Cute Kids

The other week as I was driving Gavin to preschool I noticed all the leaves at the park were in a huge pile, so after preschool we ran to the park to play in the leaves before they were all bagged up!

And here are some cute pictures of our Little Liam

'C' is for Cookie

Gavin is absolutely loving preschool and I am so glad we signed him up. Although Liam's nap schedule is still somewhat sporadic, the mornings that he does nap while Gavin is at preschool are priceless! Gavin has enjoyed a fun field trip to the fire station, a Halloween party, and this past Monday they had a preschool style Thanksgiving feast!  Here are a few pictures from their trip to the fire station.  I so wish I could have volunteered and gone along, but it was the same morning Liam was going into the dentist for his lip/tongue tie revision.

I still sometimes have a hard time getting out of Gavin what they did in preschool each day, but the other day Gavin came home and asked me if I knew about the flower ship.  I wasn't sure what he was talking about until he started explaining: "You know, the flower ship, with the pilgrims that had to go to the church and didn't want to so they went on the boat to China with the Indians?"  So he may have been slightly off, but I got what he was talking about and said we needed to Skype with Grandpa Ducky to find out about one of his relatives that came over on the Mayflower. Grandpa Ducky taught him the joke, "If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring?  ...Pilgrims!"

Gavin's known all his letters and what sounds they make for a long time now, but since starting preschool, he is now beginning to pick those sounds out in words.  He'll be saying something, and randomly stop mid sentence, repeat a word a few times, then tell me, "That word begins with 'Th', or that word ends with a 'D'".  Just today we were in the kitchen looking at his listening calendar (he's had some problems with listening well in preschool so we set up a calendar where he puts a sad or happy face on each preschool day depending on how well he listens) and he was looking at the word December and trying to figure it out.  He kept sounding out the word and asked how it could be the word December, if it had no 'S' in it?  Again I know I'm slightly bias, but he's one sharp kid!  I tried to explain how the 'CE' made the 'S' sound, but that was too confusing.

Here's more pictures of Fall preschool fun!  Miss Rebecca is awesome, and I'm glad she takes pictures of the fun activities they do at preschool!

Making and eating cookies!

Apple Investigator

Counting seeds while enjoying a snack

What sticks to magnets?

M&M colour and counting chart

Thanksgiving Feast and Fun!

When we were first looking at preschools there were two options that we really liked.  They both seemed great, but because I wanted one in the mornings, we went with Miss Rebecca's preschool.  I think the other one would have been great too, but the fact that this preschool is just a three minute drive away, makes it so nice and convenient for me.  One day while it was still warm out I dropped Gavin's bike off at preschool with him, then instead of driving back over to pick him up, I jogged over with Liam in the stroller, and we jogged home while Gavin rode his bike.  It ended up being a bit too long of a bike ride for Gavin, but it was worth trying at least once!

On our way to pick Gavin up

Of course we had to take a break at the park on our way home!

Each of the kids in Gavin's class get to bring cup cakes or a treat to celebrate their Birthday, but since Gavin's is during the summer, he gets to bring a treat next week to celebrate his half Birthday!

Grandma's Comin' to Town!

A few weeks ago our ward had it's primary program.  And not like I'm a bias Mom of the cutest four year old alive or anything... but Gavin pretty much was the cutest kid there! I think Grandma would agree, and of course she came up to Provo for a visit to see Gavin in the primary program, and to celebrate Jared's Birthday as well. After we finished hiking the Y Saturday afternoon, we made it back home right as Grandma was arriving and headed out for dinner together at Sizzler's.

I love this kid's smiles! And now he is laughing so much too!

Grandma and Gavin had all sorts of fun with different activities.  They made Olaf from a toilet paper role, and a balloon rocket to shoot across Gavin's bedroom!  Gavin was so excited to show Daddy the balloon rocket when he got home from work, so we finally did it again with Gavin a few days later across the whole front room.

The night before Daddy's Birthday Gavin helped me wrap up his presents and was so excited to surprise Daddy!  I was impressed that he didn't tell Daddy what was inside any of the packages. While Jared was at work we cut out birthday hearts and wrote messages on them and taped them to the window, and blew up Happy Birthday balloons as well.  Eve was over playing with Gavin while we were making the hearts, so Jared even got some birthday hearts from Eve. That night instead of cake we attempted to make a soda slushy with our "new" ice cream maker. 

Jared is supposed to get his Birthday off at work, but because Tuesday was going to be a busy day, his boss gave him Friday off instead.  So Tuesday we did his birthday at home with us and Grandma, Wednesday we went out for dinner and celebrated his birthday with his good friend Lincoln, and on the Saturday we celebrated with the usual tradition of Burger Supreme, Sherley's cinnamon rolls, and the Nickel Cade!  A few weeks later we used Jared's free Tucano's Birthday meal card for some extended celebration fun!

This is how I get stuff done...

Thank goodness for swings, slings, and bumbo chairs!

Hiking the Y

This past summer Gavin successfully made it all the way to the top of the Y with Daddy! Considering I was over eight months pregnant at the time, and it was the middle of August, I relaxed at home. But at the beginning of November, when the weather was much cooler we decided to hike the Y again, this time with all four of us.  It was the perfect day, and we made it down the mountain just as the sun was setting.

Liam did great during the hike as well, and was content chilling in the baby carrier.  About half way up he fell asleep, but woke up for a snack and to enjoy the view at the top before heading back down. Jared packed along one of his planes as well, and although the wind wasn't ideal, he was able to get a few flights in at the top of the Y.

Halloween Fun

We don't joke when it comes to Halloween time at this home!  Around the middle of September Gavin began asking on a regular basis how long until Halloween, and when we could start putting up our Halloween decorations.  I was able to hold Gavin (and Jared) off until September 27th, the last Saturday in September.  And as per tradition, we stuck in Nightmare Before Christmas to watch while Gavin and Jared decorated the door.  We carved our pumpkins the Sunday before Halloween, and with such warm weather out, they just barely lasted the the five days until Halloween night.

We didn't make it to Cornbelly's this year, but did enjoy three visits down to Jaker's Jack-O-Lanterns Pumpkin Patch.  This is our third year going, and each year they've added some sort of addition.  It's free, and Gavin absolutely loves the giant corn box!  They also have a mini petting zoo, two hay mazes, a haunted house, slides, a hay pyramid to climb, a tractor ride through the pumpkin patch, and this year they added a corn maze.

On top of the hay pyramid

Fun in the corn box!  Each time we went Gavin would come home with his pockets FULL of corn. I'm still finding missed corn kernels in the washing machine a week later!  Liam was a bit less impressed with the corn box, but he tolerated it long enough for me to get at least one decent picture of him and Gavin hanging out in the corn.

 More fun at Jaker's!

One afternoon, while Gave spent a couple hours playing in the corn, this chubby pumpkin was content just chilling in the stroller and giving big smiles to his Mama!

Gavin is such a kook!  For as much as he was looking forward to carving pumpkins, when it came time to pull out all the pumpkin guts, he wanted nothing to do with it!  Sorry kid, if you want to carve pumpkins, getting some pumpkin guts on your hands is just part of the deal!  Daddy carved Jack Skellington on our big pumpkin, Gavin carved a silly face on his (with a little help from Daddy) and I carved a scary face on Liam's little pumpkin.

Can't help throwing in some more Liam cuteness!

On Wednesday before Halloween the youth in our ward organized a Trunk-or-Treat activity, complete with face painting and hot chocolate with LOTS of yummy mix-ins

Getting ready to go Trick-or-Treating with friends

  

My two favorite pirates!