Halloween 2012

Halloween month started with a trip to the pumpkin patch where Si and Log decided to pick out the two largest pumpkins in the whole patch!

 Somewhere in the month we had a visit from a masked friend.  Notice the racoon who was hiding out in the tree in our backyard and causing the neighbor's dogs to freak out and jump the fence.

 Halloween day included Halloween parties at school for both the boys, then trick-or-treating around Dad's work...a favorite of the boys'. 

 We had a visit from Clifton the tiger, Uncle Scott, and Aunt Izzy the tree with whinnie the pooh stuck in it. 

The night was a success, the boys came home with about 100 pieces of candy each and they were plenty tired out from walking around.  But the greatest thing happened that night, someone told us about the Switch Witch.  The Switch Witch comes to your house after you go to sleep on Halloween night and if you leave a bowl of candy out for her, she will leave you a prize in return, and donate your candy to the troops serving over seas.  We were excited to try out the Switch Witch and see if she would leave us a great prize.  So the boys each got to pick their favorite 10 pieces of candy that they'd like to keep in their buckets to eat on a different day.  Then they were allowed to eat any candy they wanted that night.  At first they had a hard time and couldn't just come up with 10 pieces, they had so many they wanted to try.  So we encouraged them to just open some that didn't make it into their top ten and sample them.  We had tons of candy opened and we didn't even have to finish the whole bag, just sampled anything that looked yummy.  Before bed we had a super brush-your-teeth session and left our candy out in a bowl.  The next morning, the candy was gone and the Switch Witch had left each boy are REALLY cool Usborne book with lift-the-flaps and everything.  The boys were SO excited and they couldn't believe that she would leave such great prizes.  Thanks to that great person who told us of the Switch Witch, the boys and the parents are both in agreement that this is something we will participate in EVERY year!

Silas in the Fall

Sometimes it's still been hard for me to walk Si to school, give him a kiss, and watch him walk into line with the rest of the kids and be ready to stay at school and have his mom go home.  He is maturing in many ways. 

Silas' Days:

• Clocks and Time.  If you ever want to know what time it is, ask Silas, because he ALWAYS wants to know what time it is.  It's a treat to him to be able to hold Dad's watch and watch the hands spin around and say how close it is to the hour.  He spends many minutes announcing, "It's five minutes after the hour.  It's a new hour!  Thirty-seven minutes ago was the hour."  He's starting to get the hang of telling time on an analog clock with some scaffolding. And when he is getting ready to go somewhere, he will ask every five minutes how much longer, or he'll just go sit on our bed and watch the minutes change on the alarm clock (for the whole hour before it's time to leave for a party!)
• Primary.  It's still kind of rough on Si to have Mom and Dad in primary, he seems to have some dramatic thing happen every primary morning that makes him in a bad mood.  But one thing he does love about primary is singing, "Nephi's Courage".  He knows every word to every verse of that song and sings it with such vigor!  Even when I'm asking him what song we should listen to (like a song from the radio) he always wants "Nephi's Courage".
• Doing Homework.  As a kindergartener, he has gotten into the routine of having homework that we wok on each week night.  I'm impressed with his sticking with it, especially because he doesn't get a prize for turning it in like he did in preschool.  He is working on things like writing his name, writing letters and numbers, helping around the house, sight words, and even writing short sentences and illustrating them.
• Earning Fit Feet.  As an incentive to stay active, the recess duties offer a foot charm for their necklace for every two laps that the kids run around the track during recess.  Two times around a 1/4 mile track in 15 minutes is a long way for his short little legs.  But almost every day he comes home proudly with another fit foot that he earned while running with his friend AJ. 
• Writing Notes.  Si's tender heart often sends him to write notes.  If he gets sent to his room for time out, many times he will come out with a note he wrote to me.  It usually says something like, "I hv a tndr hrt.  Mom, I lv y.  I am tkfl famie."  He's in the inventive spelling stage, and I just love the little notes he writes!
• Getting ready for baby sister.  He has created his own countdown in his room where he marks off the days until she comes.  December is very important to him because he knows it means that she will be here.  He often asks me how she is doing and will touch my belly every time he walks by me and say, "Yeah I felt her kicking Mom."
• Si and Mommy and Daddy.  We certainly have our ups-and-downs each day and are trying to learn about respect towards Mom and Dad.  Sometimes Si just wants to be a grown-up and thinks it such an injustice that grown-ups have more money than him and get to make the rules.  But I just love my little Si-bug, I especially love to sit down and do homework with him or hear him tell me about his day.  And I love his curiosity and understanding of the gospel, he has such a sweet little Spirit. 

 Before the weather turned cold, Si spent a few afternoons with his Daddy learning to ride a two-wheel bike.  The best place to do this was at the church parking lot.  He had some success but gets quite nervous about falling.  I think in the Spring he will be a 100% 2-wheel bike rider.  But the sweet moments he had with his Daddy were priceless.

His school had a walk-a-thon fundraiser and Si walked/ran 7 times around the track to earn money for his school.  He made it one more lap than his goal and was even fighting a bad cough at the time.  He was so proud to earn money for his school and he had lots of family to help him out!

Logan in the Fall

My little Logie Bear has grown up so much in the past couple of months, I want to document it so I don't forget. 
Logan's Days:

• Going to preschool.  He loves seeing his neighborhood friends in preschool and is excited about all the fun things he learns.  Some of the fun things he comes home and tells me are about porcupines and how they shoot quills if they get scared.  He often says, "Mom let's learn about birds."  He knows every word to the Pledge of Alligiance and says it proudly, and he is getting so good at recognizing the first sound of words like, "Cotton ball Mom, that starts with 'c'!"
• Playing with Maia.  He has become good friends with Maia who is in his nursery class and his preschool class.  He loves to go to her house and eat mac n cheese and see her bunnies.  She comes over here too and they play happily together.  They both are so grown-up that they do the talking on the phone to arrange play dates.
• Helping with Jobs.  Each day Logan either helps put the silverware away or the plastic dishes from the dishwasher.  On Thursdays he helps me gather the clothes from his room, empties the bathroom hamper, and helps put the clothes in the washer and dryer.  He also is good at helping carry in the groceries.
• Going to Nursery.  Logan has a few more months left in nursery and he excitedly will tell us, "Mom, in a couple of months, I'm going to be in primary!!!"  He and his friends did the actions and even some of the words to "The Wise Man and the Foolish Man" in the primary program, it was so fun to see them!
• Playing with Cousins.  He has been so lucky lately to get a chance to play with many of his cousins.  They are all getting older and coming to an age where they have fun playing together.  He loves to get wild whenever he sees Clifton or Grayson.  And when playing with Zaylie they hug and have a cute little boy-girl cousin relationship.  He adores Baby Brydger and can't get enough kissing him and rubbing his head.
• Waiting for Baby Sister.  This little boy is so excited to meet his baby sister.  Any time he gives Mom a kiss, he also comes and kisses her belly and says hi to baby sister.  Anytime December is mentioned, the only thing it means to him is that she will be here!  One night Logan was mad and said, "You're not the boss of me!" to Tyrel.  Tyrel then asked, "Oh really?  Well Logan, who is the boss of you?"  Sheepishly he answered, "You and Mom are.  But fine.  When the baby gets here, Si and I are the boss of her!"  We'll see about that!
• Daddy Time.  This little man is so in love with his Daddy still!  Whenever Tyrel gets home from work, Logan runs right up to him.  Each night Tyrel says, "Oh you give the greatest welcome home hugs Bear!"  And from the second he walks in the door, Logan is his little shadow, wanting to be carried and wrestling with Daddy until it's time to go to bed.
• Hanging with Mommy.  I have sure cherished these last few months when Logan and I have had some one-on-one time.  He's my little laundry helper and we go and run errands together.  Many times after we take Si to school, we play a game of "Candy Land", "How Tall is It" and read lots of books.  We snuggle and just get to have some special moments that up to this point, I haven't really had many chances to have with him.  I just love my little Logie bear and his sweet little hugs and face melt my heart.