Christmas tree shopping

 I say I want to take your picture and this is what I get from them....

 I love the day after Thanksgiving tradition we have started of going to pick out our Christmas tree. It is so much fun to go through all the options of what might look good in our living room. We have agreed that this year's tree has the most character in terms of shape...it looked a lot more symmetrical before they prepared it for us to bring home :)

 The tree farm we go to has lots of fun things to do for the kids. We made a whole morning of it. The funny part of our day was when our tree was on the ground waiting for us to get the truck, a dog of another customer lifted its leg on it. Lovely, right?! We had just spent 45 minutes on letting the boys pick out a tree, and now a dog peed on it! It definitely put a spin on our day, but we took it home and washed it down to prevent any extra odors from joining us for the holidays :)

Thanksgiving

 School Thanksgiving Feast

 Making a peanut butter pie!

 My three turkeys :)

  Celebrating Thanksgiving together since 1998 :)

 Scott got camera happy while I was finishing up the meal :)

Pena Adobe

 We had a Saturday with no plans....amazing! It was beautiful outside and so we headed to Pena Adobe to go walk the trails around the lake.  There were geese everywhere and Cohen loved being right in the middle of them.

  The boys threw rocks and sticks forever.

 B has taught himself to swing at school. He was showing off his skills at the little park by the lake.

My three boys...doesn't get much better!



SF Zoo

Some of our favorite family days are those we spend at a zoo. The boys love it and we always have so much fun. I think we could take them every weekend and they would never get tired of it. The last time we had been to the SF zoo was when Cohen was only 7 months old, so we wanted to take advantage of some nice weather and go again.  

 

 Look at them! It makes my heart so happy!

 Taking the train ride. Its not a visit to the zoo without a train ride :)

 B loved all of these this visit. Last time he didn't want anything to do with them.

C spotted the hippo! 

Meet C---ohen

 

 Cohen has been working for MONTHS to get all of his sounds in speech therapy. The "k" or "c" sound was the last sound that he never made. In September, his therapist started using Owen the monkey to help him develop the skill to say his name. She wanted him to compare himself to Owen vs. Cohen and it worked!  If you ask him his name, he can tell you that it is C----ohen. It was a big moment for him!  He is slowly getting other "c" or "k" words as well. He is quite a chatter box now :)  

 

randomness

We love Home Depot and Lowes build it programs on Saturday mornings. The boys always enjoy the projects and best of all they are free!

 

We came home and painted the pirate ships they built that morning.

Cohen worked on painting our We are Thankful tree that we added leaves to during the month of November.

One afternoon we made slime...again! It never gets old and they ask to make it constantly!

 

Honey and Poppy's quick visit

Mom and Dana came the week of Halloween for a very quick visit.  Our week was busy with Halloween festivities. After we picked Bryton up from school we went to Impossible Acres to visit all the baby animals. Honey and Bryton loved the animals! We spent a lot of time in the playroom playing with the boys. After a fun day of Halloween parties and trick or treating it was time for them to head back to Arkansas. Visits are always way too quick, but this one was super fast!

 

 They insisted that Dana hold the balloons for the picture. It made it more festive according to B.

Bryton snuck in the picture that Dana was taking of Mom and I right before heading to the airport :)

Halloween 2013

 Cohen was a knight for Halloween, or at least that was the original plan! He did dress up in the knight costume for the base Trunk or Treat, but after that he was a fireman because the knight mask made him scary :)

 Bryton was a gladiator this year for Halloween. He got to wear his costume a lot this year...two trunk or treats, squadron party, school dress up day, and then actual Halloween. I think we got our moneys worth!

 We needed a family costume so we went as s'mores! Cohen wasn't in the dress up mode so it worked out perfectly! We walked into the party in order and it was pretty funny :)

 

 We went to a pumpkin carving party. It was so much fun to get together with friends to make such a mess!  I unfortunately didn't get pictures of the end results.

Honey and Poppy were here for Halloween and they got to enjoy our week with us. By the time we took this picture, the boys were done....can you tell by Bryton's face? 

Bryton update

 Bryton mentioned one night while we were reading that he needed reading glasses. I didn't think much of it, but mentioned it to his teacher the next day. He had never mentioned his eyes to her, but I went ahead and made an eye doctor appointment for him. I am SO glad I did! He is farsighted and needs glasses for reading. Bryton has always been one to tell how he is feeling about things and I am so glad that he does!

 Bryton had his first school project. Each child in his class takes a turn being Student of the Week. They bring home a poster to decorate about themselves and put pictures of their favorite things.  He worked every afternoon for over a week getting his ready to take back to school.

This is a horrible picture but it is sadly the only one I have from the school Harvest Festival. We were in charge of our kindergarten's class trunk or treat display. We did an outer space theme and had a space ship "photo booth" for the kids.  It looked so much better in person because of the glow in the dark planets and other details. It was a super fun night for the kids!



Real life racing

In June, I gave Scott the Rusty Wallace racing experience for our anniversary. Driving a racecar has always been on his bucket list! It was going to be in Stockton for a weekend in October and Scott was actually going to be in town to get to go. We got a sitter for the boys and headed to the racetrack for his big race. It was a fun experience, but nothing like he was expecting. He got to do 20 laps around the track after an hour of "education". The cars weren't able to manage true racecar speed, so he only was able to go 70-80 mph.  The company running the program was less than spectacular, but he had fun nonetheless. Driving a racecar can be checked off the bucket list, but I imagine we might want to have a redo down the road!

Getting pumpkins

 We spent an afternoon at Larry's produce enjoying their fall set up to look for pumpkins.  They had a lot of stuff for the kids to enjoy. We climbed the giant hay pyramids, played in the corn bath, picked out pumpkins, and "drove" the tractors. It was perfect for the boys!

Bryton has been wanting to play photographer a lot lately :)