Halloween at The Lukacs'!

Scooby Dooby Doo!!! So, because of his love for Scooby shows...here is the two year old Scooby all dressed up for Halloween!
Ninja Ayden and Scooby G outside of The Lukacs' house by the haunted house that Julius put together at the last minute...he did an awesome job for having only spent one day! The kids (especially Ayden!) love it!
Here is the whole gang! Our two plus Sam dressed as the scream guy from the movie, Jake as a ninja too and Jojo as Mickey Mouse! Benji was not dressed and crabby after a nap, so I just took the rest of the crew. They all had a fun time trick or treating in the neighborhood and hanging out to help gently scare folks who came through the haunted house!

Peyton's 2nd Birthday Party - Green Acres Farm!

Here is the birthday girl and Gabriel eating some birthday cake!
Here's Miss Heather and Peyton. Heather was our mainstay babysitter for well over a year and a half but she has nearly graduated from college and is student teaching, so her calendar is too full to sit for us...we miss her!
Peyton and Gabriel became good buds in the last several months...they are too cute together! They get along so well!
Cheese! On the sunny hay ride!
My happy little 2 and a half year old! :)

Green Level Gourd Farm!

For a Mops (Mother of Preschoolers) outing this last week on Tuesday, the 19th, we enjoyed a fun little trip to a very local (5 minutes from our house!) little farm! They had donkeys, rabbits, chickens, goats, a pot bellied pig and lots of playground type entertainment. Gabriel loved this little slide (in the pic above)! You were supposed to take a potato sack to sit on and slide down.


I actually got a great smile, yah!! And right in front of the pumpkins, so I was thoroughly excited! He had to wear his brothers big sweatshirt that day and there was no sense in fighting it, we just rolled up the sleeves! This sweatshirt was actually Julio's when he was a little boy...can you see the Chico State lettering? :)
I think his favorite animals of the bunch were the bunnies! They sure were cute! It was a fun morning. We also got to take a little hay ride and decorate a pumpkin with some stickers.

A New Addition to Life Group!

Welcome Justin Drotts!!! Tracey gave birth to Justin on September 20th at about 9 lbs! We now have 10 children ages 5 and under in our group that meets each Sunday afternoon at our house. :)

The Farm Continued...

All of us on the hay ride!
"There once was a bull, a cow and a goat..." Ha,ha!
The leader of the corn maze hunt! Of course!
Ahhh...and the back of the group...cuties!

Green Acres Is The Place To Be!

Ok, so I think that was my title post last year when we went to this farm, but oh well, I like it! You know, from that old show..."Green Acres is the place to be! Farm living is the life for me!"
This was the first weekend in October, Saturday, the 2nd. Here is Ayden trying out the kids version of the ring the bell if you can hammer the thing hard enough game! I don't know what the name of it is! He definitely could ring this bell, but then...
he HAD to try the adult version and I think could get the marker to about the second notch...not bad for a 52 pound kid! Then Julio gave it a try with success! :)
My two sweet boys sitting on top of the hay climbing structure in the Fall wind. Aren't they cuties?
I got them to pose while we were waiting to go on the hayride!
On the hay ride! :)

Ayden's First School Field Trip - Hill Ridge Farms!

This last Thursday, Oct. 21st, the kids in Ayden's class all piled into their bus while us parents piled into our minivans and headed out to Hill Ridge Farms! We all arrived nearly an hour later. Here is our Room Mom, Amanda going back over to my van to get all the lunches that we took along with us for the kids. I didn't really realize that this field trip stuff is a highly organized program of events that had the kids on a strict time schedule! We arrived into the farm (that one could spend literally all day at with the amount of fun activities for children) and we had about 20 minutes to free play on what we wanted until we had to meet over at the line for the hay ride. We were supposed to check out the farm animals and one other activity, but they let things slide a bit since we ran out of time. We checked out a couple of things and then spent most of our time out at the pumpkin patch eating lunch.
The Hay Pit! Ayden's friend Peter is in the green shirt on the far right and Ayden is in the blue shirt on the far left.
What cute little classmates that Ayden has! This is Kate, Brennan and Justin!
Here are the boys at the lunch table. Tyler on the far left, then Peter, Ayden and Gabriel came along for the ride! It really was a gorgeous day out!
This was right before Ayden dropped this huge pumpkin on the ground and split open another little pumpkin, woops! It was a wirlwind of events, but I am really glad that I got to be a part of Ayden's first school field trip!
Lately on the last couple of Mondays, I've been able to volunteer in Ayden's classroom, which has been really great!! Gabriel has been going over to Quentin's house to be watched by their babysitter, Miss Ellen. It is a great set-up! This last Friday, the 22nd, I even got to go in to the classroom to help lead the kids in learning about Science and Math experiments. I lead a table that was learning about circumference! I loved it, the kids are so smart!

Ripley's Aquarium!

This was on Saturday night before we went to dinner at some crab shack place. Just thought it would make a funny photo! The dinner was yummy! Fresh crab, corn on the cob and roasted potatoes!
The next morning we headed over to the Ripley's Aquarium, where our first find was the pool of sting rays! It was one of those shallow pools where they encourage you to pet the sting rays. I was able to touch one briefly and boy, were they squishy!
Here's Julio holding a horse shoe crab!
Can you see a little Ayden head in the big oyster shell? :)
They climbed underneath and up into this and it was supposed to look like they were underwater in the gigantic oyster! The white ball shaped object with the blue writing on it was supposed to be the pearl...ha,ha!

Gabriel Wants to Use the Potty!

About two months ish ago, Gabriel started asking to go pee-pee on the potty when it was time to get in the bath/shower at night before bed. This progressed over the next few weeks into wanting to go about one other time during the day and then it seemed that he was barely going in his diaper except for poop. We didn't really even encourage any of it, it was all his idea, so we went with it. In these last few days (Oct.5,6,7), he has regressed a little and has not wanted to go on the toilet quite as much, but when asked sometimes goes along with it. I am not pushing, so any progress is great and welcomed at about any time! :)

Ayden's Lunch Time!

Ok, so you can't see Ayden in this photo (he is ducking out cause he was tired of photos) but I got to go with Gabriel to visit Ayden's lunch room because I wanted to have lunch with him and it worked out that I got to bring cupcakes because Ayden's classmate Tyler's mom called me that day asking me to bring the cupcakes for Tyler's birthday because she wasn't feeling well. So, it all worked out great and I was so happy to spend some time with the kids at school. Next, it will be the actual classroom! :) Can't wait!
Ayden is in the seat next to Gabriel...ducking again! :)

Swim Team - End of Season Banquet

This was on September 10th (I am behind in my blogging!) when Ayden received his certificate for "Best Backstroke Start" for the 7 & Unders! They awarded everyone something that they did well at and that was Ayden's big feat for the season. :) I am proud of him...I sort of talked him into doing swim team and I think he ended up enjoying the fact that he tried hard and did well - 3 ribbons aint bad for a 5 and a half year old who had to compete against mostly 6 and 7 year olds! I sure hope he wants to do it again next season!
Here is a photo of the whole Amberly Swim Team 2010! I have to admit that I helped to arrange the three age groups into a standing group, on the knees group and sitting on their bottoms group just like we used to do for swim team photos each year when I was young! They humored me as you can see! :)

Our 8th Wedding Anniversary!

Ok, so we did get dressed up a little bit and went out to an awesome fancy dinner at a place in Durham called The Magnolia Grill for anniversary on the Saturday before (10.2.10) ! They have fabulous food...I haven't had that great a dinner in quite a long time! It was indulgent to say the least! I neglected to have someone take a photo of us that evening, darn! But here is a photo of the BEAUTIFUL cake that our awesome friend Wendy made for us!!! Isn't it the prettiest little wedding cake you have ever seen??!! I literally couldn't cut into it to eat the cake for about 24 hours, it was too pretty!! She hand makes the cake and so on the inside of this gorgeous thing was raspberry cake with chocolate ganache filling! HEAVEN!! Thanks Wendy for spoiling us!! :)