The Hoglund Family Blog: October 2011

Well today is the boys' birthday.... FOURTH birthday, can you believe it? Doesn't seem like 4 years ago that my doctor told me that I was showing early signs of preclamsia, wasn't willing to risk waiting the two more days to my previously agreed to (and scheduled) Csection date.... and that the boys would be arriving later that afternoon - to go home, pack up and head straight back to the hospital where he would squeeze me in later that day. I remember sobbing the entire ride home because I had been banking on those next two days to mentally prepare myself. We were prepared in every other way.... just not that way yet. I called my mom sobbing to tell her and she thought something horrible must have happened, then was shocked to hear that it was "good" news and got all excited while I continued to sob. Well I forced myself to get over it pretty quickly...... and next thing you know, after about 15 (give or take) botched spinal attempts they finally had me prepped and minutes later out popped MacKay. He didn't cry at first which had me worried but seconds later we heard that shriek we would get all too familiar with. Barely a minute later out popped lil Oscar just screaming about being torn from his warm little home. Then 5#15 & 19" (MacKay) and 6#13 & 20" (Oscar)... they've now switched roles. MacKay for the longest time was always the smaller of the two, always less than a pound difference, and pretty close in height.... until recently. They just had their 4 year check up this last Thursday and MacKay has continued to remain bigger than Oscar. MacKay weighed in at 42 lbs and 3'6" (86th percentile for both). Oscar weighed in at 41 lbs (82nd percentile) and 3'5" (68th percentile).

For this post I am more going to focus (the pictures specifically) on the Halloween Festivities we've been to so far. I have pictures of the boys' birthday party at the water park and back at the house with family (presents, cake etc). But I need to get these out there before I get too behind. Besides, I'll have some more Halloween pictures after tomorrow (actual Halloween) as we're planning to take the kids to the Westgate Mall and to the Brainerd Dispatch (maybe even one of the local retirement facilities as well). But for now... the pictures of the kids dressing up for the events at Cub Foods (Thursday 10/27) and the Brainerd Lakes YMCA (Friday 10/28). The boys are at such a fun age for this - actually picking out their costumes (they did last year too - but it was so obvious I could have done it for them). MacKay has really embraced Captain Hook and can't wait to get his costume on every time, and it's a chore getting him out of it. He'd probably wear it to bed if we would let him. He was pretty disappointed that we had forgotten to draw a mustache on him (like we had said we would) for that first round of trick or treating at Cub...... and then when we actually did it for the YMCA event he wouldn't stop picking at it and scratching it, saying it itched. Can't win. Oscar loves being "Jake" (Jake and the Neverland Pirates). Loves his bandana and all the sashes he gets to wear. Evie is iffy on whether she'll wear the Minnie Mouse ears. But it seems that every where we've gone we've either been able to point out another Minnie Mouse (who IS wearing their ears) or another character that we think she will love/respect.... and we can usually talk her into putting her ears on after that. "Ooooh, look Evie... another Minnie Mouse.... look, she is wearing her ears. Will you wear yours?" [YES] Or... "Look Evie... it's Rapunzel.... why don't you put on your ears to show her you are Minnie Mouse?" Worked every time... which is quite shocking, as I'm sure many of you (that have seen Evie in her prime) will attest to. She's got some will I tell ya. But I think she wasn't about to be outdone in these scenarios.

Either way, here are some pictures of some of the artwork Gma Chris has them doing and the kiddos all dudded up and having a good time playing some carnival games .... sorta looking forward to tomorrow where it will just be about the Trick-or-Treating vs playing a ton of games for cheap little trinkets.

The leaf and melted crayon shavings artwork my mom used to do with my brother and me every Fall. So I asked her to do this with the kids and some leaves we nabbed off the leaves earlier this fall. So here are MacKay's, Oscar's and Evie's

I love this type of artwork... where they use their hand or foot prints to make something. This time... little Halloween spiders. [Oscar's is on top (like you couldn't tell.. it's GREEN), then MacKay's, and Evie's on the bottom]

Cub Foods Baxter - Thursday 10/27/2011

Brainerd Lakes YMCA - Friday 10/28/2011

Birthday pictures soon to follow... unnnnghh. Crazy time of year for us. Guess we better get used to it.

We had our annual family photo shoot on Wednesday 10/12/2011 with Jon Arenz from Blackline Photo here in Brainerd. We went to a place called French Rapids near the Brainerd airport and it was beautiful. I think we missed "peak" fall colors by about a week at that point, but the colors were still pretty. We got lucky too as it started misting out on our drive over, and once we got there it started full out raining. Jon urged us to wait it out just a few minutes as he had just come from town and there wasn't any rain there. Sure enough, about 5 minutes later it cleared up.... or at least we thought enough to at least shoot a few family shots outside and then we could go to his studio to finish up. But it ended up holding out from that point on and we did our entire shoot there. The kids really liked Jon and were more than willing to pose for him and do whatever he asked of them..... with the exception of one shot that I think may have even ended up being our best shot. Evie wasn't cooperating at one point and went to hide behind Chris while we were all getting together for a shot. She was quite adamant she wasn't going to be in this picture.... but luckily she couldn't hold true to her convictions and curiosity got the best of her and she peeked out .... and Jon was quick to catch that image. It seriously depicts our family to a T ... Evie the little diva who runs the show.