Talented Cousin

My cousin Nicole sent Lauren, Ben, & Hadley these super cute shirts that she made (Ben's is green with an owl on it) and we LOVE them. Lauren was so proud to wear this to preschool today and came home and told me, "Mom, my teacher loved my shirt and she thinks she might even be able to make one just like it." Thanks for thinking of us Nicole, you are pretty darn talented! 

Ben's Swim Lessons

 Ben finally is doing a class of his own! This is his first activity that he does all by himself without Lauren running the show. He was really timid and scared at first but he is making great progress and finally not scared of the water (at least not too scared, wouldn't say he is a fish yet!)

 Kevin does a way better job at pushing him to try harder than I do! 

 Laying on his back was a really big deal for him. Yay Benny!

 He even dunked today- wild boy:)

He walked out on this mat to jump to Kevin. He is so funny, he keeps saying, "come closer come closer" even though Kevin is literally up against the mat! He kind of takes after his mama who wouldn't leave the steps of the hot tub until I was 6! 

Who Knows?!

This is Miss Hadley Jane. Love this silly girl!

Girly Girl

I still pinch myself sometimes when she wears princess dresses & has tea parties. LOVE it!

Fort

We built a fort today. I've never been so good at fort building so the fact that this one stayed in place made me kind of proud:)

The kids played forever in it and had so much fun.

Too bad Lauren's room looks like a tornado hit it! Oh well, we had fun!

Twister

Lauren got this out the other night and it was pretty entertaining to watch.

Since they have no concept of left & right it doesn't work so well but they still had fun.

We had our friend Dave over who has teenage kids so they came too. Lauren was beyond thrilled to have big kids to play with her!

Yet another way to play with the twister game!

Preschool Field Trip to Pumpkin Patch

Lauren's class had a field trip to the pumpkin patch, always a fav.

Lovin' they hay maze with Braelyn!

There were baby pigs that were SO cute. They were only 2 weeks old and all us moms couldn't get enough of them. They kept escaping their pin and the mama pig was MAD. When this one got back in she got her snout and practically threw him to the back corner of the pin. It was really cute to see her loving her baby piggies so much!

I think this is just before she pushed it in with her snout!

Ben didn't come on the trip but then when I saw this sign of course I felt bad that I didn't bring him.

I was really excited to see white pumpkins! We already have quite a lot of orange so it was fun to mix it up a bit:)

Piggy Tails

Lauren actually requested pig tails for preschool on Wednesday! She looked so cute with her pig tails and dress and was quite proud of her look.

She's made a make shift desk in her room and has been spending long amounts of time listening to cd's and "writing". She's now thinking she might want a desk from Santa for Christmas but she is worried it won't fit down the chimney. It's like she is growing up in fast forward- wish I could push pause for awhile but I am very proud of her too:)

Cloud Mountain Farm

We went to Cloud Mountain Farm in Everson today and it was so beautiful. They had some really interesting gourds, squash, & pumpkins.

Apparently these green ones are really good to eat.

I wanted to take them all home for some fun Fall decor!

This one was so weird! But really cool and fun to touch. I guess these are good to eat too.

The kids weighing themselves on the old fashioned scale.

Ben was so funny to watch. Every pumpkin he picked up was either too heavy, too big, or too dirty! The boy is particular...wonder where he gets it?

Lauren spotted a ladybug on this sunflower and you would've thought she spotted some rare insect from the Amazon. She was calling us all over to see this amazing find. It was pretty cute.

Ben thought he had found the perfect pumpkin (not too heavy, not too big) but he turned it upside down and saw that it had dirt and instantly dropped it saying "too dirty". Oh Benny Boo, what are we gonna do with you?!

Lauren loved riding in the wagon. As she was riding she said to me, "Mom, suppose I had a pumpkin on my head, then I'd be a pumpkin head." Her vocabulary cracks me up. Who says, "suppose"?!

Skate Park

We got out and enjoyed this amazing fall weather we've been having the other night and went to the skate park. Ben has gotten so good on the razor!

cute girl:)

You can barely see them in this picture but there were salmon swimming up the stream at the park, it was SO cool. I am beyond amazed by the salmon every year, I just think they are so cool. If you enlarge this you should be able to see them, they are ed and right in the middle under the little branch.

loving life!

Oma & Opa stayed with us for 2 nights and watched the kids while I subbed this week- thanks Oma & Opa!

I SO wish I had this on video. Oma & I were in tears over this we were laughing so hard. Lauren was selling ice cream and Opa was next up to buy some. He was pretending to pay with invisible money and Lauren kept saying, "No, that's not right." Oma & I looked at him and said, "bark" (by which we meant to pick up the bark and use it as money). So he started barking! Oh I am laughing just thinking of it. But seriously, how cute is it that he is totally willing to just bark on command to make his granddaughter happy:)

Then of course Ben had to take a turn at selling ice cream because if it is good enough for Lauren it is good enough for him!

A little Halloween practice

First Lauren wanted to try on her Belle dress for Halloween so I finally let her (we've had it over a month but I was afraid she'd change her mind!).

Then Ben wanted to try on the dragon costume (Lauren's from last year but he likes it so yahoo, we don't have to buy a new costume!)

he makes a pretty cute dragon if I do say so myself!

Then we started digging them all out, Lauren even managed so squeeze herself into her Halloween costume when she was 16 months old!

Something about kids in Halloween costumes just gets me, they are so cute!