Wednesday, November 2, 2016

October in Review

October flew by! And once again, I failed on the blogging front. Let's just say we were busy having fun.

Last weekend was Porter's last soccer game of the season. We were kind of relieved...he is naturally pretty good at soccer and after watching his first practice and the warm-up before the first game, we were kind of excited to watch him. Unfortunately, when the reality of sharing the ball and taking turns hit, things changed. He spent most of his games playing with the other kids on the team, collecting leaves or just sitting in the middle of the field. There was one entire game where he refused to step onto the field at all. He got a medal and a cupcake and was thrilled.


Paxton had Red Ribbon Week at school which according to him means "your friends might ask you if you like slugs and you say no because slugs are gross" so maybe we'll work on that next year....but he had fun wearing pajamas, a tie, and dressing up as Brother Bear from the Berenstain Bears.


Porter and Lincoln are becoming besties. Porter loves to entertain him, especially when Lincoln is supposed to be concentrating on eating. And most mornings, I find Porter in my bed snuggling with Lincoln after I get up to make Pax breakfast. It's pretty adorable. As close as Paxton and Porter are, I kind of worried that Lincoln would be the third wheel, but I think their time together while Pax is at school has been great for them.


Malynne stayed with us one weekend and we had a blast with her!


The boys were excited for her to join our Friday night pizza and movie night.


A gallon of my pumped, frozen milk was about to expire so I donated it to a local mom in need and felt amazing.


Porter isn't great at playing by himself while Paxton is at school, so we draw and do puzzles a lot to keep him busy. He sat down one morning and drew his first person and said it was Gramsy and her pet cat on a leash.


We had a pretty epic fall break. Jared had vacation days to burn so he took days off to coincide with Paxton's days off and we hit the ground running!

We renewed our Omniplex pass one morning and played there for awhile. It was Lincoln's first time to go and he liked playing in the baby water area.


We went to a Trader Joe's and then to the new Pops for lunch.

One morning we were all just sitting around, relaxing after breakfast and Jared suggested we drive to Mount Scott for a picnic lunch. We packed up and got ready and headed out the door. The mountain was just under 2 hours away and we got there right in time for lunch.


The boys thought it was so cool to be up that high and they had a blast climbing on rocks and looking for flowers.





I was a little nervous that they were going to fall off the side, but everyone made it out alive.


After lunch and some more exploring, we decided to check out the visitor center. We saw a few bison grazing in fields on the way.








The boys liked the visitor center and the "stuffed" animals they had there. They each picked out a notebook to remember the trip and we headed home.

Jared and the boys have been talking about camping for months now. Jared got a tent at the beginning of the summer and they camped out in the backyard the first night and loved it. They have been begging for an adventure in the woods ever since. Now that it has finally been a little cooler, Jared decided it was time to take them.


We all went out to Lake Arcadia and the boys picked a campsite and then played while Jared set up the tent. Jared and the P's went on a hike while Lincoln and I went to get dinner.


When we came back, they had gathered wood for a fire. Jared made a fire and we are dinner and then made S'mores and told scary stories.


As it got dark, we started hearing twigs snapping in the trees around us and it was a little too quiet for me. Lincoln and I headed home to sleep in a bed. As they were walking Lincoln and I to the car, Paxton said "uh oh" and Jared said "what's wrong?" And Pax said "I'm about to cry". Jared asked why and he said "cuz I'm gonna miss Mommy". It melted my heart. They did fine though; in fact, they had a blast and said next time they still wanted to stay in the tent and not come home with me.

We spent Monday relaxing after all of our adventures.

These three have spent a lot of time outside this month and have loved it!


And Lincoln turned 6 months old and has started working on sitting up and has started solid foods so that has been fun to watch.


We also packed in lots of Halloween fun!

It was a busy October which makes it fly! I can't believe Paxton has already spent 2 full months in Kindergarten and I only have 9 months left at home with Porter before he's in school.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Happy Halloween!

Now that October is officially over, I want to recap all the fun things that made this Halloween my favorite so far!

We went to the Wings pumpkin patch twice this year. The cause it benefits is something we support and it's just the right balance of having enough to do to keep the boys busy and not overly crowded.

The first time we went with Granny V, Josh, Candy and Brooks and Malynne since she was staying with us. We were just wearing OU clothes since it was OU/Texas and I was counting on getting a cute family picture the next time we went.


We attempted a cousin picture with the boys and Brooks and it was a fail.


The boys picked out pumpkins and had a blast!

Lincoln wore all of his Halloween outfits.








We went back to the pumpkin patch a few weeks later when they had Touch a Truck. This was the boys' favorite thing last year. They had tons of utility trucks and rescue trucks and all of the people who had driven them were handing out stickers and letting kids push buttons and answering questions and the boys had a blast. This year there were three trucks and they were all unmanned. It was kind of disappointing...but the pumpkin patch is still fun, so the boys were fine.


Another failed cousin picture...








Instead of getting the kids huge pumpkins to paint this year, we just grabbed the tiny white ones from Target and had a cousin pumpkin painting party. Paxton was determined to paint his whole pumpkin and lasted way longer than everyone else.





Gramsy's car was in the shop for a few days so we picked her up in the mornings to take her to work. Porter was obsessed with all her Halloween decorations and insisted on getting out and seeing them all every morning.





Jared's office had a table for Brick or Treat this year and we had never been so we decided to try it. His shift at the table was during the time we got there and the boys couldn't wait for him, so I took all three by myself through crowded downtown OKC.


We had fun though! And aside from the part where they both almost fell into the canal, it was perfect! Jared finished up right as it was starting to get really crowded, so we all met for dinner at Texadelphia. We hit a few more booths on the way to the car after dinner and ended up with a pretty good supply of candy! Lincoln was in the wrap with his puppy head on and people kept stopping me thinking he was a real dog...

On Friday, we wanted to try some Trunk or Treats because that is one of Paxton's favorite memories from Durham.


Durham. We started with Acts 2 and it was perfect! There were tons of cars and the boys got lots of candy and had a blast! We were going to stop after that, but they loved it so much, they asked to go to another one. So after a quick Google search, I found one a few miles away that had a bounce house and a bake sale along with trunk or treat. We should have known when we got there and the parking lot was completely full that it was a bad idea, but we pressed on. The church we went to was so big that the boys thought it was a mall and it was packed! They had a few carnival games where you could wait in line and play and get a piece of candy, but waiting in long lines is not a skill the P's have mastered. I think we played one game, got some cotton candy and looked at the waterfall inside the church and then left.

Our last pre-Halloween activity was Storybook Forest. The boys and I went last year with Granny V while Jared was out of town. This year, he was excited to come! We went with Teighynne and Mallory and the kids also.


They had a blast! They loved all the little scenes and Porter wasn't even scared of the big spider this year!





Afterwards we played the games and rode the hayride.

On Halloween, we continued our tradition of scary face pancakes at IHOP after we dropped Paxton off at school. Porter loved decorating his and didn't want to eat it because it looked so cute.


That afternoon, Jared headed home from work a little early so I could go help with Paxton's Halloween party at school! He was so excited to see me and introduced me to all of his friends. I'm so glad I got to go!


After school, we read all of our Halloween books one last time and the boys took showers and got ready to trick or treat! We drove through Sonic for some 50 cent corn dogs and then stopped at Gramsy's house.








Then, we went to Papaw's house to see Granny V and trick or treat! We did about 20 houses before Paxton decided that he wanted to hand out candy! So we went back to Papaw's and let the boys hand out candy to trick or treaters. Sweet Porter was giving kids candy from his own bucket!!


We did more houses after that until Porter was exhausted and begging us to carry "all of him".


We went home and the boys were really hoping some trick or treaters would come to our house so they could give them candy, but nobody did. They were disappointed so they ended up taking turns going out and ringing our doorbell and the other one would answer and give them candy.

We had so much fun this year! Lincoln was adorable as the puppy in first Halloween tradition and he was so good about just going with the flow and hanging out in the wrap while we did all of our activities. The P's had so much fun and said this Halloween was their favorite!!!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone