trick or treat

i think i can honestly say that we full on did halloween this year and we ended the festivities with a bang. coen was invited by his friend nigel to go trick or treating in hilo. we live out in the boonies on 2 acre lots and that means nothing but tricks...no treats. so hilo it was, and oh boy was it fun! we joined up with a crew and prowled a very cute neighborhood for some good loot. 

coen is still questioning the whole thing.

have no fear, i jumped right in and showed him how it is done. 

can you handle them? nigel is looking at coen like he is the greatest frog ever! 


that's cause he is. 

here is another, "guess who is having more fun?" picture. 

trick or treating with little kids is the best, everyone thinks they are the cuuuuutest. 


plus, after they go to bed you can take all but 5 pieces of candy out of their buckets and they have no clue.  not that i did that. 


happy happy halloween! 

hApPy HaLlOwEeN!

bOo! EeK! yiKeS!

saturday night coen hosted his first ever halloween bash. it was pure chaos. also, it turns out coen isn't much of a host yet...but i will let it slide this year. we had a crazy full house of kids and parents. 

lots of cutie pie kiddos in costume. 

and some batty pinata fun. 

side note: 10 toddlers trying to break a pinata is painful. 

but we had some good mama volunteers that took a whack at it. 

late night got a little crazy. clothes came off, and the munchkins went wild. 

i went upstairs to find coen and lucy reading books in his room. they are too much. 

our neighbor brought his bunny over, and the kids pretty much couldn't handle it. 


especially lucy, she is an animal lover and i think she might be a vet when she grows up. 

this is a sign of a good party. even lily was wiped out.  

this is the playroom aftermath. i didn't even look in here till the next morning. 

good time had by all? 

i think....yes! 

a big spooky thanks to everyone who came and joined in the fun and chaos. you guys really delivered with your treats and costumes and we look forward to doing it again next year. 

boo! 

pumpkin carving

on friday night we had our neighbors over to carve up some pumpkins. and yes, it was a very romantic way to spend our 6th wedding anniversary. my photo taking was lame that night, and i don't even have a shot of the finished jack-o-laterns....maybe tonight. 


coen decided he wanted an airplane pumpkin...so the search for a template began. 


wes delivered, but i have no picture. shameful. 

mini pumpkin carving is way harder that big pumpkin carving. 

coen and jeffery were mostly interested in playing rather than pumpkins. it's okay, they have some years to grow interested in pumpkin goo. 

if you are lucky i will get a glowing shot of the jack-o-lanterns tonight. no promises. 

reverse trick-or-treating

last week coen dressed up in his coqui frog costume and we headed up to wes' office to reverse trick-or-treat, in other words he passed candy out to all of  "daddy's friends." he was pretty good about it, just a few hesitations and negotiations to get the candy back. but in the end everyone was munching on a sweet treat.

what a wonderful life

today we are celebrating our sixth wedding anniversary...crazy! the crazier thing is that we dated for four years before we got married, that's 10 years of lovin' folks! i wouldn't trade a day of it, okay maybe i would trade in the honeymoon that hospitalized us with viral meningitis...maybe. 

i love this guy a million times more than the day we said "i do."

i didn't even know that was possible. 

college was fun, and a little bit crazy. i am glad we got to do crazy before having to grow up. 

we didn't crazy it too much, cause we both graduated. this would be the end of my higher education, yet only the beginning for wes. five years later and i am living with a doctor (of volcanoes)! 

we have seen some really amazing and beautiful places. someday we will get to be adventurous like this again...when our kids can walk more than a quarter mile without needing a lift and can carry their own stuff. 

engagement photo...do we look like we are in looooooove or what?

and a lot happened between the wedding and this next picture. i still need to pull pictures off my old computer, so there is a huge gap here. but really, not much is sweeter than becoming a family for the first time. then, they let us take this squishy baby home (without really knowing us!) and just expected us to figure it out...stressful! 

luckily we didn't kill that squishy little baby. i don't know that we figured it ALL out, but i think we are doing a pretty good job. celebrating coen's first birthday was more about celebrating us surviving that first year. 


go, us! 

that squishy baby turned into this big boy. 

and we turned into some pretty kick-butt parents. 

weston thelen you are; 

the cream to my coffee. 

the pea to my pod. 

the salt to my pepper

the lava to my volcano.

 how blessed we are with this wonderful life! 

costume fun!

this morning we kicked off our halloween festivities with a costume party in music class. i love seeing all the kiddos dressed up! also, i have always loved holidays but they are million times more fun now that i have a child to share it with. 


class picture!

 coen is wondering who's idea it was to buy a fleece lined full body costume. 

okay wes' side of the fam, does this picture look like max lohmeier or what?! 

there will be a million more pictures of our little coqui-frog to come, i promise! 

bird house

yesterday while i was sitting upstairs snuggling my sweet boy and catching up on blog posts a bright red cardinal flew into the house! i ignored the chirping for quite a while before it dawned on me that it was  rather loud. when i peaked over the balcony this little guy was flying around the living room. he bounced around between the 15 feet windows for a while before he fell down onto the couch and noticed that i had opened all the sliding glass doors. then away he flew. coen was humored by my dancing and yelping.

also, i need to clean my windows. 

pumpkin festival

after our wonderful, relaxing, and too short resort stay we headed to a pumpkin festival in waimea. it was total and complete chaos. i could sense wes' hesitation from the parking lot! although i little bit wished we were still soaking up the sun next to the pool too. but i am hard core and fall is my season. there were a bazillion people and fifty million things to do. 

first things first, a picture with these scarecrows. 

the view from up here is always better than the back of peoples knees. 

the highlight of the day was getting to check out the fire truck and ambulance. 


what is it with boys and emergency vehicles? 

coen played a couple festival games and was pretty much spent. 

and so were we. 


the end. 

waikoloa get-away

over the weekend we had a one night get-away in waikoloa. this trip was part celebrating our 6th wedding anniversary, part experiencing fall, and part celebrating our recent goodbye to diapers. after a visit to the pumpkin patch we headed over to the resort to soak up some of the good stuff. sure, it's not very fall-like...but oh boy is it wonderful! 

coen is a little fishy in the water. 

wes is relaxing all cool...while keeping up on the recent seismic activity. 

who seems to be having the most fun in these pictures?! 

i think the answer is wes. although coen is having a decent time too. 


early morning beach time. why do toddlers always sleep horribly in hotel rooms?

when i ask coen who his best friend is he always says, "gianna and daddy!" 


we miss you gianna!


annnnd what i am? 

this boy can never get enough pool time. 

thank you warm sunshine, waving palms, and blue ocean...we'll miss you. 

oh wait, no we won't. we see you everyday. 

buuuuut, we do love us some resort time. it's real nice.