Shenanigans at the beer garden!

 Kristin with Joan, Anne & Randy (Siebers)

Erik and Kurt in their matching hats.

We can't leave Mark out! He was the original inspiration for Erik to buy his hat!

Erik, John and Mark - 3 peas in a pod

Uncle Kurt and Will - dancing and a shoulder ride!

Mark is singing along to Alte Kameradan

John thinks Oktoberfest is a lot of fun, even though it's way past his bedtime!

The boys made it until 10:00 PM, which was about 2 hours later than we expected. It was such a fun night with our families!

The following Monday work began on our rock wall landscaping. I wanted the project done before the boys' birthday party which was being held the following weekend. It was a full day's work for the crew but the end result is amazing!

That week, the Collier family came to join us for the weekend and the birthday festivities! It's really nice having the space to host everyone. Ella & Sydney slept in Will's room in sleeping bags, Jack bunked up with Scott & Kari in the guest room, Nana had the sleeper sofa and Kurt had the futon in the sunroom. It was a full house, for sure, but so much fun having everyone together for the weekend.

 We refer to Will as "Wilber" quite a bit so Papa sent him a hat with his nickname on it! It received the double thumbs up of approval.

 On Friday, Erik took the day off of work and we took the whole crew to Green Meadows Petting Farm. The kids played, explored, went on slides, saw all the animals, took a hayride and picked pumpkins from the pumpkin patch. It was a little chilly, but all in all the kids had a great time.

All the cousins with their pumpkins!

After some rest time that afternoon we went to MAtteo's for pizza and fish fries. John was a little antsy waiting at the table so we played some games and took some pictures to pass the time.

John pulling Jack in the wagon during some outside play time Saturday afternoon. Not pictured is our  hand me down power wheels jeep that all of the kids had fun driving around the yard in pretty much the entire weekend.

Sunday we hosted a joint birthday party for Will and John while Erik's family was in town. We had a lot of guests join us but, sadly, were so busy socializing that we took almost no pictures of the celebration. The theme was Little Einsteins so I just used a bunch of colorful decor that I already had on hand and included some new music notes hung throughout the house. We had mini instruments for the kids to play with and coloring stations on each table. The cake was from Costco and had musical notes on it that I additionally topped with some Little Einsteins characters.

We asked all of our guests to forgo "gifts and toys" in lieu of giving the boys books to enjoy instead. We added so many great books to our family's collection thanks to the generosity of our family and friends! Grandparents and aunts and uncles did bring some fun toys, etc for the kids including race cars & tracks, bean bags, and art easel and some fun games. The boys had a great time celebrating their birthdays and loved snuggling in their bean bags the next day while playing with all of their new toys as Erik's family got ready to leave town.

 That night we enjoyed an exciting game of Pie Face (compliments of Uncle Kurt!). Will loved the idea of the game, but was not a fan of actually getting hit in the face with pie. John, however, thought it was awesome and hilarious!

Both boys got new CAT winter hats from Nana & Papa. They are big fans and wore them all around the house and even to bed the first week we had them.

While the Collier kids were in town we made pine cone peanut butter bird feeders as a fun little outdoor activity. I forgot to clean up our project and the local wildlife was pretty excited to find remnants of bird seed and peanut butter on our patio table.

 Will and John loved their new easel from Nana & Papa. Will drew a family picture of the 4 of us and was very proud of his artwork.

The excitement from the weekend proved to be too much to handle and both boys ended up with colds. That's always a good reason for some extra snuggle time.

Will was writing some very important notes on his chalkboard.

The night before our Tucson trip Erik was in a car accident on his way home from work. Luckily, he and the other driver and passenger were not injured. He had already worked late in preparation for a weekend off so this just added to the stress of everything. The Taurus was nearly totaled but did end up getting fixed.

I needed a glass of wine as a result of the evening's events! 

We were in Tucson for the weekend so the boys spent the weekend at Grandma & Grandpa's house. They got Will all ready for his school pictures and took a sweet picture of our boys to send to us. 

Will found this old phone in the basement and brought it with him to school that morning with Grandpa, who kindly took this adorable picture of our "cool kid" and sent it to us as well.

Nice days in Wisconsin in October are nearly unheard of. We took full advantage and had some play time on the swingset. Will & John are at such fun ages where they enjoy playing together *most* of the time.