Happy Halloween

Trick or Treat, Smell My Feet

I try to do some footprint or handprint crafts around holidays.  They are cute decorations and it's always fun to look at how much the boys have grown (and we always love an art project around here!).

I've done footprint crafts for Halloween every other year lately and we are getting quite the collection!  Look at how much Rylan's feet have grown!!!

Carter's too!

And our newest member's little footprint ...

Taking Steps

Grayson has been so close to walking for awhile now.  He's great at cruising and walking when holding onto your fingers.  He'll even stand up in the middle of the floor, wobble around for a few seconds, and then sit back down.  He's just too scared to go for it.

But over the last week he's finally started to take a step here and there.  Here's a video we got today of him taking a few steps!

Trick or Treat

I made these sidelight signs for our front porch.  The letters could be a little crisper but from a few feet away, they look pretty good!

Pumpkin Painting Class

Yesterday after school the big boys took a painting class with Julie Alley.  Ms. Julie has a studio in her home where she teaches lessons and has classes.  For $15 each, we got to drop off our kiddos for 1 1/2 hours and let them paint on an 8"x10" canvas with instruction from Ms. Julie.  One of the moms in Rylan's class told me about the classes and a couple of Rylan's friends also participated.

Both Carter and Rylan loved it.

And they had amazing finished paintings.  Unlike The Art Attic where the instructor did a pencil outline of what the kids would be painting, the kids did these 100% on their own.  I love that they added shading (the pumpkin is lighter on the top) and added some additional white accents on the vines.

Rylan's Pumpkin:

Carter's Pumpkin:

Carter's Report Card

Here's Carter's report card for the first quarter.  As always, he's doing great!  We have Carter's conference this week and I'm looking forward to getting to talk to his teacher!

Here is the key to the numbers on the report card (3's are what you want at this point in the year ... I don't think that 5's are possible since they are shaded out???).

Carter has all 3's and 4's!

Rylan's School Picture

We take so many pictures of the boys that we never buy their individual school pictures.  But, just to share with everyone, here is the proof of Rylan's from this year ...

Little Bro

This guy copies his big bros all day long.

He's even taken to wrestling with them already!  Eek!

Zoo Visit

The boys are on Fall Break (they have Friday and Monday off) and my mom is visiting.  The weather is perfect right now (cool but not cold after a few hours of warming up) so we decided to visit the zoo on Friday.  The big boys don't get to go very often now that they are both in school five days a week.

The zoo is decorated for Halloween right now and the boys loved the candy.

Unfortunately it wasn't edible!

The newest exhibit at the zoo are tortoises that you get to pet.  And for $2 you can feed them a leaf of lettuce!

These guys were our new best friends :)

Our little pumpkins (and scarecrow) ...

Grayson's favorite thing at the zoo is the large aquarium tank.  He loves that he can stand there by himself and be eye to eye with all the fish, stingrays, and turtles!

Little Pumpkin

Missy had her annual Halloween playdate at her house on Monday.  Since the big boys were in school, the only one I got to take this year was Grayson.

We decorated his pumpkin with glow-in-the-dark paint.  I still need to go out and look at it right after it gets dark to see if it actually works!

Our little pumpkin with his pumpkin - I'm biased, but he's pretty cute :)

Spanish and Art Classes

I signed Carter up for a couple of extracurriculars at school this semester (because we aren't busy enough - haha!).

On Tuesday mornings he's doing a Spanish class from 7:15 to 8:15 am.  Brian and I both took Spanish in school and have exposed the boys to some words but Carter was interested in learning more.  The kids are learning basic vocabulary (numbers, colors, phrases such as "My name is ..." and "I like ...").  So far Carter seems to enjoy it!

On Wednesday afternoons Carter is doing an art class from 4 to 5 pm.  The class is run by SACC (which is the before and after school care program) so they provide care and a snack between when the kids get out of class at 3:35 pm and when the class starts at 4 pm.  Carter of course loves the class!  He also has two good friends from his class doing it with him so that makes it even better!

Here's what Carter did the first two weeks ...

Bath Hair

Crazy hair after bath ...

Grayson is going to need a trim soon!  It's not super thick, but his hair is starting to go over his eyes already!

Mini Miler Buddies

I took this picture last week of our big boys with Rylan's best friend from school, Mason ...

Mason is an awesome kid and I'm so glad Rylan and him have become friends!!!

Mini Milers

The boys finished up the Mini Milers program today.  The program lasted 6 weeks and the format was the same every week.  After about 20 minutes of stretching and games, the kids were split into 4 age divisions and raced.  Carter and Rylan were in the second group (ages 5 & 6) and got to run 1/4 mile (which is one lap around the track).

Carter won the race every week.  I'm sure it helped that he's almost 7.  But he still did a great job each week pacing himself not to go out too fast and finishing hard.  Carter was very consistent too and finished each week right around 1 minute, 45 seconds.

Rylan's buddy from school (Mason) stayed with Carter each week but always finished several yards behind him.  Mason wanted to win one race so badly though.  He stayed ahead of Carter today until the final stretch when Carter passed him.

Rylan has done AMAZING.  He has short little legs but is really figuring out how to make them work for him :)  He's taken off a few seconds during the last few weeks and finished today in 2 minutes, 12 seconds.

He always finishes the race sprinting and passes a few people before crossing the line.

After the races today, each of the kids got a really nice participation medal.

Each week the top 10 racers of each gender in each age category received points.  The child in each group with the most points at the end of the program received a certificate good for a free pair of Asics shoes from Fleet Feet.  Look which boy won for the 1/4 mile category!

Carter is so excited and can't wait to go pick out his new shoes!!!

Cheekwood Harvest

After skipping last year, we decided to make a scarecrow for Cheekwood again this year.  I asked the boys what they wanted to do and after several suggestions from me, we decided on Darth Vader.

I'd like to say this was a family project but I ended up doing it.  This wasn't my best crafty work as I was really busy, but Darth turned out pretty good :)

After Mini Milers on Sunday, we stopped by Cheekwood to check on Darth.  After a week of rain, he was still holding up!

I'm not creative, so Brian came up with our title for the scarecrow: "A long time ago in a cornfield far, far away".

The boys were pretty excited that the scarecrow next to ours was a purple minion!

I really liked this jellyfish scarecrow.

We weren't planning on going to Cheekwood when we left the house, otherwise I would have brought some cute clothes along for pictures with pumpkins!

Cheekwood is always gorgeous in the fall!

Spirit Week

Carter's school had spirit week a couple of weeks ago.

Crazy Hat Day:

Giddy Up Tuesday:

Wacky Wednesday:

Team Thursday:

Clovercroft Friday:

Carter's School Pictures

Our big 1st grader ...