Halloween hats

I got most of Kevin's Halloween hat finally sewn up today.  He spent the entire time I was working on it today sitting by me and talking about it.  We found Tyler's at Walmart the other day on accident, and Kevin has been anxiously waiting for a hat of his own.  Tyler is going to be Perry the Platypus from Disney's Phineas and Ferb television show.  And Kevin decided to be an Iowa Hawkeye football player.  Since our trip to Iowa City this year and seeing all of the Hawkeye stuff, Kevin has become even more of a fan.  And is so excited to be a football player.  But given how much tackling there is in this house already the last thing we wanted was a plastic helmet in the mix.  So after some thought I decided to sew him a helmet out of fleece.  They are both all smiles and both boys wanted a picture of their Halloween hats.

A quick update and a few pictures

Since I have last posted we have been busy, busy, busy! Highlights include the start of fall classes, playdates, lots of trips to the gym, Hawkeye football games, and a fun family trip to the apple orchard.

Both big boys are in soccer classes this fall, and are having a blast learning to run backwards, score goals, and playing a lot of silly games involving soccer balls. And both agree that having their own jersey's to wear to their soccer practice is really neat. They each have class for an hour, and while the other is busy playing they have each made a friend to keep themselves busy. As you can guess, after two hours of running around and playing, they both are exhausted by the time we get home!

In addition to soccer, Tyler is busy with a theatre class at the Children's Theatre in town. He has the same teacher from last spring and is in a class called "Continuing Onstage". They have class for an hour and in addition to learning how to work as a group to create a story, they also learn how a traditional theatre works (lighting, props, costume design, etc.). This past week they learned how an artist will schetch up a costume idea and attach fabric samples and how that idea will move through the process until it eventually turns into a costume used in performance. And as you might guess they each got a blank sheet of paper with a person drawn on it to start designing their costume/character for the play that they are working on. We didn't get to bring home their designs yet, but in case you are wondering Tyler is developed a "Golden Dragon Knight" and is excited as he works out how his character will look and act.

Tyler's final lesson of the fall is of course swim lessons. He just loves swim lessons and going swimming. Kevin enjoys watching him swim and has taken to laying down next to Tyler's lane and practicing his moves on the floor. ;) It has gotten a lot of giggles and remarks, and you can just tell that Kevin cannot wait until it is his turn just from how he acts during Tyler's lessons. And he has even started insisting on taking his shoes off and a few times attempted taking his clothes off so he too could go swimming. Thankfully, he is almost old enough to start on his own, and given his level of excitment the swim school has agreed to test Kevin in two weeks to see if he is ready come winter session. He only misses the cutoff by four days come winter, so everyone agress that it would be tough making him wait another three months! Tyler's swim teacher is named Jake (we had to swtich class times today so Tyler is no longer swimming with one of his favorite teachers, and instead gets a new teacher) and Tyler loves that he shares a name with his brother. :)

In addition to all of our fun classes and lessons, we have been going to the gym a lot! The boys have really started to make new friends and the fact that they see them almost every day has been great. It even led to Kevin running in without hestitation last week to the nursery at church (something we have NEVER succeeded at as he is always too scared to stay). The boys have fun playing all kinds of games at the nursery, climb a rock wall, and enjoy making art projects. And of course I have been benefiting from the consistent gym time!

Jacob has been a trooper with our fall schedule. He is still super content...even as he battles a cold/cough today. He got his first tooth Sunday night and is now working on his second one on the bottom. He didn't like it as the teeth were breaking through and preferred not to sleep and be super fussy, but now that the tooth is up he is once again our content and happy baby. He is working hard on learning to get around and between turning on his tummy, rolling, and scooting he can move across a room fairly quickly in my opinion. Jacob also has finally taken to table food. We didn't start him until a little after six months, and I was slightly worried about his reactions (spitting and gagging at everything). But now at seven months he is going strong. He eats two meals a day and is getting good at picking up baby puffs (think cheerios but easier to dissolve) and actually getting him into his mouth. His favorite so far is a split pea, sweet potato, oatmeal combo (he doesn't prefer these seperately, but together he eats and eats and eats) and prefers to take bites out of a banana rather than eat mashed banana from a spoon.

And since that was a lot of text, a few pictures from yesterday. :) First, all three boys together.

Then yesterday I walked back outside after going in to lay Jacob down for a nap to see that Tyler and Kevin had taken their shoes off, Tyler had put on gloves, and they were busy using their chalk to color all over a tricycle. It was quite shocking to come out and see, and so I had to take a quick picture before asking them what they were doing. When questioned, Tyler explained that they were having fun "chalking" and they didn't want their shoes or hands to get dirty so they took their shoes off and put on gloves. Apparently, they didn't care about their clothes or the tricycle getting dirty. ;) I didn't get too upset though because they were having fun and were playing so nicely together!!!!

Jacob by himself. Hard to believe he is seven months now!

And finally, we took a trip to an apple orchard as a family. We all had a blast. We picked a lot of apples that we hope to bake up this week, and picked some good ones to just eat. In addition to picking apples (and we got a ton thanks to two big helpers this year), the boys also had fun feeding a cow, petting a goat, picking eggs from a chicken coop, feeding goats, and climbing up hay bales! They even picked me out a pumpkin to make some pumpkin bread with someday and some yummy looking squashes for hopefully some squash soup this weekend. I didn't take my camera. It was a small (okay, big) freakout because I so wanted to take my camera. But the battery was dead in it and I couldn't for the life of me find the charger with my other battery. I looked and looked until I gave up. And Adam reassured me that I could just go and have fun and enjoy it. I did have a great time just watching everything. But oh the pictures would have been great too! ;) Though of course I found the charger and battery the following day in the random spot of the remote control basket! Apparently, I was meant to just go and enjoy. :)

So lots of fun going on here....more pictures to come hopefully soon of the kiddos. :)

Three Pictures of Jacob

Here are three pictures of Jacob from tonight. It was a quiet night as his big brothers were exhausted. Kevin actually fell asleep while eating dinner at the dinner table! So he was in bed very early tonight. I think his exhaustion is a combination of being very diligent in his goal to always eat breakfast with daddy and getting a new bicycle that he wants to ride all day long.

And Tyler spent his evening checking out a new Mickey Mouse game on the Disney Junior website about space. Both big brothers had funny moments today that I have to share. The first involved Kevin. After a trip to the gym, we spent some time outside in this chilly weather walking the dogs and riding bicycles. Kevin fell in the first twenty minutes and got a small cut on his finger. It NEVER phased him until we came inside and I asked him to take his shoes to his room and clean up for lunch. At that point, his injury became so serious that he is now incapable of doing anything with that hand (and proceeded to eat lunch using only the other hand) and even needed carried to bed for a nap. Thankfully, after his nap he had forgotten about his injury and was back to normal.

The second funny moment happened with Tyler during his quiet time. I set him up in our room with some books for him to read. About half an hour later he walked out to find me and our conversation went something like this. . .

Tyler: "Mom, my throat is a little sore from reading, can I just look at the pages?"

Me: "Sure, but you know that you can just read the words in your head. You don't have to say them out loud all of the time."

Tyler: (very excited) "Wow, mom! That sounds like a great way to read!" (And he went running back to our room.)

Apparently, we have never explained that you can just think the words when reading by yourself. I always knew that he liked to read out loud to us and have caught him reading a book to Kevin or Jacob, but it never dawned on me that he might always be reading out loud! :)

Kevin's first bike

A few weeks ago, I took the boys out to a lake so Tyler could ride his tricycle. At the last minute I decided to throw Kevin's tricycle into the car. By the end of that mile ride, the peddles on Kevin's tricycle fell off! :( He was pretty upset and we hadn't really been back out since as he really just wants to ride Tyler's bike. So today while we were out running errands we found Kevin a 12 inch bike just for him! Of course, this then meant a trip to Toys R Us to pick out a helmet for him as he didn't have one. There were lots of choices and he finally settled on a red Mickey Mouse helmet that matches his bike.





We drove out to a park with a big trail around it and decided to practice as we already had Tyler's bicycle loaded up (my original intention was to just push Kevin in a stroller). It took him a bit to figure out the peddles since you brake with them. Eventually Tyler got off his bike and went into a speech about how to peddle in a circle. After that he did great! We rode around on the park trails for almost two hours, taking a short break to play at the playground.

Then we had some errands to run and finished up the day at home riding around the block and up and down the street. The boys are having a BLAST riding together. And Kevin does an amazing job for it being his first day. We have had three official crashes where he wasn't intending it and five attempts of just running into the curb with a "mom, watch me" and laughter. But no tears yet even with the crashes. He just hops right back up and takes off yelling "Tyler, wait me". ;)





I'm not sure if he would have picked up the bike at the beginning of the summer, and am honestly very surprised he has picked it up so quickly. It's sort of sad that fall is already here given the fun we all had today. I think that we will just have to spend as much time as possible outside letting the boys ride together (as it is MUCH more fun for Tyler to ride with Kevin than riding by himself he says) before that inevitable snow arrives. ;) Anyways...some pictures. I will let you know what we eventually name his bicycle. :)

A new blogger in the family.

Tyler and I have been working on this for a few days and he finally wanted to share it with you now that he has put pictures up. He took almost of these pictures by himself with his camera of around our house and on a walk. Two pictures have him in it and are ones that I took with his camera. He is excited to have his own blog and is hoping to do everything all by himself (in terms of what he puts up and typing). So check it out he says. :) tthimmesch.blogspot.com