Trick-or-Treat

At the Ward Halloween party

I'm am getting a lot of use out of this costume that I purchased for $2.33! Each kid wears it twice.

Jack enjoyed the party and trick-or-treating very much.
There are very few kids in our ward, and not even all of them came to the party. It was very poorly attended (our ward is not good at parties). Below is what Jack collected from trick-or-treating. It's kind-of sad, but this is all a 3-year-old needs, I guess. He was happy.


This morning...

(L) Jack likes to pull a chair into the kitchen, open cabinets, and help himself to whatever. He is not supposed to do this. Many times I keep a gate in front of the kitchen. But this morning I came from the other room to find this.
(R) As a gift Jack received one of these 3D picture viewers with slides, and he's really enjoyed it. I didn't even know they still made these; what a great idea! Thank you, Uncle Aleks!

Halloween Memories

**UPDATED WITH PICTURES**

Every Halloween growing up was spent with my Grandma Higgs. She loves Halloween. We'd go over to her house and and she'd come trick-or-treating with us in her neighborhood. She always had at least 5 carved lit pumpkins in her front window, along with plenty of cute autumn decorations. Mom and sometimes Aunt Linda or Aunt Karen would come trick-or-treating, while Grandpa and Dad stayed at the house to hand out candy and talk. After trick-or-treating we'd go back to G&G's house, dump out all our candy on the floor, organize it, and then trade with each other. We had some special Halloween songs we sang too. Not a Halloween goes by that I don't remember Grandma and all the good times we had. (Wow, getting choked up as I write this.) I will always remember her on Halloween.

Here are some pictures of my siblings and me. My two cousins are also in the bottom pictures. Just looking at this now, I didn't realize I had that big pumpkin bucket from the time I was 2. I used that through my whole trick-or-treating career. (In most of these pictures you see the familiar green carpet = Grandma's house.)

And here are some pictures of the Halloween Jack and I got to spend with Grandma in 2007.

Create Your Own

I have been a bit homesick in the past months. I think this season is making it worse. Holidays to me mean FAMILY. Holidays in Germany hardly feel like holidays at all.

October Recap

Jack's new favorite treat is Dum-Dums, and he asks for them daily. When Jack gets one, Lucas puts up a fuss until he gets one too.

Lucas splashing in the water on top of the sandbox. I love his face in the photo.

(L) Occasionally we will get a circus come and set up behind our house. They'll put on a few shows on one weekend, then leave.
(R) We like to take family bike rides on the weekends when the weather is nice. My favorite trails are through the forest.

Here's our house. I love it when these trees change color. This was a couple weeks ago. The leaves have all fallen off now. It's been about 50 degrees this week, nice fall weather.

(L) Jack likes to lie in front of the heater after a bath. I remember doing this.
(R) The first time Lucas actually sat down to watch a movie with Jack. I shouldn't be excited, but I was. He is not an easy one to contain.

(L) Getting the last little bit of soup out of the bowl; (R) Aaron's birthday breakfast.

Aaron had a birthday this month, and the boys enjoyed the cake.

When Jack is in school, Lucas gets to play with all Jack's favorite cars. (He looks unusually chubby in this picture.)

We carved our pumpkin to take to the trunk-or-treat. Jack wanted a scary face. I think Jack is going to be pretty excited once he figures out how trick-or-treating works. This is the first year he's understood holidays. He loves birthdays and is excited for Christmas.

Northern Italy & Southern Germany Trip

We took a two-part road trip to Venice and then to Garmisch/Bavaria. Some of the highlights are posted here; the rest are in the album with captions. It is a 9-hour drive from our house to Venice.
(We told our neighbor that we were driving there, and I could tell he thought we were crazy. I guess Europeans aren't used to driving long distances like that, since the countries are smaller and close together. It seems that Americans are more accustomed to long road trips.)

(L) Venice; (R) Verona, Italy

Austria, along the way

Bavaria, Germany

Italy/Germany

Kindergarten

Jack started German kindergarten on October 1. In Germany, children attend kindergarten at ages 3-6, and then begin first grade. So kindergarten is more like a preschool. (And here is a photo of Aaron in front of his German kindergarten, about 15 minutes away from where we live now.)

I never had planned on putting a 3-year-old in preschool. But as the opportunity arose, I could see that it was necessary. For the past 7 months or so I've had serious problems with Jack pushing Lucas and taking toys away from him. This sounds like normal 3-year-old behavior, but it was severe. I could never leave them in the same room together, and I mean never. While the two kids were at home together and awake, Jack was constantly picking on Lucas, and then I was constantly getting mad at Jack. There was really a lot of contention at home, and I had no idea what to do. Plus, Jack gets bored. We don't have a car, nor a yard with grass. So all we can do is walk to the store or the playground, and even that gets old. Jack was in serious need of a change and something to do, so I decided to go ahead and enroll him in the local kindergarten.

The kindergarten is a 5-10 minute walk from our home (if it were not walking distance we could not do it). He goes for a half day in the mornings. I am very thankful to live in Germany right now because this kindergarten opportunity was presented. I know I would not have sought out a preschool for Jack if we were in America. In addition, the American ones can be expensive, and the German ones are reasonably priced because they are subsidized by the government. This seems to be just the thing our family needs, so I'm optimistic that Jack will mature a bit and things will improve at home.

Some of you may find the sign on the right amusing. Zoom in.

On the first day, Jack was a bit shy about beginning. Lucas, however, made himself right at home. Aaron and I were standing in the hallway with Jack, and we turned and looked into a nearby classroom to see the image on the left below.

Yesterday I was trying to help Jack get situated in his classroom. I turn for what seemed like a second and Lucas had disappeared. I started running through the halls of the school looking in every room. I found him sitting at a table in one of the classrooms with a bunch of other children. He's not shy!

This is Lucas splashing in a puddle outside the kindergarten.

September Recap

(L) Playing cars; (R) These two love popcorn.

(L) First glimpse of autumn on our walk from the park. I can't believe it's autumn already.
(R) Watching Daddy leave for work.


(L) This never happens. He's in the process of moving from two naps to one.
(R) Jack sometimes gets to watch a movie while Lucas takes a nap.

(L) There's a man who comes and trains his horse frequently in the lot behind our house. (Dad, it reminds me of some of those old horse movies we used to watch, like "Justin Morgan Had a Horse.")
(R) This is Lucas's first time wearing real sneakers, and they look so cute on him!

We love these silly kids.

Rolling around on the blankets. I loved to do this when I was a kid.