Decorating Cookies!

Hogan's friend Emory invited us over to decorate cookies today. Her mom- Mary Beth posted pics and wrote a list of funny guidelines that everyone should refer to when decorating cookies with preschoolers. Check it out: http://sweetsong-sweetestsong.blogspot.com/2009/12/pre-schoolers-guide-to-awesome-cookies.html

Now for my list of the top 5 comments made by mothers while their children are cookie decorating:

1. "Aaaaaa! Don't put that spoon in your mouth!" (This said while frantically trying to grab the spoon before it gets put back into the frosting bowl)

2. "You need to put frosting on before you pour the whole bottle of sprinkles on the cookie. The frosting will make it stick."

3. "I guess it's okay if they mix all the colors....right?"

4. "Why didn't the sprinkle people put a darn shaker lid on these chocolate sprinkles?"

5. "Why don't you try making a candy cane or an angel? I think we have enough Christmas cats." (there was one Halloween cookie cutter in the mix and of course it got used a lot!)

Thanks Mary Beth and Emory for the fun morning!

Cave

One day Hogan mentioned that he wanted to see a cave. I can't remember what sparked his interest- a book, a tv show??? but when he said this I told him that Oma and Opa lived near a cave. He was very excited about this and when the big September birthday weekend came around, Hogan totally remembered our conversation about the cave near Oma and Opa and asked if we go see it while we were visiting, which as you can see from the pictures we did indeed get to do.

I think overall he liked the experience. One thing that was pretty tricky was that you're not supposed to touch ANY of the formations in the cave. This is really difficult for a 3-year old to remember when so much of his learning is through sense of touch. You also have to stay with the group. This is not a place to run ahead- again a bit of a stretch for Hogan, although I will say he tried his hardest to follow the rules.

What was very cool was that we saw an actual bat in the cave. It flitted and flew over our heads. The guide gave us directions about what to do if the bat lands on you. "Stand very still", he said(yeah, right!). Luckily, the bat made the wise choice to stay above our heads and landed only on rocks. By the time we left Hogan could point out the stalagtites and several times since the trip he's talked about stalagtites and stalagmites- so the trip definitely made an impression.

Trick-or-treating with friends

This was the first time that Hogan got to do the door-to-door trick-or-treating. He totally got into it and as you can see from all the blurry pictures would NOT stand still long enough for me to get a shot. I tried to pick the least blurriest ones. Needless to say when we finally got home we had one tired Hogan/Batman who was already talking about his costume for next year and who went right to sleep as soon as his head hit the pillow!

Hogan says: Thank you for letting me go Halloween place with me and Kayleigh. My favorite part was the scary part. I was scared because a man had a mask and we thought he wasn't real. He took off his mask and scared us. At first he scared us. He was a man and he was just playing jokes on us.

Trick-or-treating at the mall

Batman on the go

Checking his candy

Taking a break

Transformed back to Hogan- Batman had a busy night!

School Party

After carving our pumpkin we headed out to Hogan's school where his teacher had set up a mini-festival in her cul-de-sac. The kids paraded around the cul-de-sac and then were able to go around to different stations for food and activities. The top picture is the pose that Hogan would stand in anytime anyone asked to take a picture of batman.

Pumpkin Carving

Our Halloween festivities started with a little pumpkin carving. Hogan got very involved in ALL aspects of the process (I did draw the line at actually letting him carve the pumpkin). He helped clean out the goop and even drew the face (with just a little help from me). The best part was putting the flashlight inside and turning off all the lights...eerie!

Adoption Day

Every August we celebrate Hogan's adoption. It is the month when his adoption was finalized and our family was cemented together forever. This year's Adoption Day was filled with family and plenty of fun. We played out in the yard, went swimming, and of course ate a delicious cake. Troy and I realized that from this point on Hogan will begin to understand more and more about his adoption. We decided that we wanted to make service a part of his adoption day celebration. We want Hogan to begin to understand that while this is a day to celebrate our family and eat cake and get presents, it's also a time to help those who aren't quite as fortunate as we are. We feel like we have been blessed immensely. So this year, everyone who came to share in Hogan's Adoption Day festivities got to come to the grocery store with us so that Hogan could pick out food for the food bank. His job was to pick out food that kids would like to have.

The following week, I brought Hogan up to Troy's work where they have food bank for their clients. Hogan was greeted at the door, got to bring his food in and see what the food bank looked like. Since Hogan was a little confused about real banks and food banks and a bit concerned about whether he would get a sucker at the food bank like he does at the money bank, the person who greeted us also had a sucker ready for Hogan- it was very sweet.

Circus

In August we went to the circus with our friends. Everything in the Big Top was over the top- the lights, the stunts, the length of the show, and the twelve dollar cotton candy. Troy, forever the realist was convinced that the hassle to fun ratio would balance more on the side of "hassle". Hogan and I, the idealists, believed that this really would be the greatest show on Earth! I'm not sure, when you weigh the cost of the cotton candy (did I mention it cost 12 dollars?) against the cool motorcycles that raced around the steel sphere; the madding crowds against the brave flying trapeze artists; the 3-hour show that really could have ended after 90 minutes against the stilted clowns how the ratio was weighted, but whether hassle or greatness it was an experience that we won't soon forget!

Schlitterbahn

Before entering the Schlitterbahn waterpark

About 3 minutes after leaving the Schlitterbahn Water park

We have no pictures of the inbetween because I didn't want to mess with a camera, but I will say that despite the crowds we had a fun day and as you can tell it tuckered Hogan out! He had a blast and he's still talking about the "steam" ride, which was their new Congo river ride with lots of rapids and hills.

Enchanted Rock

If you live in Texas you have to climb Enchanted Rock at some point in your life. Hogan didn't do a lot of climbing this first climb, but he did find lots of places along the way to the top to "rest". Once we made it to the top he was full of energy while the rest of us were ready for a break. It had just rained a couple days before so there were lots of big and little puddles all over the top. Hogan made his way to each one and accidentally slipped or jumped in them before I finally just took his shoes off.

After finishing the climb we traveled into Fredericksburg to Wheelers where Hogan ate a huge lunch. I've never seen him eat so much in one sitting. Having people carry you up and down Enchanted Rock is tough work!

The rest of the weekend with Nana and Papa was a blast, although none of it was captured on camera (sorry!), because this mom was too busy enjoying the water park at the Flying L Ranch right alongside Hogan!