Happy Halloween!

Elmo hopes that everyone had a fun (but safe!) Halloween!

Routines

…are life savers.

After just a few days together, the girls, Gavin and I have gotten a pretty good routine down!

Everyone starts off the day eating breakfast, followed by play dough/coloring time then we spend 1/2 hour watching a cartoon while Gavin does his vest.

Which by the way, they think is super cool. And they giggle listening to Gavin’s shaky voice.

Then it’s free time until lunch. Which is followed by quiet time for the girls, and naptime for Gavin. While Gavin is still sleeping, the girls and I work on stuff that Gavin would probably just make a mess of. Whether it’s completing a puzzle, or working on a craft, they truly enjoy the time to get creative.

Once Gav wakes up, it’s snack time. Then we all head outside…weather permitting…and the girls love to run laps around the circle of our cul-de-sac, with Gavin trailing behind (once again, screw you CF! He can run like crazy!) Our driveway is now typically covered with all sorts of chalk designs :)

Depending on how much fun they’re having (yesterday was spent jumping in puddles!) we either stay outside, or head back in for some reading time. This is always interesting…the girls want a longer book, while Gavin wants a short picture book…oh well, teaching them that life is all about compromise can’t be a bad thing!

Once their mom/dad picks them up…I often find myself in a daze sitting on the couch, halfway paying attention to the local news. While we have fun with all the kids here, it’s mentally exhausting trying to keep track of everyone! And each night I do my best to clean up the house, sanitize some toys, and keep our house as germ free as possible! I haven’t made it up past 10 pm yet!

On a side note, the first day the girls came over, they each had their baby dolls in hand. I quickly realized that Gavin had never, ever seen a baby doll! He was 100% totally confused. He looked at them closely, poked them…and quizzically asked me “me-mes?” (babies). Even more confusing, was that one of the girls was holding the baby doll upside down by it’s foot! But by yesterday he had the doll thing down, after watching the girls play mommy….Gavin was quickly “feeding” the girls with a toy spoon and bowl :)

It’s Monday

We’re tired around here. Even though we stuck around town for the entire weekend (yay!) we were busy running around!

On Saturday we trekked over to a friend’s home for their (2nd) annual chili cook off. There were 18 entries, and I tried just about every one of them! To be honest, I’m a little old school when it comes to my chili, I’m not a fan of all of the funky extras…but it was a blast trying out everyone’s recipes!

Gavin’s future prom date, Juliet, was there

as well as several other kids…Gavin had a ball. He passed out an hour early for bedtime!

On Sunday, we were welcomed into our new church (also the one we will be married in) and Gavin did a fantastic job of sitting somewhat quietly in the pew, only needing to escape to the children’s room for the last 10 minutes. Hopefully, we’ll get better about attending on a weekly basis and he’ll quickly learn that he needs to behave for that hour!

Last night, Gavin came close to getting a black eye, after falling off one of our kitchen chairs…

but luckily this morning it’s just barely black and blue, and healing up nicely! Hoping all traces of it are gone for the Halloween celebrations this weekend!

Also, still waiting for our engagement pictures to be completed…once I get them I will be sharing (most) of them here!

New Things

Those of you who are friends on facebook are already aware of this, but starting yesterday, I will be watching twin girls (C & A) that will be 5 in November.

I won’t be posting pictures of the girls, but I will do my best to get pictures of Gavin alone on some of our adventures together.

Yesterday morning was pretty tough on my little guy, he was not at all ok with sharing his mom…or his toys. Lots of meltdowns, tears, and tantrums but he seemed to be doing a lot better as the day progressed. I’m sure that after a few days, his memories of just the two of us will be a distant memory (if he remembers them at all?)

So far I’ve learned that four year old girls ask a lot of questions, many of them repetitive and many of them include, why?

So….times those questions by two? And I’ve been coming up with a lot of answers :) Most have been wondering about the plans for our day, and as soon as we all get on somewhat of a set schedule I’m sure some of those will subside…right?!? ;)

Sorry about no flash today…still trying to get organized with this new way of life! Will flash you all next week :)

Wordless Wednesday

Good Days Ahead

Yesterday was a great day. First, because I finally pulled out my oh so extremely comfortable Uggs…

Second, because I got all of this…

for a mere $30 at our local Savers. Why the need of an abundance of kid stuff? Well…you’ll just have to wait and see, but there are a few changes happening in our family (that do not include actually adding to our family, sorry) very soon!

But for now, I’m just going to enjoy some one on one time with my incredibly smart little man…today he surprised me by knowing (almost) every single object in one of his First Words book!

Matchy Matchy

While looking at the pictures of yesterday’s pumpkin adventure…I realized that Gavin had worn a very similar outfit when we got our pumpkins last year…

2009

2010

Jeans, sneakers, and a striped sweater. Same fuzzy blond hair (although there is more of it this year!), same bright blue eyes and rosy cheeks.

Gosh, I love my little pumpkin :)

Finally…pumpkins

We didn’t make it back to the pumpkin patch we visited last weekend, instead we decided to head over to a small family orchard/pumpkin patch less than 10 minutes from our house.

Gavin decided to be in a good mood today, and happily ran around for just over an hour. While this place did not have the abundance of activities as last week’s adventure, this place was free and was geared toward toddlers/young kids.

“pumps, Mama! pumps!”

Almost makes me wish we had saved the $9 fee (per person) to get into last week’s patch…the one where we never even made it to the actual pumpkins!

Instead of the typical corn maze, they had set up a small maze built from hay bales.

umm…I might be lost?

I found the exit!

And there were more hay bales to climb…

and to jump off of!

Strange scarecrows that he couldn’t quite figure out at first…

But quickly warmed up to them, and waved hello!

We ran through the rows and rows of apple trees

 

Posed for a picture in a pumpkin…

Carried a pumpkin…

Posed on a pumpkin…

And refused to take a good picture with his mom near the pumpkins!

He rode on a teeter totter for the first time

And giggled like crazy while riding on a swing

And once we picked out the perfect three pumpkins to carve next weekend…we loaded our three four pumpkins to the check out!

Now…we just have to figure out what we want to carve into them! Any ideas?!?!

“Dit”

Is how Gavin pronounces dirt, and for a boy who is obsessed with anything dealing with dirt, trucks, tractors etc…when we woke up to this…

 

outside our window. Our crazy bed headed…

little guy ran to the window shouting, “D! D! D!” (d=digger). He immediately pulled his oversized (for him) chair over to the window to watch the show.

He eagerly watched the “d” move from house to house, digging holes every few feet or so.

 
The city is coming around this weekend and planting trees up and down the blocks of our neighborhood. I don’t know what it is, but something about tree lined streets makes everything just a little bit more comforting, so I’m thrilled that they are doing this!

Anywho, after naptime, Gavin took one look out the window and realized what that digger left behind.

Dirt. Dirt. And more dirt.

He was in heaven.

hmm..looks pretty good

yep, this is definitely worth digging into

my mom is totally going to make me take a bath

best day ever. 

Yes, that giant sink hole and piles of ripped up sod will have one, measly little stick tree in the midst of it come Saturday. Curious to see if they do a decent job cleaning up the mess and put everything back into place!

After two baths today. Yes, it took two to get him clean…I mean, do you see how dirty his feet are?

 

It took everything I had to keep him out of the dirt for the remainder of the day.

Wish me luck for tomorrow.

(and if you noticed in the background above, yes I was totally watching the Chilean miners on CNN all day today. I couldn’t turn it off, what an amazing story!)

Wordless Wednesday

The Patch

I mentioned yesterday that on Saturday we attempted to enjoy a day at a local pumpkin patch.

This face is one of the reasons we never even made it to the pumpkins

and so is this face.

Don’t get me wrong. We enjoyed several activities before we decided that enough was enough.

We went down slides…

Played some bag toss…

peek a boo!

Fed some chickens…

Climbed towers…

Crossed some bridges…

And measured up…

could he look any crabbier?!?

And finally, we decided to call it a day. I’m really hoping to make it back there this weekend, to pick out some pumpkins to carve…and to get those essential fall in Minnesota pumpkin patch pics :)

Hopefully the gnats are gone (but we learned our lesson & will be bringing bug spray!) and the weather is cooler, so we can leave happy…not crabby, bitten & sweaty this time!