We also used round sponge brushes to paint leaves on trees.
And remember our tree that we made in the Spring with the butterflies around it? Well the seasons change and so the wall art needed a change too. We used watercolors to paint some leaf templates that we cut out and put on our tree. 
And of course we went outside to rake and play in the leaves!
This is always a favorite activity. Of course with all the chaos I never really got a picture of the actual cookies we decorated but I did get a picture of Jakes frosted hand. I guess all I can say is at least he waited till after he was done frosting the cookies to lick it.
Friday night was trick-or-treat. The weather was miserable. Cold, windy and rainy. We braved it though and the boys filled their buckets. We just had the three younger kids. Jake went to a friends house and watched scary movies all night. I am really starting to miss my "baby"!
He missed a couple days of school due to a fever and cough but has since recovered. He is really liking percussion in band and just got some new music to practice so it has been a little noisy around here. He is still debating whether he is going to play basketball this Winter. I am not pushing it, I figured I will let him make his own decision this year.
construction paper
Here is a picture of Drew's tree. As you can see he got bored tearing paper so he just glued on the big pieces too!
And this is Brodie's. Also in this picture is the alphabet picture we did for his ABC book. When we start a new letter we make one picture for their 3-ring binder. For the letter "L" I drew with marker a tree trunk and branches and had the kids use their fingers to paint the leaves on. Brodie made some of his leaves "falling off the tree" since that what is happening outside right now!
Saturday I celebrated my birthday. As per birthday tradition Will decorated the dining room. I was quit impressed with his decorating skills. He found the streamers and even put on a tablecloth! I had fresh flowers waiting for me when I woke up.
He made me pancakes. We (heart) U with a chicken. So professional.
The boys gave me 2 new pair of "stretchy" pants. My favorite kind of pants to wear! My gift from Will was a night out. We spent Saturday at a themed hotel room. We stayed in the "Mountain" room. It was awesome. It had mountains and snow scenery painted all over the walls. It was very rustic looking. There was fake pine trees in the corner with snow all over them and the ground. We even had a whirl pool in our room.
And last but not least, the posters. For those of you who don't know, we always make little birthday signs and hang them up for decorations. Will was pretty proud of himself this year.
We spent our Friday night having a movie and campout in our living room. Brodie has really been wanting to have a campout. All week we have been telling him we could do this. So tonight we moved furniture, put up sheets, made a tent, and got out all the pillows and blankets.
We went shopping earlier in the evening and let all the kids pick one snack to share for the evening. We also rented a movie. Drew picked out Oreos. He really enjoyed them. (Sorry Grandpa Joel, he picked them and I couldn't say no!)
We had lots of fun. After the movie everyone actually went to their own rooms to sleep. Everyone except Brodie. So Will and I slept on the floor with him under the tent!
The kids had fun matching up the animal parts in this file folder game that I made for them.
They also made matches and we attempted to play memory with these cards that I printed and cut.
We tried to play with our farm animal lacing cards. My boys are not a huge fan of these. They seem to get bored with them pretty quickly.
The boys always enjoy doing puzzles. And here Brodie is putting together his farm animal puzzle. 
Next week we are talking about the letter "L" and will be focusing on leaves.
No this is not a post about my children, well I guess it is actually!
It is only 10 days into October and it is snowing already. The little kids were so excited to see the snow this morning they immediatley wanted to get their boots on and go out and play. They did eventually make it out before it melted and had a little snowball fight with daddy.
While I was kneading the bread yesterday Brodie was playing quietly on the floor when all of a sudden I heard him yell "rat, rat". He jumped into the laundry basket that was in the kitchen. Apparently a brave mouse decided to run across the floor while I was standing there baking!! (Did you just get the goosebumps?) Brodie said he ran into the hole that is next to the dishwasher which was right where I was standing. That little sucker had to nearly have touched my feet getting into that hole. Ugh!!
So, today we went and bought a bunch of mouse traps and tonight my kitchen is like a land mine. Hopefully I will catch the sucker. I really hate mice.
We watched an interesting video on the rare Golden Frog here.
We talked about how a frog starts off as an egg then changes into a tadpole, grows legs and becomes a frog. We colored this worksheet and cut out the pictures and glued them to cards. Then Brodie put them in order. You could also use this worksheet. It shows more stages of development.
Drew did great sorting colors with the counting bears and stacking cups.
Brodie used dominoes to make roads for his "tiny cars".
We only got to play outside a little bit this week due to all the rain. When we did, we actually had to wear coats and hats because it was so chilly! Fall is certainly here. Here the kids are cutting grass with scissors. Don't ask why, Will told him he would give them a dollar if they would cut the whole lawn, they thought that sounded like a great deal. They didn't get very far.
Here is Drew. He put on Wills work shoes and socks and was leaving the house to "go to work". He was annoyed at me that I made him come back in.
And of course our biggest news of the week besides celebrating Brodie's 4th birthday was...Jake breaking his hand AGAIN. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the pretty green cast that he is wearing because I never seem to see him much. He fell on it Monday night during football and smashed it. I took him in on Wednesday and sure enough, it was broken. So, he is in a cast for 4 weeks. He just got his last cast off in June. Same hand, same bone, different spot.
