Pumpkin Patch

Last Monday for FHE we went to the pumpkin patch with our good friends, Bobbi, Brendan, and Tristan.  The boys were in love with the maze and the adults were dizzy trying to make sure that we had 4 kids at all times! 

My Little Firemen

In September, Silas had his first preschool field trip...to the ....firestation!  I was one of the chaperones, which meant Logie got to go too.  He was SO excited to be going to preschool for the day!  Silas was very proud to have Logie there wit him.  Everytime they took a group picture, Logan wanted to be right in it, he thought he actually was a preschooler.  It broke his heart when we got back to the school and there was still an hour left of regular preschool he didn't get to go to...so I took him to Target and got him some popcorn. 

Brazillian Feast and More

A few weeks ago, we had a memorable weekend!  Hosanna, Skyler and their kids were able to visit from Oregon.  They are good friends from Tyrel's mission.  This was my first time meeting Hosanna and we had a great time!  She made us a yummy Brazillian Feast and I took some cooking lessons while she was here.  She also taught Steph and I a little samba!  Our kids had so much fun playing together.  And Hosanna enjoyed her first visit to temple square.  The visit was too short and we were sad to say bye, but very grateful for the long-awaited reunion!

The Logan Spotlight

So school has started and often teachers will have their students do a poster and spotlight that child where they get to tell all about themself.  Well I am a teacher, and I do have some cuties to tell about, so here's my "Star Student" Logan spotlight:

Logan the Reader
Logie Bear has gotten really into reading books, and reading the same ones over and over.  Some of his favorties:  Mrs. Wishy Washy series, "If You Give a Moose a Muffin", "Trains", and "Planes".  At church on Sunday he sat and "read" the whole "Brown Bear Brown Bear" book to himself.  It was SO cute and my favorite part was when said, "Orange Fish, Orange Fish, what do you see?"  (This was funny because the book says "goldfish" but in the picture it looks orange and Logan makes sure to correct us when we say goldfish).  As I have been teaching Silas his sounds, Logan has gotten in on it too.  He points at the picture and says, "Miss 'a' Mom!"  Then he will sing in his cute little Logie voice:  "Mr. 'c' has two cotton candies two cotton candies!"

Logan the Early Bird
Lately Logan loves to get up way before we do!  He will run into our room and say, "Wuk up Dad!"  then he will great Tyrel with a lick on the face.  He will very quickly turn into "Angry Logan" and shout, "Let's go have bekfaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaast!"  The cuteness goes away real fast :)

Logan the Counter and Cutter
Logan also has started to catch on to counting.  When we read the planes or trains book, he always puts his finger in my hand and says, "Let's count them Mom!" And we do.  Then when we're at the table he'll say, "Mom, watch me count my chickens!  one...two...shree...four!"  Other times it will be, "one, five, shirteen, seven, sixteen!"  And yesterday, Silas was working on his skills packet, gluing and cutting and Logan wanted to try scissors.  So I got brave and let him try.  He did great!  He LOVED it and felt so big.  After every piece he snipped off, he said, "I got another one Mom!"  Then he had lots of fun rolling the glue stick up to maximum height and gluing the cut pieces to the paper.

Logan the Nursery Boy
Hooray!  We have a child who now loves to go to his class at church!  Logan just LOVES nursery and his teachers.  He will walk right into class and not even look back.  He gets so excited and points out whenever he sees his teachers somewhere outside of nursery.  They sure love him too, and especially love to hear him talk since, he doesn't talk very much in nursery (at home he never stops!!!)  And everytime we have a prayer, this is what his sounds like:  "And thank you for my little class.  And thank you for my goldfish in my little class.  And thank you for my water in my little class.  And thank you for my cookies in my class.  And thank you for lots of cookies in my class.  And thank you for some more cookies in my class!" 

Logan the Big Cousin
Logan is surely in love with Baby Clifton and all of his younger cousins.  He thinks it's his personal mission to make sure that a binky is always shoved in a baby's mouth when in sight.  When we were canning, he would dance around and act silly to make Grayson laugh.  Pretty soon we're going to have loads of trouble with all these cute cousins running around!

The Silas Spotlight

Well believe it or not, my not-so-little Si-Bug is actually starting school and will be doing his own Star Student Spotlight this year!  He was very excited for the first day, especially to be starting "on the same day as Little Corbin".  (It was harder for me than I thought it would be.  He was such a big boy and wanted to go in all by himself and have me stay in the car.  I made him let me walk to the door at least and then he gave me a kiss and said, "See ya Mom!" and didn't look back.  Then Logan said "See ya Mom!" and walked in with him.  Log was crushed when I had to tell him he wasn't staying for school).

Silas the Learner
So as school has been nearing, I have been teaching Silas some things.  We've been working on sounds and he knows Little Miss 'a', Mr. 'c', and Mr. 't' and can pick them out and even recognize the word 'cat'.  We have also been doing some Montessori Jobs.  He's great at doing a pouring job, a scooping job, and a sorting job.  Grammy tells me he is also very curious about outer space and what happens if there is no gravity.  As he has been going to preschool, he comes home and sings song to me like, "r-e-d; r-e-d; r-e-d spells red..."  I love it!  He sure loves to learn how things work!  When we were at the rodeo, he was more interested in watching how the shoot worked and exactly at what point the animal would come out then what the animal would do once out of the shoot.  And if we could just have a giant marble works like at the planitarium, I think that kid would be entertained every second of the day!

Silas the Talker
His language is definitely developed!!!  I get exhausted every day by how much this little boy loves to talk, to ask questions, and to explain how things work!  It's no wonder my mom used to ask me to count to 100.  I'm afraid he got the talk-non-stop gene from me :)

Silas the Worker

Silas now has daily jobs and does pretty good at them!  He is in charge of cleaning off the table after meals, wiping marks off the floor, and cleaning up the front room.  He is saving money to buy a pinball machine that we found at DI and he works hard doing extra jobs too in order to get it faster!  One of his extra jobs is helping to water our peach tree.

 Silas the Tender Heart

We have plenty of battling moments, but there are also plenty of sweet ones where Si will look up at me with the most sincere, smiling face and say, "I sure love you Mom!"  or "This is the best Mom!" when we're doing something together.  He and Logan also have mostly battling moments, but he does do the loving big brother thing too.  When Logan wakes up from his nap and is crying, Si is the first one to run into the room and hug him and put his arm around him to walk him out.  After Silas' preschool open house, he had a few candies he got and said, "Mom, I'm going to give this one to Log.  That will make him happy!"  He's good at sharing when not prompted too.  And he is about the sweetest big cousin you'll ever see!  He is IN LOVE with his new cousin Clifton, draws pictures for him and just adores him everytime he's near. 



The Tyrel Spotlight

Well I'm the teacher so I can do what I want, and I want to spotlight my sweet husband too! 

Tyrel the Referee
Tyrel has started refing football games.  He'll ref four games a Saturday and had a lot of fun the first day...and was plenty sore too!  He's saving up for a new gun and a new computer!

Tyrel the Pianist
Recently he was called to be the primary pianist in our ward and is loving it!  The kids sure love him too and as I see him talking to the kids by name or telling me about something they did, I think "how does he know more about the neighborhood kids than I do?"  I love it though.  It's such a unique opportunity for him and Silas is in Heaven with his Daddy in primary!

Tyrel the Hubby
As always, he's the greatest husband and always doing what I need him to.  For example, yesterday before I left to a meeting I asked him if he could clean up for me and do a few other things (besides watching the boys) and when I got back he'd done it all...and wonderfully so.  I gave him a big hug and told him thanks and he looked surprised and said, "What?  You asked me to."  :)  Love him!!!  We just celebrated our 5th anniversary and I still know that I'm the Luckiest to have him!!!

Tyrel the Daddy

Enough said in pictures!

The Elena Journal

It feels weird to spotlight myself, so I'll call this the "Elena Journal".
Well I go through phases of what I'm obsessed with or what my hobbies are as an outlet from my normal Mom and Wife duties.  These are the latest. 
Elena the Decorator
This obsession I think has come and gone for the moment.  I'm finished with my major projects and am out of ideas, and money for the moment.  But I sure had fun doing the boys room, playroom, and the front room.  Here's the results: 
I found this play kitchen cabinet at DI for $10 and had been wanting some sort of cheap boyish play kitchen.

BEFORE:  

AFTER: (the bottome is supposed to be an oven)

 And we are complete with a set of play food and dishes (boyish of course :)  thanks to Mom and Dad King.

 THE COMPLETED BOYS' ROOM: (Thanks Janet for the use of your Cricket!)

FRONT ROOM BEFORE:

 FRONT ROOM AFTER:

Elena the Auntie
I have a new nephew, Clifton who I am IN LOVE WITH!!!  I just can't get enough of him and it is so fun to see Izzy and Scott be parents.  We hang out as much as possible.  I also have 4 other adorable nephews and a neice who I LOVE and wish I could spend more time with!

Elena the Teacher
I've always planned on doing my own preschool, but decided I shouldn't be Silas' teacher.  But about a month ago, I brought home my bins of preschool stuff from my mom that have been in her garage for a while.  Since then I have been organizing and playing, and have got "the teaching bug"!  Now that I have space in my new house I want so badly to have a preschool.  I only got going on it a little too late for school starting in September.  So for now I am just organizing, making lesson plans (trying them out on my kids), making montessori jobs, and studying up on the montessori method.   Ever since I was little, I've always felt the desire to teach.  I was the little girl who played school ALL THE TIME.  Then I worked at the daycare, then I went to school to be a teacher, have taught in church callings, teach as a Mom, and now want to take it one step further.  So whether it is in January, or next year when Logan starts, I am so excited to teach preschool!

Elena the Canner
Janet and I all of a sudden seemed to have access to all of this free fruit that also happened to be ready all at the same time so we've been crazy canning ladies for three days straight.  Took a couple off, then did one more by ourselves.  It was exhausting!  But we had SO MUCH FUN talking and working together and discovered that we can can :)  So now in our food storage we have pears, pear butter, grape juice, stewed tomatoes, salsa, and tomato sauce.  Woot! Woot!  (um and thanks for the pics I stole from you Janet!)