Date Night: Mini Disc Golf

Our first date.

October 8, 2010.

Dustin was in charge.

We played a rousing game of mini disc golf..... in the house.  The big challenges came in not waking the boys.  We had obstacles of doors, walls, furniture, we went upstairs and back downstairs, outside and back in.  We playing 9 baskets.  It really was a lot of fun.  While playing it was decided that waking the boys would result in a 1 stroke penalty.  It was really hard to play quietly the entire time, neither of us woke the boys and we ended up in a tie score.  It was a great first date.  After our game we enjoyed each other's company in the living room and caught up on some of our weekly shows via Hulu since the shows we like come on at inconveinent times for us.

Costumes, Parties, and Candy Galore!

Meet Calvin & Hobbes 

David decided he wanted to be Calvin for Halloween this year - I was relieved that I didn't have to work as hard as last year!  All I had to do was figure out what we could use for a Hobbes doll and we remembered that a couple of months previous we had picked up this tiger costume for Matthew.  It was meant to be.

David's preschool hosted a Halloween party on Friday, October 29th.  David and his classmates had been working on this party for the entire month.  Their teacher, Mrs. Robinson, let them plan the games, activities, treats and decorations.  David talked about this party all month long and was so excited for the big day.  Parents were invited and the kids were allowed to wear their costumes for the party (but not before so they wouldn't be a distraction for the beginning of school).  Dustin's parents were in town and they joined in the fun also.  Here are some pictures from the party.

 .                 Decorating cupcakes                             David's scary spider                        .

David's cupcake

We all had lots of fun - there were lots more pictures but these were some of my favorites.  There was witch's brew root beer - complete with dry ice to drink, cheesecloth ghosts the kids had made, slime making and a pinata that refused to break until dropped from the second story of the house.

We had a ward Dinner and Trunk or Treat on Saturday, October 30th.  It was fun.  Every trunk was asked to have a game so the kids could enjoy some carnival-ness of Halloween, not many trunks did.  We had mini-disc golf in the back of our trunk.  The kids were given three discs and for each disc they got in they would receive and extra piece of candy.  Some kids played the game, some kids didn't, some parents needed to play a couple of times.  It was great.  There was a good turnout and the weather was nice too.  Here we all are in our costumes.

Grandpa David as a pumpkin, Grandma Sharon as a bag of leaves, Matthew as Hobbes, Dustin as a Soccer Hooligan, Christy as Sam Sparks (from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) & David as Calvin.

We got rid of most of the Halloween candy we bought but not all of it.  We had some trick or treaters on Saturday night after the trunk or treat but only a few groups before I locked the gate so I could put the kids to bed.  Very few came on Sunday - maybe 5 or so.

Sunday and Monday David was able to enjoy Halloween candy to his hearts content.

Dustin & I have started a new tradition - The Great Pumpkin

The Great Pumpkin comes on November 1st.

David is given a quart sized baggie to fill with a designated number of candies.  The remaining halloween candy is placed in a large baggie and put outside at the front door next to the carved pumpkin.  In the morning David is left with a small toy.

This is a great way to get rid of all that Halloween candy with the sugar rush.  David gets to keep some pieces and in exchange for his candy he gets a toy, this year the Great Pumpkin brought him a lego truck  to build and combine with one of his lego cars.

I think this is definitely a tradition that will stick around.  I can only handle the candy in the house for so long!

13 Days of Halloween

David was really excited for Halloween this year.  My sister Kelly told me about her Halloween craft night with a couple of girls and I caught an idea from Studio 5 for a Halloween advent.  I didn't get my act together early enough to make a full month advent so we did the 13 Days of Halloween.  We started on October 19th with decorating the house with our current Halloween decorations.

Over the course of our 13 days we made: pumpkin bats which I called bat-o-lanterns, salt dough ghosts with brown paper bag trees, foam Halloween picture cards, we played Halloween tic-tac-toe (from My Computer is My Canvas it was a free printable), we went to the pumpkin patch, carved pumpkins, went to Halloween parties, we collected and read Halloween stories, worked on our costumes, and some other things.  It was a fun time and just a little something for me to do with David one on one while Matthew napped in the afternoons.  Most afternoons a couple of neighbor kids would join us and it was great fun.

I will totally do this activity again with David & Matthew next year.  Maybe I will even splurge and go for the full 31 days of the month.  I keep thinking of things that would be good for next year so we'll see what happens.  Maybe I'll just leave it at 13 days and change out the activities every year.  Most of our crafts from this year came from Family Fun.  I might even change the way our 13 days is displayed.  I don't know.  I now have a whole year to work things out again.

Date Night: The Pledge

Despite my/our best efforts Dustin and I haven't been that great at dating.  I became aware of the blog Simply Modern Mom through another blog I follow and I fell in love.  At the beginning of 2010 she and her husband began their Project 52: Date Nights.  I loved how they made a contract with each other, both signing the document and setting the rules for the dates they would have each week.  Now Dustin and I have had a date every week for the past 4 weeks but I haven't linked up with her on Tuesdays yet, maybe someday.  The point is that we are getting started.  So far so good.

I didn't get a picture of our contract, just know that it was downloaded from Simply Modern Mom, signed by both of us and a few rules added.  One of the rules we added is that both computers are to remain off unless use of the computer is important for the date.

I'm excited to see what this will do for our relationship.  I'm excited to see what creative things we come up with to do for dates.  Our dates need to be as free as possible, so they will almost always be at home except for a few instances which will be posted here shortly.

I would encourage any of you to join the project and link up at Simply Modern Mom or not.  I will post our dates here because I know you are all dying to know what Dustin and I will do to date eachother.