Christmas Cards

I love sending out Christmas cards and a Christmas letter every year, so when I heard that one of the cutest online stationery stores was giving away 50 free Christmas cards to readers of one of my favorite blogs, I was totally in.

Tiny Prints ( http://www.tinyprints.com/shop/picture-christmas-cards.htm ) asked readers to post ideas on their blogs about how they display Christmas cards.  I love this idea I saw on etsy:  

It's a wire wreath made with loops for storing cards. (found here: http://www.etsy.com/listing/63647159/star-wreath-card-holder) We usually put the cards up on our mantle, but it fills up too quickly.  I'd love to hang this on top of our large mirror above the fireplace so we can show off all the cards we get!

If you have a blog and would like to enter to receive 50 cards from TinyPrints, check out this link: http://www.hostessblog.com/2011/11/a-rainbow-of-holiday-cheer-from-tiny-prints/

Halloween 2011

This year we had an even more fun Halloween than usual.  For the first time, we ALL (even the adults) dressed in costume and had a big Halloween party.  Here's the whole gang together:

From the left: Chris & Kerrie in back dressed as a Chippendale and a Playboy Bunny (very churchy); Kim, Derek, & Zack dressed as Barney & Betty Rubble and their son Bam-Bam; Doug, Candace, and Charlie dressed as Fred, Wilma, & Pebbles Flintstone; us dressed as farmers with a little cow and ear of corn; behind us are Adam, Mandi, & Lucas dressed as characters from the PBS show SuperWhy! Wonder Red, Alpha Pig and SuperWhy himself; and, Dan and Cara as mad scientists!

Are these our costumes or do mid-westerners just dress like this all the time?

Here we are on the day of Halloween carving our pumpkin.  (At least we didn't wait until the last minute!?)  Will is getting ready to take the very first scoop of pumpkin guts:

And after scooping with all his might, this is what he came up with:

Here's Will creating the spooky jack-o-lantern face:

All done!

Boo!

Oh no, when it gets dark John turns from a regular cow into a zombie-cow decapitating other cows and sucking out their brains with a sippy-cup!

We had a great time trick-or-treating with the boys.  The weather was pretty mild and the neighbors got a kick out of our family themed costumes.  After we were done, Will helped pass out the candy, which he really enjoyed.  Then we all watched "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" for the second year in a row.  I think we'll be making that a Henley-family tradition!

Grandparents Day??

This post is a little late, since it's from the end of September, but I'm just getting caught up.  Will's preschool had "Bring Your Grandparents To School Day" and since we don't live close to family, Will invited our friends Dan & Cara to be his special friends for the day.  It was a great choice because Dan and Cara took the whole day off and after school, brought the boys out to Tanners Orchard for some fall fun:

(poor John, had to be the lady)

Tanners has a huge play area will all kinds of farm equipment, vehicles, and playgrounds to play on. Here are the boys on the big wooden train:

John loves steering wheels!

On the tractor/trike dirt track. Not sure why, but Will went straight for the pink John Deere:

John's turn:

Caterpillar!  That's more like it:

John with Dan & Cara.  (ps- Dan is one of John's favorite people and yesterday (Nov. 13) he started saying Daniel.  It sounds like this "Naniel"... so cute!)

Last, but not least, here's Will picking apples.  They were delicious!

Thanks so much, Dan & Cara, for making my boys feel so adored!