Happy Halloween!

Halloween is lots of fun when you have two kids big enough to trick-or-treat! We took them to the Boo at the Zoo last week and they had fun practicing - Haley loved to go up to people and tell them "Trick-or-treatin'" like she needed to announce what she was doing and then they would give her candy. But by tonight she had the whole thing down. Since we're still working on getting a consistent MaMa or DaDa out of Kale, we just let him walk around with his pumpkin, and hold it out to people - they knew what to do.

Haley decided to go as her current (as of the day we went shopping, and luckily today also) favorite princess; Belle. She got to have her hair curled and had a pretty headband to wear just like the real deal. I think we are in for a few years worth of princess costumes.

Love Kale's costume?! Yeah me too... I made it, all by myself! I even put a zipper in it and stuffed the junk out of the tail and spikes. One thing about Colorado is that you never know what the weather is going to be, but this time of year you can bet on either cold or wind (sometimes both), so I wanted to know that he would be warm. the entire thing is made of fleece and I think it turned out pretty great. He loved wearing his costume, even the hood (but wouldn't you love to walk around in a fleece one piece outfit).

This is the pumpkin I made. A couple of years ago we found little glass beads that you could inset in the pumpkin and now all of my pumpkins use them. It makes them glow beautifully. I also scraped some of the skin off to make the name glow.

Jeff's pumpkin, classic and cute.

The kids' pumpkins. Kale's says boo (yes, that's the one he was trying to pick up at the end of the last post), and Haley decided that she wanted polka dots on hers. She has a real fear this year of lots of things associated with Halloween and most of the regular Jack-o-lantern faces fall in that category. We tried to find something that would be on her "good" list and that pretty much always includes things with polka dots on them, oh and we added "squirrels" (or swirls) to it too.

One of my pumpkin lanterns out front of the house. I had four of them all lit up along my walkway. Hope your Halloween was as happy as ours!

The Robersons go to the Pumpkin Patch

So far our Colorado fall has been erratic to say the least. We've had snow, wind and sun, and all in the same week. We lucked out the weekend before last and had a nice (only a little bit windy) day and decided to Carpe Diem and get ourselves out to the Pumpkin Patch. We went to Shooting Star Ranch in Black Forest (less than 15 miles from our house), and they had everything! There was a great petting zoo, pony rides, a hay slide, a train, a mountain of hay bales, a corn kernel box, hay rides, and pumpkins (imagine that). Guys, they even had a camel! They also has a few great photo opportunities too. We spent the entire morning there getting the kids some much needed (already) fresh air and our Jack-o-Lantern's to be. We didn't make it down the driveway before Kale was passed out and the only reason Haley made it home was because she had some kettle corn. With that... Bring on the pictures!

Loving the hay ride!

Also loving the hay ride.

Checking out the bunnies.

I think this pig is part Roberson... He's sleeping with his tongue out.

There were some great boulders on the property and the kids thought they were mountains put there just for them to climb.

Haley: "There's a camel where?"

Camel: "There's a Haley where?"

Playing his new most favorite game: Peek-a-boo! From the corn kernel bin.

Haley playing the same game, at greater than 2 1/2, this game was so last year.

My little farm boy. It's like he was meant to be there.

Haley was having fun jumping off the hay bales.

He was so funny trying to pick up his pumpkin. He would grunt and heave and grunt and it wouldn't go anywhere.

The day of the surgery

Today was the day of Kale's ear tubes surgery, and man are we all tired! Jeff and I woke up at about 5:30 to get the kids out the door on time, which isn't bad considering we had to have Haley to the Burich's and Kale to the hospital across town by 6:30. It helped that we didn't have to dress either kid, just take them straight in their pj's.

Once again let me tell you that we are so lucky to have such great friends so close to us. Haley got to go spend the morning with Crystal, Grandma Krissy, Caden and Hailey Madison at a farm ("with animals mommy") with Caden's preschool. She had a ball picking out a pumpkin and was super tired by the time they brought her home at 10 (which worked out perfect because we all got to take a nap later on).

Anyway, back to the subject of the post. We got to the hospital at 6:30 on the button and were taken right back to his room to wait. We saw about 6 different nurses (all of which remarked on how beautiful his eyes were as they took his temperature), a couple of anesthesiologists, and the doctor who would be doing the surgery. By 7:25 we were handing the little man off, and by we, I mean Jeff - there was no way he was going to leave my arms to go with anyone wearing one of those sets of teal scrubs, plus there would have likely been some tears on my part.

No sooner had I completed about three quarters of a row on the blanket that I've been working on for Kale since before he was born, was the doctor back to tell us it wall all over and it went really well. He said that there was no fluid or infection in either of his ears (a first since June), so we really caught a good window for optimal healing. Additionally, he mentioned that one of his ears was a little thicker and was probably a sign of prolonged fluid build up (further affirmation that we were making the right choice to do this surgery).

Then it was time for one of us (like there was a choice) to go back to recovery and hold him while he woke up. Now that sounds really peaceful. I imagined me holding my little man all knocked out and being the first thing he saw as he slowly opened his groggy little eyes. WWE Smack Down would have been a better comparison to what I got. He was ANGRY that he was waking up and was going to let me, the nurse, and the housekeeping lady know it. There was about 45 minutes of screaming, throwing himself backwards from my arms and all kinds of tantrums. I have never seen my mild mannered little man behave like this. My body was physically tired from this and even several hours later is still very sore (no need to feel guilt about missing the gym today, and thank God for my persistent trips there and all the weight lifting).

They took us out of recovery and down the hall (presumably because there was someone else coming out of surgery who didn't want to listen to a screaming child as they woke up), in any case there were plenty other people to hear his screaming from our room. He didn't let them take his pulse/oxygen or temperature and wasn't about to fall for their ploy of watching cartoons and eating Popsicles while he hung out. Nor was he going to allow anybody wearing a set of those damn teal scrubs any where near him. In his Kale way he would turn his body toward whichever one of us was holding him and say "NO". He didn't even want them in the room with him. He finally gave them 2 post op temperature readings and 2 pulse/oxygen readings and that was enough for them to suggest that maybe we should just go home. No sooner did we get to the car was our little man right back to his normal happy self.

I'm happy to report that as of this afternoon, less than 12 hours after the surgery, he is running around the house, tormenting and being tormented by his sister, eating and drinking like normal.