So, the move has been held up by issues with receiving our check in the mail that will allow us to pay for this lovely home that is sitting there ready to move in.  Well, today, it FINALLY arrived!!!  It feels like we can finally breath again, and celebrate!  So after saying a huge thank you to GGMa Clarice for begin the mail keeper for us and for letting us bombard her every day for the past 3 days, we decided dinner at our fave Sushi restaurant in SF was needed.  So off we went.  But not after enjoying some much needed play time with GGma.

(of course the boys didn't sit still long enough for me to get any well focused or exposed pics with ggma, so my apologies for the poor quality of these two):

Making an important phone call

Gus had his giggles going.  It was pretty cute.  

So here is a video of Arjen using the fancy kid-friendly chopsticks they gave him at Ebisu.  My apologies this time, for the poor table manners (stuffing his face!), but hey, the kid ain't even three yet and he's eating sushi with chopsticks!!!  Oh, and don't mind Gus in the background stealing all of Arjen's edamame when he wasn't looking...

And did we mention Gus likes to eat? So much so, that after we'd all finished our orange desserts, he decided to make sure we didn't leave any bits behind...

It's friends like these

In addition to awesome grandparents, our fabulous friends have also helped keep the here-there-and-everywhere style of our recent life fun and easy. We're still waiting to get into our house, so still shacking up at camp baba and dave. While in SF and the east bay one day, we were able to sneak in a last minute play date with our friends Sophie and Ranee. Or, if you ask Arjen, his friends. "Sophie and Ranee are my friends mommy. Who are your friends?" Thanks kiddo.