happy halloween!!

 It was a beautiful, chilly Halloween night! When was the last time we went trick-or-treating with gloves on?!?

good times at the patch

Here are some more pics from our great afternoon at Walter's Pumpkin Patch!

 the boys love burying themselves in the corn bin!

 G & C jumping high...

 and then I joined them! so fun!!

 Nana was so kind and gave Carter a push while he was driving this manual go-kart...

 Grayson swinging HIGH out over the creek on a rope swing

 and Carter was brave and did the rope swing this year, too!

Walter's Pumpkin Patch is one of our favorite places to visit in the fall! :)

walter's pumpkin patch

We had so much fun at Walter's Pumpkin Patch this past week when the boys were off school. It's a yearly tradition for them to go with Nana, and I was excited to tag along as well! :)

 Grayson is as tall as my shoulder right now, and his foot is within a size of mine... wow!

 Carter is not far behind :)

 they love the tunnel slide!

more pics to come...

carter lost a tooth!

Carter proved my philosophy... that if as a baby, you get your teeth early, you will lose them early. When Carter was on 4 months old. he already had 4 teeth! He was a little jack-o-lantern baby! :)

But, on Thursday morning, with the help of his big brother, he lost his first tooth! And he's only 5!!

hangin' with big jay

 Mom and I took the boys up to Lawrence this weekend to do some shopping at the Union take in a football game and have fun playing on the Hill. As soon as we pulled into the stadium parking lot, we spotted our good friend, Big Jay. We all got out of the car and ran over to see him! (Big Jay was wearing pink pants to support breast cancer awareness on Saturday...)

 he needed to get up to the Hill to walk down with the band, so he invited the boys to walk along with him

 and off they go!! see the Campanile in the background? :)

 once we got inside the stadium, I told the boys they could each pick out a snack...

Grayson chose a funnel cake

 ...and Carter chose cotton candy!

Mom and I joked that you know your football team is bad when they hand out signs that say "First Down"... haha

 the 'Hawks made it quite the exciting game by tying it up in the 4th quarter, 20-20. 

but they ultimately lost to OSU, 27-20. 

Good game, boys!!

we did end up at the Union for a little browsing later in the afternoon and finished the night with dinner at Ingredient. it was a great day!!

jerry's 5th half marathon

On Sunday morning, Jerry ran his FIFTH half marathon. Wowsers! He says he runs to get the dogs ready for hunting season... but I think it's an obsession. Runners are an interesting breed. ;)

 the boys and I were up bright and early to catch Jerry cross the finish line

 here he comes! he ran it in 1:39.03!! 

(that's running 7 1/2 minute miles the whole way...wow!)

 Yay, Jerry! You did it! Again!!

celebrating with his medal afterwards :)

gramps' pumpkin delivery

Gramps has established quite the tradition with the boys. The last several years he has brought them a HUGE pumpkin from somewhere in Kansas. Grayson and Carter love the pumpkins, and it's always a great conversation-starter on Halloween! :) No one can believe the size!! And how the pumpkin got there!!

Carter was soooo excited to see what was in Gramps' trunk :)

 Jerry thought it definitely weighed more than 100 lbs, so he and Dad rolled it out onto a scooter to move it to our porch

 Thanks, Gramps, so much for such a fun surprise!! As I've said in the past, the big pumpkin is our best fall decoration yet!