A Trip to Grandma and Grandpa's House

It's always fun to go to the Flying Grandma and Grandpa's house. First of all, we get to go on an airplane. What more do you need than that! (Although Chad is planning a driving trip this summer. Stay tuned!)
But we love lots more than just the plane ride, because for us, going to visit Grandma and Grandpa's means...

Special Treats,
like your very own loaf of banana bread and
Grandpa's leftover Halloween Candy!
More puzzles than you can ever imagine!
A whole new stack of books to read.
A chance to watch Judge Grandpa in court.
A visit to the police station,
(That's one cute mug shot!)
(Can I get one of these for my house?!)And the fire station.
Laying with Grandpa at bedtime and putting him to sleep instead! (Cole was 5 for 5 in Grandpa being asleep before him.)
Lots of fun toys, including puppets for your hands AND feet!Visiting Great Grandma Shull and
A whole lot of other Aunts, Uncles, and who knows what other relations there are!
A chance to play with uncle Matt.and A chance to take a snooze with Grandpa.
We have lots of fun traditions when we visit Grandpa and Grandma, including:
Having pancakes flipped onto our plates.
Tabby can even catch with her eyes closed!The anticipation and
The Excitement of Success!Sam ate really well just so he could catch another one!
The ready position
and the more subtle excitement of success!Even Grandma has to catch her breakfast!
We also love to go to the bouncy slide place. It doesn't seem to be a trip home without it!
We love visiting Grandpa's office, especially if he lets us climb through the old laundry chute!
I'm not sure how much longer Cole will fit!And did I mention we love doing all of the puzzles that Grandma keeps at her house!
This visit we added a few new things to see and do.
We visited the Kansas City Temple for the first time. (Open House and Dedication in April and May.)
Grandpa and Cole went to visit the Jesse James Farm home and gravesite.
Cole also loved seeing all of the scary stuff Grandpa left up for him after Halloween. The girls on the other hand wanted nothing to do with it!
Eating a breadstick and drinking out of an eyeball glass.
Is it smart to imitate a mummy?Attending the wedding of the Headless Bride.And lounging on the couch with an assortment of Halloween decor.Not only does Grandpa have weird Halloween stuff, he also apparently gets paid his lawyer fees in weird stuff. We came home one day to find this in their backyard! Does anyone know how to sail?
Doesn't he look like the captain of the ship?They really wanted to take it out on the water, even if it was just the pond next door. So they were really disappointed when we told them that water wasn't deep enough and we didn't know how to work the boat anyway!Maybe on our next visit Grandpa will have it mastered. Smithville Lake get ready for us!
We love visiting the flying Grandpa and Grandma. Thanks for all the fun times. We love you and miss you!

Happy Halloween!

About 2 months before Halloween, Cole came to me and asked me if he could write a letter to Grandma. I asked him why and he told me he wanted to ask her if she would make his Halloween costume. I asked him what he wanted to be and he told me the Grim Reaper. Thinking that he would not actually write a letter all by himself and this costume idea would be short-lived, I told him I was sure Grandma would be happy to make that costume for him. Unfortunately, that very night, he wrote a letter and brought it to me to mail. Hence, the Grim Reaper is born!
The costume was awesome, of course. He had lots of fun wearing it even before Halloween to scare the girls.It didn't take Emily very long to decide what she wanted to be either. She also decided on her costume several weeks before Halloween. I kept waiting for her to change her mind, but she never did. Since it was so easy to put together, I didn't even try to change her mind! (Although we actually had a whole different dance costume put together until we went to borrow some dance shoes and she was offered this tutu. She very excitedly took it!)
I didn't even know that she knew how a ballerina stands.
Since there was not much to the costume, we had to make a warm weather, trick-or-treating-worthy version.
Every year previous to this, I have been able to do themed Halloween costumes because I could persuade my kids to be related costumes. This time however, I had the Grim Reaper and a ballerina. These were not exactly easy to form a theme around, but I was hoping to still figure out a good theme for the girls. (I think I left Cole out of the theme last year also!) However, Addy decided that she was going to be a princess and there was absolutely no talking her out of it! Once again, the ease of putting the costume together won over my desire for a theme, so we made her into a princess! (Although clear up until the day before Halloween she kept asking me when her costume from Grandma was coming. Apparently she decided Grandma made all of their costumes. I tried to explain to her that Grandma had made her dress and thus the costume, but she was tough to convince. There was also a temporary desire to be Ariel, but thankfully she was talked out of that one as well!)
This cute face got her a lot of candy!
With my theme now shot, I was debating whether or not I was even going to put a costume on Kaitlyn. However, my neighbor offered me a pea costume which was too cute to refuse. Thus a pea pod she became!
And then a theme came to me....Addy was the princess from The Princess and the Pea. Kaitlyn was the Pea. Emily was a damsel who tried to become the princess but couldn't feel the pea because she was so preoccupied with her dancing. And Cole, well the Grim Reaper still doesn't fit! And the theme is kind of lame, but at least I felt a little redemption!
I was wishing I'd thought to put Chad in a brown or green shirt so he could have been the vine the pea pod was hanging on!
Chad had come home to watch Cole's program, so we decided that we were going to start trick-or-treating plenty early while it was still light and still warm! So off we went, a haphazard assortment of characters!
At first the Grim Reaper was the leader of the pack,
But it didn't take very many houses for Addy to figure out they were handing out candy, so she soon took the lead!
Emily doesn't ever pass up a chance to pose for the camera, even if it delays her getting candy.
Trick-or-Treat!!
At one house (belonging to a dentist), they handed out toothbrushes instead of candy. When the lady tried to hand Addy her toothbrush, she said, "I don't want a toothbrush, I want candy!"
At another house, they tried to give Addy licorice. She informed them that she already had licorice and she wanted something different! Needless to say she received a stern lecture after that about taking whatever they gave her and just saying thank you!
Kids kept asking Chad what he was dressed up as. (Since he's in Primary now, he's very popular with all of the kids!) He would tell them that he was a baby carrier. They would laugh and move on. Well we both about cracked up laughing when we came across a kid with this shirt on. Who knew people actually dressed up like that!
Eventually we made it to meet up with our friends. We ended up with quite the assortment of ghosts, goblins, princesses, ballerinas, and who knows what else.
Thankfully Addy had someone that was her speed.
The two of them were really cute together trying to keep up with all of the bigger kids. They did not want to get left behind!
I wasn't sure how long Kaitlyn would last, in the costume or in the carrier. But in true rebellious style, the child that never naps fell asleep!
I shouldn't complain, the cute, sleeping pea is much better than a screaming one!
As you can see, we had a very Happy Halloween and hope you did also!