This weekend was so much fun!  I had a photo session with an awesome little 5 month old saturday morning and then we hung out with B until we headed over to my dad’s to celebrate mine and my sister’s birthday.  The kids spent the night at my mom’s house and it was absolute bliss to sleep in until 9 am this morning!

Tyson had an exciting weekend as well.  His Grandpa Murray spoils him rotten when it comes to the MN Wild (and MANY other things!)  He got to go watch them practice Saturday morning and while there, he met his absolute, #1, favorite hockey player, #96, Pierre-Marc Bouchard!

Apparently PMB said to Ty “Would you like to have my stick from practice?”

Tyson: “No, thanks, I already have one”

Stunned Grandpa: “Um…where did you get it?”

Tyson: “Dick’s Sporting Goods”

LMAO.  Classic Tyson.  Thanks for thinking of me PMB, but I’m all set…you can keep yours…

Meanwhile, back in reality, B was enjoying having Tony and I all to herself.  It’s so interesting how different she is when Ty isn’t around.  I know she misses him, but she enjoys being left alone and getting to play with whatever she’d like.

Hope you all enjoyed the weekend!

We’re back and ready to rock & roll! It’s been a whirlwind of a summer for us and the fall is equally as busy.  I might try and play catch up, I might not. I haven’t decided quite yet.  ;-)

I thought I would start with a Halloween post.  We were very excited for Halloween this year in our new neighborhood.  At our old house, we would maybe have 30 or so kids and go through about 2 bags of candy.  But the kids in that ‘hood were mostly older elementary age.

But, in our new ‘hood there are a LOT of young families (definitely our favorite thing!) and so we were hopeful that it would be a bit busier.  Well, be careful what you wish for!  We went through TEN bags of candy!!!  It was insane!  The sidewalks were lined with families and cute little kiddos in their costumes and many of the houses were decorated in all their Halloween glory with candy distributors hanging on the front porch.

I think we hit up about 30 houses with the kids, we also had some of our friends over for a small Halloween Party.  The weather was actually quite nice, not too windy and only about 40 degrees, so it was one of our nicer Halloweens (I was a bride the year of the 1991 Halloween Blizzard!)

Bon Jovi

Of course one of the best parts of Halloween is the costumes!  Gone are the days where Tyson lets me choose his costume, so I was very sure when I asked him back in July what he wanted to be, that he was going to say “Batman” or some other commercial character.  But, like he usually does, he surprised me when he said he wanted to be Jon Bon Jovi!  How many five year olds actually know who Bon Jovi even is?  Well, ours has a poster of them up in his room! LOL

So, Bon Jovi he was, and it was so fun to come up with his costume.  I found this great kids faux leather jacket, circa 1980’s and we threw on a pair of skinny jeans and Chucks.  Then we had to figure out the hair.  Because we were going to for the old school rocker Bon Jovi style.  So, I found a kids Mullet’ish wig (which is not an easy task I might add!) and gave it a good trim with some layers and poofed up the top a bit.  Now, I will say, he did look a bit like George Washington with the wig, but it kind of worked out.  :-P

I took a few shots of him up in my studio when I was playing with some off camera flash the other day, these are minus the wig, but I still love them and wanted to share

Hello GQ!

Here are some shots of him in action Trick or Treating.  I made a Bon Jovi playlist and put it on my iPod so he could have a little soundtrack playing.  That seemed to be a big hit with the adults giving out candy!  And then every so often, he would randomly bust out and start singing along, it was so funny!

Here he is busting a move in someone’s driveway, LOL

Tricks or treats?

The T-o-T’ing clan (Bailey was there too, but in the stroller)

Olivia the Pig

If you aren’t familiar with Olivia the Pig, you’re totally missing out!  She is the character in a popular children’s book series and there is also now a show about her on Nick Jr.  Bailey is in LOVE with her.  She lovingly refers to her as “Ee Ah”.  I got the idea for her to be Olivia after we bought her a little stuffed Olivia and she was so excited about it.  But, the problem is that there aren’t really any commercial Olivia costumes out there, so I had to get a bit creative.

I decided to make her a red velvet dress myself, had to dust off the old sewing machine.  I bought a pattern from this Etsy shop and it was actually pretty easy to make the dress!  I might have to make her another one at some point too, I was really happy with how it turned out!  I ended up finding some striped leggings and then this shop on Etsy had Olivia pig ears on a headband and the collar.

So, here she is in all her Ee-Ah glory!  She really loved it once she saw herself in the mirror and realized that she was Olivia.  I might try and get it on her again at some point to take some studio shots of her too.

We had to bring Oliva with us trick or treating as well (total accident that the stroller matched too! LOL)

Ee-Ah managed to sneak into big brothers candy too…yeah, things are SO different with your 2nd child!

Hope you all had a fun and safe Halloween!

To say we’ve been a bit busy these last couple of weeks would be a crazy understatement!  But, it’s all been good.  I’m also giving the blog a mini-makeover, so please excuse the dust while I get it updated. 

Today, Tony officially started his new job as a Trainer at Lifetime Fitness.  If you know of anyone that’s looking for an awesome trainer, who takes his job VERY seriously, my man, is your man.   We’re SO proud of him!  I can’t wait to see him do well, which I’m confident he will.

We also went out of town to Dubuque, Iowa this past weekend for my cousin’s wedding.  It was GORGEOUS and such a blast.  I was honored enough to be asked to sing a few of the songs during the mass as well!

While we were in Dyersville, Iowa for the ceremony, we visited the Field of Dreams Movie Site!  Surprisingly, I left my camera home for the weekend, so all I had was my camera phone.  So, here are a few weak shots from that.  You get the “picture” though.  It was really neat to see it in person!  And for just $5.4 million it could be yours! LOL

Yes, Kevin Costner’s tushie sat on this bench. 

“If you build it…they will come”

Ok, so did you figure out what last week’s photo was of?  I’ll tell you.  I was filling a bean bag with bean bag beads and it was a MESS!!!!  So, there you have it!

Now, onto Week 10!  Here’s the Princess, chillin’ like a villain…

We had Miss B’s first birthday party at our house on Sunday.  Just as we did for Ty’s first birthday, we invited all of our extended families over to celebrate this day with us.  It was so nice to see everyone and to have them all over to the new house.

Here’s the birthday girl having her morning breakfast.  Ty said “I wonder if she’ll look older now that she’s one” before she woke up in the morning.  I think he was a bit disappointed when we went in her room to see that she still looked the same! LOL

As soon as b’fast was over, it was time to get the giant cupcake cake decorated for the party!  We had a cupcake themed party.

We also had a whole slew of smaller cupcakes for everyone.  I loved this Cupcake Stand, it was so cute to display them all!  To feed my Esty addiction, I got these adorable cupcake wrappers and personalized cupcake toppers.  I just loved how they all came together for the display!  And Tyson was such a good little helper and put all of the giant sprinkles on the little cupcakes. 

It’s Party time!!  Here with Grandpa Al & Grandma Arlene.  Adorable birthday dress from here and bow from here.

The dainty pinky in the air.  Don’t we all eat our crackers like this? LOL

Who are all of these people and why are they here?

Time to sing!

Good thing we have our helpful big brother around to blow out the candles for us!

Time to enjoy a cupcake

SO big!

Time to open some present!

She LOVES her new tea party set!

Me and my girl

Tea anyone?

I’m still hoping to get a Bailey’s first year post up later this week, so stay tuned for that!