Catching up: October 2014

We had a gorgeous fall!

 So we spent a lot of time outside playing. And we had a little after church photo shoot with their matching outfits from Papa John's collection ;)

 Halloween: A Pirate and a Mermaid

 Kyler loved answering the door and handing out candy to all the kids. He LOVED kids wearing masks!

 Helping Daddy with the yard work

 A trip to Green Bluff

 Hanging out watching football with friends

Whitworth's 125th celebration and my 10 year reunion

 Kendall's preschool went to Hidden Acres at Green Bluff and I was lucky enough to come as a parent volunteer. She loved being there with her friends and especially enjoyed Penelope the talking pumpkin!

 Kyler was hesitant to play in leaves and never fully warmed up to the idea. He liked to kick them and walk around them.

 We climbed up on the roof to clean off 5 bags of pine needles!

 Loving watching Kendall play with letters at preschool

 And I'm loving hanging out with these two every afternoon!

 Keith and I went to the Jason Mraz concert at the INB theater. YES! We love him.

 I went with Reba, Krista, and Robyn to a cabin on Priest Lake for a girls weekend to relax!

 Kendall carved her own pumpkin at Mimi's house and she only wanted it to have eyes. Hilarious!

Happy Fall!

Catching up: September 2014

September is always full and exciting as we quickly shift gears from slow summer days to the quick pace of the school year. This year was extra exciting with Kendall beginning her first year in Preschool! She was made for it!

 

At preschool open house.

First day of preschool!!!

 You can see here that she was bursting at the seams with excitement. I was probably a  little more nervous than she was. But neither of us cried and she even tried to help a new friend who was feeling sad. I have truly loved being half days and getting to pick her up from preschool. I hear all about the projects they do and the friends she plays with. Plus it's before we get Kyler so it's a nice little one on one time that we don't often have anymore. Kendall is loving all things letters. Her favorite game is to "spell a word" and have us tell her what it says. Occasionally she makes a real word and seems to lock it in.

We celebrated with a Starbucks date.

 I also had my first day of school...4th year in K and starting to feel like I know a little bit of what I'm doing ;) We added another teacher to our team, Fran! I adore her and feel so blessed that she was the exact right fit for Heather and I. It's also forced me to get a little more organized which I always need a push in that area.

 So pooped out after the first day back to normal routines and getting up early!

 

 We celebrated our first week by going out to dinner at Twigs.

 Our afternoons look like this:

We've got a walker and he knows how to get in trouble ;)

 

Continued neighbor friend time

 Dance started back up too. Kendall is in a BIG class this year and all the girls so so sweet and mature. We miss a few familiar faces and personalities, but are making new friendships which is exciting!

 One hot afternoon our family ventured out for the Spokane Fair. We bumped into one of Kendall's old dance friends, Chloe. What a treat to see her!

 Fed the animals.

 Learned to lasso

 Riss, Luke and Ella got a new puppy: Kansas!

 Keith and I were able to meet up with our friends at the Gorge for the Zac Brown Band concert and camping ;) Thanks to Kelli and Alex for taking the kids overnight for us!

Knee walker

Our brave, rough and tumble guy turned 15 months during our busy July. He is 24lbs (68%) and is 32" tall (76%!),  he's wearing 18 month clothes (it seems like he skipped 12 months size all together!). He has eight teeth and 4 molars.

His favorite words and phrases include: tickle tickle (and fingers wiggling), "guda go" (let it go), ba (balls, and all things circular, even wheels), nigh nigh, mouw (cat sound), na (banana), pointing to things he wants and grunting.

 

He loves the water and it braver than I'm comfortable with so he is always in a life jacket or we bring over the pack and play.

 He is showing you his many owies he gets daily from climbing any and everything, jumping (falling) off of things that he climbs, and generally limiting his walking to his knees. He does take steps, but prefers shuffling around and getting totally dirty! And as you can see his favorite soothing activity is his bottle.

 dirty little feet from all his knee walking

 This guy can sleep just about anywhere that keeps him in motion. He will fall asleep before we even leave our neighborhood if he's close to a nap or bedtime. In this picture he had fallen asleep in the car to coscto and then transferred to the cart and slept for our entire shopping trip! He occasionally still naps in a swing when all else fails. But he's growing out of it quickly and will need to learn how to sleep in a bed that is not moving---ugh!

 His attention span has increased to 2 pages of a board book. Although sometimes he'll get to tinkering with something that will hold his attention. But generally he's a full blown tornado as he dumps every toy container, plays for a moment, then moves along to the next activity.

 

We are in love with this little one who keeps us on our toes all the time.