The first official "friend" sleepover

Cousin Olivia had a sleepover with Beck and Caden last night at our house. The mommy's and daddy's went to the Loffler Companies Holiday Party at the Metropolitan while Aunti Sheri and Cousin Viki presided over the ruckus.

It was great to FINALLY have a volunteer to help me out in the kitchen! Livi helped make pancakes, eggs and bacon for breakfast.

Then everyone played hard to work it all off.

Cousin Livi (a.k.a. Buzz Lightyear-Fireman-Pirate-on-Lightening-McQueen) and the boys played Ninjas and Star Wars. Despite the costume to the contrary, Liv insisted she was Yoda.

And then Livi honored us with a little ditty she calls "The Train" on the harmonica. She must get it from her daddy!

Leveraging candy

Friday night. Halloween. Ooooohhhhh... Spooky...

I think I have a new favorite holiday! I've never been much for Halloween (at least not since I was ten or eleven years old). But I think that's changed now that Beck and Cade are old enough to get the concept of Halloween and trick or treating. It was so cute to watch them yell "Trick or Treat" to complete strangers and then use all of their little will power to take "just one" piece of candy... looking up beesechingly to see if they'd be offered more than that at this house.

Then coming home and weeding through the insane amounts of candy in those little orange jack-o-lantern buckets (that I had to carry the majority of the way when they got to heavy) looking for the perfect treat to have before bedtime. And then they were so tuckered out. I love halloween now...

The morning after...

Woke up to a car race between Chick Hicks and Mr. The King next to me in bed (Caden). But it was smooth sailing from there on out. All of our ealry morning conversations went somthing like this:

Q: "Can I have a piece of candy?"
A: "When you finish your breakfast"
A: "OK!" munch, munch, munch...

Q: "I'm done! Now can I have a piece of candy?"
A: "After you get dressed?"
A: "OK!" then "urgh, upmph, I can't do it!, uh, oh, there, I got it on!"

Q: "I'm dressed! Now can I have a piece of candy?"
A: "When your brother is done eating and dressed, then you can BOTH have one."
Q: "Caden, do you want me to eat that????!"

And so on until everyone was nourished and dressed for the day. I wish we had the power of candy on hand everyday. It sure makes the morning routine go smoothly!

Spagetti dinner...

At just about every dinner we end the meal with a game of "Who am I" or "I spy with my little eye" or "Opposites" or some joke telling. Tonight was joke night. And Caden was on a roll:

Him: "Knock knock"
Us: "Who's there?"
Him: "Corda-doo-daba!"
Us: "Corda-doo-daba (huh?) WHO?"
Him: "Corda-doo-daba BOAT!"
All of us: "he he he he he he he he he!"

Gotta love three year old knock knock jokes!