Happy Halloween!!!

From my 3 monsters to all of you!!!

One Motocross Racer

Fantastic Four's "The Thing"

and the cutest Cow you will ever see!

We saw this HUGE pumpkin in our cul-de-sac this morning...

And it wouldn't be Halloween if there wasn't some sort of meltdown (by someone other than mommy, of course!)

Evening reading time

As I have blogged before, Chris HATES to read outloud. Unfortunately, it is part of his homework so it continues to be a nightly battle. He did, however, enjoy this:

Isaac was a little put-off by the fact that Chris wouldn't read HIS book, but was still ok to sit next to him and read to himself...

Fall is here!

I must admit, I hate to see Summer go. However. I will not miss the hot weather. I will miss the lazy days of no school, sleeping in and letting the boys have at the neighborhood. I am loving that both Chris and Jake are in all day school and I have just Isaac here, who takes 2 2-hour naps (YEAH!!!). I do love fall for its beautiful changing leaves, the cool mornings and the crisp evenings.

This is a tree just down the street from me that I have been meaning to take a pic of for more than a week. I finally did it!

And a spider web that had the morning mist clinging to it...

Welcome Fall. Don't be to harsh on us. Keep the sickies away, friends close and hot cocoa in our mugs to warm us on those cooler days.

Blessings to you all!

Fire Truck Ride... Oh yeah and pancakes!

So. We went to the Fire Department for the Pancakes, but the best part was the Fire Truck Rides!!! The boys were SOOOOOO excited (including Isaac) to see the trucks up close and personal. Then we got on...

The first time we went Chris sat in front... yes, no pic of that, Grandpa had the camera. This is our second trip - neither Chris or Jake could stop smiling the ENTIRE time!!! They asked the driver very polite questions, like what would happen if there was a fire when we were out on the ride? He said that we would just have to hurry back and get everyone out of the truck and get to the fire as fast as they could. He was very nice and explained in "kid terms" the many components of the truck.

Isaac got to go only with Mommy, so we went twice. He was so facinated by the seats and the things around us, he hardly said a word the whole time, which is rare for this child!

Chris and Jake went 3 times, and would have kept going if I would have let them... We went torwards the end of the day so there were hardly anyone there and no one in line for the most part!
I don't think that they had ANY fun what-so-ever, but I think that I will have to drag them to it next year to torture them even further... Hahahaha!

Shop-ping

Tuesday Mom and I were going to go shopping. Isaac was with us and in trying to leave Mom's house, we were telling him, "Let's go Shopping!!!" Trying to make it sound much more fun and exciting than it actually is. Much to our surprise, Isaac got all excited and kept trying to get us out the door! After a few detours - closing up the house, quickly getting a new load of laundry in before we left - we were finally walking out the door. Isaac heads straight for Grandpa's SHOP, still repeating "shop-ping, shop-ping"... All Isaac had heard was "shop", not the "-ping" part and had assumed that we were going to go and do this fun and new thing in the shop... Poor kid. We had to open the door and show him that no one was there, before he would even THINK of going to the van. You could tell that he was kinda disappointed, but got in the van willingly anyway.

Makes you wonder what else they think is one thing only to be disappointed that it is completely different!?!?!?

What a way to start the morning...

We weren't doing too bad in timing. Boys had had breakfast. Jake getting his shoes on. Chris completely ready, he just needed to grab his backpack. I went out to start the van and get it warm... Started it, accidentally pushed "lock" instead of "unlock"... closed the van door. OH. CRAP. Of course, my extra key is in my wallet - inside the van. UG. The only extra key is Grandma's. Across town - a good 15 min. I call, apologizing. She says she is on her way...

WHAT A GREAT WAY TO START THE MORNING!!!!!

ARG!!!

Why does homework have to be so hard?

I was sitting at the table with a certain 8-year-old (ahem) who LOVES to read. However, his homework is for him to read a book, whatever book he likes, outloud to someone. Therein lies the problem. OUTLOUD. He will read book after book after book, but tell him that he needs to read it outloud to someone and he becomes a whining, fit-throwing, 2-year-old!

I sit him at the table. I tell him that he needs to read outloud to me. Whenever he is ready, just let me know... It doesn't take long before he realizes that Jake is outside playing with the neighbor boy, having fun and he won't get to do that till he does what he is supposed to do... Reading begins. Finally.

Funny. This fight has happened almost every week for 4 weeks... Here's to praying that he learns and remembers for next week!

22 months old and...

... this little monkey (oh my am I really saying this?) is potty training!

I bought this potty chair on Friday, and this morning before he got into the bath, he peed for the first time... REALLY???!!!!! We celebrated, clapped, cheered and he got 1 M&M... for which he wanted and tried to pee some more.

Really? Am I really posting about this? Yup.

And he is only 22 months old... Yeah, I am in for it. OSM.

Fun with Jake

This last Wednesday, Chris stayed after school for his first choir practice. Jake was quite upset that he couldn't stay with Chris, so we had a little bit of Mommy and Jakob Time. It was really fun! We started off getting a few snacks from home and then Jakob directed me to one of his favorite parks... Discovery Meadows. There was hardly any other people there so we pretty much had the place to ourselves...

Jake had a lot of fun sliding and then climbing back up to the top...

Us at the top of one of the structures

Jake hammin' it up for me...

And then Jake had the most fun jumping off of the swings while I took pictures in rapid succession... This is just ONE of the ONE HUNDRED that I took - we both agree that this is the best one!

All in all we had a lot of fun - and I don't think that Jake will mind very much if Chris isn't there with him next Wednesday!!!