The boys were a little squirrelly and thought it would be fun to make each other fly. Surprisingly no one got hurt! (The camera was out in the car and was a little frosty but you can still see that Peter is in the air while Jamison is launching him). 
The time at Grandma's was full of poker! And Grandpa had real poker chips, no legos or GoGos! 
Jamison was introduced to Chess. He said that he wanted to learn, sadly I had to learn first. Man...there is a lot of of stuff to remember. Pat found an online tutorial for him to play. I better practice too, I have a feeling that he is going to beat me every time. 
Back home it was time for our second "red-neck" christmas tree cutting. This year's choice was a little, for lack of a better word, rustic. Lets just say it will give Charlie Brown's christmas tree a run for the money. To add insult to injury, Pat took out the chain saw. Nothing says "happy holidays" more than the sound of the chain saw and the smell of gasoline. Let's just say I was able to trim the base of the tree with a hand saw faster than pat was able to get chain saw started. 
I tried to get a nice picture of the boys in front of the tree but we were loosing light and the boys were not cooperative. I got a nice one of Peter. 
Jamison was acting weird. 
Then Peter tried to make Jamison smile, that went over well. I will have to get the christmas card photo at a later date. After Pat's fancy birthday dinner (at Culvers) we decorated the tree. I am happy to have to helpers! 
They were careful and respectful of all the ornaments. None were broken, yet.
I had to rearrange a couple.....I think 3 ornaments in a 3inch section of 1 branch is a little too many. 
The tree turned out pretty good, a little wild but nice. I think we are going to start planting trees in the woods to cut. I think the remaining three pines in the front yard are too big.
The holiday fun has started with a package from friends from Germany! Heike's mom and dad, Christine and Lutz, sent a package! Inside was a fun challenging game of Triominos (triangle dominos). We like our games around here! 
There was also a stollen which we shared with Gma and Gpa Van when they came down for another holiday meal and the packer game! Thank you Lutz and Christine!!!!! (the packers lost btw...a very sad loss.) 
With the up-up stairs complete we are able to have another tree up there adorned with all of the StarWars ornaments and remaining balls. Nothing says happy holidays more than the Death Star, Tie-Fighter, R2D2 and Darth Vadar! This tree came from a box and is flame retardant....Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!
Jamison and Pat walked to Walgreens to return movies and we got a call to come pick them up. We have had some unseasonable warm weather but the rain was a little cold. They look pretty miserable.
The boys have made great progress in reading, I am very proud of them. We even took out the dictionary and started reading that! See, I told you that we have not been all that exciting. (although reading the dictionary was pretty fun, one word led to another which led to another). 
Breakfast of pancakes...half with peanut butter and other half nutella. 
Packer Viking Game. Jamison likes a team if they are a bird (ravens, cardinals, eagles, seahawks, falcons), the coolest mammal (Dolphins) or have red or blue uniforms. Peter swears he likes the Vikings, I thought we moved in time, but I guess not. Oddly he will go to another game at Lambeau in a heart beat, band wagon jumper just like all other Viking "fans". Jamison can be bought off apparently with a piece of candy. This is a note that he wrote before the Packer/Viking Game. I gave him that candy, and the Pack totally beat the Vikings. So maybe he is my good luck charm. 
I think the most exciting news is my new dryer! We held out as long as we could and luckily the nice weather has allowed me to hang the laundry outside until lastweek, I guess clothes freeze when the sun goes down at 4:30. I spent the weekend doing laundry, amazed that clothes can dry in like 30 minutes when the heat element works. Now who is going to pair and fold socks, I hate folding socks.
Pat started teaching the boys how to play Texas Hold'em. Peter really likes card games and is getting pretty good. 
I will see your GoGos, and raise you two! Show me the river!
Then one night, Pat introduced Peter to computer poker. Man, if they start skipping out to Ho-Chunk I am going to get really concerned.
The boys have been waiting for this night! Partly for wearing their costumes, but mostly for the candy! But first we had to tackle the pumpkins. 
Not Pat's favorite part, he gets a little squimish. I would say like a girl, but that would offend all the women i know that stuck their hands in pumpkins! I cleaned all of them! 
I think all five heads look great!
Meet ObiWan. Check out those boots, about 3 inches, knee high boots. Curtesy of Savers. How can you pass them up for $3. Jamison loved them, until he had walk all around the neighborhood.
Meet Luke Skywalker, not Annikan as many people thought. I thought the Tatooine sand boots would have been the dead give away. 
The Jedis are prepared to meet Darth Vader on the streets. The boys also realized that they could use their light sabers for any zombies that may scare them along the way.
The boys made a candy haul, they even went to the house they refused to go last year. And they are willing to share! Sweet! They also started talking about what they are going to be next year....i think they have some time.
Weekend chores. We had some serious yard work to do this weekend. The boys had a monetary incentive, a nickle for every stick they bring from the back 40 to the road. So to keep track of the money, Peter came up with this idea. They worked super hard!
Earlier in the week, Jamison decided to dress Foxy up like ObiWan, even with a light saber.
Peter declared that he was old enough to make his own breakfast. So I let him. I came downstairs to see this. At least the cereal was not all over the floor. Now once they learn how to make me some coffee I could sleep til noon!
Love the giant pumpkins, for only $350 it could be yours! 
Jamison made his "witches brew" with snakes, bats and brains. I passed on the opportunity to taste it. 
We played pumpkin bowling. It was a little rainy, so unfortunatley we did not play a whole set. Peter got some air on his! 
This was the bowling ball graveyard. only 1 or 2 smashed pumkins. 
We were close to having a nice family photo....and then there is Peter's expression. 
They even had a corn maze. Not as big as the other one...but we did not have a map and we got turned around a couple times! Maybe we should have had a map. 
At Gma's house we spent time painting the mini pumpkins and gourds. I have to say, we have some spooky ones! 
Earlier in the week I went with Peter's class to help rake leaves at a retired teacher/neighbor's house. Found out that it was Pat's 3rd grade teacher. She remebers him as a good listener. When I told Pat that he asked..."Did she know I was deaf?" Oh, you have to love the Mount Horeb moments. 
These kindergarteners and 1st graders are sure fast rakers. I think I need to rent them to help with my house. But then again, with the wind we have been having we might not have to rake at all! Here's to hoping!
Jamison has picked tacos for dinner and for dessert...mint chocolate chip ice cream in colored cones. The green cones were a little disturbing, but tasted fine. We willl have to remember these for St. Patrick's Day. 
For his special day present he got Star Wars Droid Ship and tickets to the movie Legend of the Guardians, to be seen on their day off of school next week. We like Jamison Day.....Peter wishes for Peter Day.
Pat thought is was ok for Jamison to ride around outside in his underware. Good Grief! I am a little worried what he will do in college.
As a "thankyou" for watching Bosco, our friends brought back some ToyStory legos. We spent the night racing who could put it together faster....not to brag, Jamison and mom won, but it was not a race...but we still won. 
Halloween is coming fast, and we are getting our costumes ready. We scored some boot and belts from the local Savers to make the ObiWan and Luke Skywalker costumes complete. Now I have to finish sewing a few other parts. In the mean time, ObiWan and Luke are training to be Jedi. Jamison really likes the boots and was outside riding his bike with them. He thought is was crazy fun until he crashed. .
Bosco made himself at home and slept in Peter's room, he was so happy! It will be sad when he has to go home. 
The weather has been really warm and we even had to break out some shorts. This Jamison's best Urkle impression. 
Saturday we went to the Treinen Farm, a place where they boast having the largest corn maze in Wisconsin. The farm is pretty cool. This years pattern is filled with tesselations (Escher's mathematical concept of infinitley repeating designs that interlock, filling a page), Penrose Tilings (infinitley non-repeating patterns) and Fibonacci numbers (a series of numbers where the next number is the sum of the prior two). 
Now I am not that smart, i had to look up the definitions. Pat, on the other hand, was pretty excited, telling the boys all about the mathematical concepts. 
We did really well, and only got lost once. We were able to find each map and make our way all the way through! My picture isnt as cool as the overhead photo above. it was a lot of corn!
The Farm also had bunnies, goats, chicken, lions and tigers oh my! Jamison took a liking to the bunnies. He said he would like a rabbit. I reminded him that that is not possible, Wini is a beagle, beagles are bread to hunt rabbits.
The slides were bumpy and there were tractor tires all over to climb on. 
They had a pretty awesome set up. 
Jamison is making corn angels. We will have to hit this place up next year, it was a lot of fun! even though it felt like summer. 
The rest of the weekend was spent cleaning out the garage, car, back yard and barn attic preparing for winter. It is still hard to think that winter is right around the corner. At 80 it is hard to imagine. Instead of cleaning, Peter set up an obstacle course for is scooter. 
Pat gave Jamison a piece of tubing, he spent a long time jump roping and swinging it. Like an earlier post, who needs fancy toys when you have tubing!