Raking Leaves

A couple of weeks ago, the boys and I decided to get some of the raking done.  The boys received yard work supplies for their birthday from my parents and we hadn't really put it to work yet.  We put on the gloves, grabbed the rakes and got working.

I have to say that Brennan was a bigger help than I expected.  He wanted to rake the piles big enough to jump in, but refused to jump until all the leaves were raked into piles.  At one point I suggested he have fun jumping while I continued working, but he wouldn't have it!

At last, the work was done and the boys jumped in!  After jumping in all the piles, they then helped me bag it all up!  Even Tyler was a great helper for bagging!  Great work boys!

Giving Thanks

I can't believe it's the end of November!  I've had a very busy couple of weeks with church related and haven't had much time to blog.  Last Friday, Brennan and I went into Tyler's preschool for his Thanksgiving feast.

Tyler had two Thanksgiving crafts that were part of the tablescape.   The hand print turkey was our place card and the potato was supposed to be a turkey.

His class did their best to perform the Albuquerque Turkey song.  It was cute - he knows the tune, some of the words and most of the hand movements.

 Brennan made a native American costume and a hand print turkey at school for Thanksgiving.

On Thanksgiving day, we hosted our friends, Tony and Jill and their two girls.  Jill's brother, sister in law and nephew were in town and joined us as well.  These guys are all from Missouri and come from such a different world than what we are used to.  We had a great time, with many laughs!

 Tyler loved the turkey and ate quite a bit of it!

Brennan is thankful this year to have Zelda.  He truly loves her and she responds so well to him.  I'm thankful we got such a kind dog!

Tyler is probably grateful for costumes!  He loves dressing up and Thanksgiving was no exception.  Like the superman, shield, sword and fedora combo?  He is often dressed in these types of outfits!

After our company left, we bundled up and took Zelda out to play in the backyard.  Our neighbors must have thought we were nuts, but around 9 PM last night, we just enjoyed some time as a family, playing on the swings and playhouse, playing fetch with Zelda and just having fun!

My little fish

Brennan has been taking swim lessons at the Tom Dolan Swim School since last summer.  We initially decided to try the school over the summer, during one of their swim camp weeks.  Brennan loved it and was promoted out of the Penguin level during the week of camp.  After spending almost a year in Minnow, he was promoted to Angelfish, which is the class he is currently in.  This level is working on stroke development.  They have the kids practice proper breathing techniques, but the breath won't be put together with the stroke until the next level.  He is also working on the back stroke in this class.  We just recently switched our class time to Mondays at 11:30 and to my surprise, he is the only kid in the class!  I'm thrilled that he is basically getting private lessons for now.  Here is a little clip showing Brennan in action.  He is doing a great job!

All around adorable

One thing that Brian and I know for sure is that Tyler is adorable and he knows it!  He is constantly making cute/silly faces at us.  He will even do something wrong and then flash a certain smile at us to soften us.  He likes to joke around and exudes such great energy.  Here are just adorable pictures of him and Brennan that made me smile.  I wanted to share them!  (Note that Tyler LOVES wearing hoods.  He has 3 hooded shirts and wants to wear them all the time!)

Back to Back Visits with Grandparents

The boys have been blessed to spend two weekends in a row with their grandparents.  Brian's parents were here the weekend before Halloween and my parents were here the weekend after.

The kids weren't entirely cooperating for this picture, but still a blog-worthy shot! 

Tyler was having fun goofing off with Grandma.

Zelda has a tough time really relaxing with visitors, but after a couple of days, she warmed up to our guests.  This photo below might be a little misleading in suggesting how warm Zelda really was to my mom, but by the day they left, she was quite comfortable with them!

Brennan was showing off his fearlessness in jumping off the swing.  He and the boys next door usually ask me to rate their jumps, so they are always trying to one-up each other.

We attempted to do a little kite flying, but we weren't catching enough wind.

Tyler was happy to run around with a kite in his hand and was adorably saying, "I'm flying" while running around with that kite.

The kids were sad to see their grandparents leave.  The morning after each set of grandparents left, Tyler was asking for them that morning.  The holidays will soon be here, with more visits to come!

Halloween Fun

Our Halloween fun started with carving a few pumpkins.  Unfortunately, we never made it to a Fall Festival or Pumpkin Patch this year, so grocery store pumpkins had to do!  Brennan selected which designs he wanted me to carve and we got it done!  Unfortunately, both of these jack-o-lanterns flopped before Halloween. 

The Friday before Halloween, Tyler's class had their Halloween party.  They had a little parade around the school.

Brian's parents were in town to see Tyler strut his stuff.

On Halloween, Tyler and I headed into Brennan's class to help with the Halloween party.  The two kindergarten classes and the one preschool class parade around each other's classrooms and on the play pad outside of their classroom.  Tyler was totally into parading around with the older kids.

Tyler loved running around the circle and I had trouble getting him back in when it was time to go.

Here is Brennan's class photo with his teacher, Mrs. Toynbee (left), and the assistant, Mrs. Toth (right.)

We were "boo'd" a few days before Halloween by our neighbors and got all sorts of fun goodies, including stick-on eyebrows and mustaches.  Brennan was sporting this funny look.

The Boo Basket included a Halloween pull toy for Zelda as well and she really took to it.

On Halloween night, my little superheros were ready to hit the neighborhood.  Unfortunately, it was a little rainy, but not enough to stop the festivities.  The trick-or-treating wrapped up a little earlier than prior years, but we still saw a lot of kids come through.

Brennan did his usual routine of sorting his candy by type (chocolate, chewy, lollipops, peanuts, salty, and hard - these were his classifications.)  He then made AA-BB-C patterns with his candy and did some eating as well!  It's cute to see him put his school lessons into practice.  We had a fun night!