November Update

I had a couple pictures that Travis had taken from around Halloween - first is Garrett at his school party.  I think he likes cupcakes...or at least the frosting...

It was nice enough that the boys could ride their bikes for a little bit.

Scary?!?

Trav takes them to school in the morning and lately, Bryant has decided to help get Garrett in the truck.  He grabs him around the waist and tries to lift him in and then the boys think it is so funny to play before they get buckled in.

I think this was daddy daycare the day after Thanksgiving.  They always love driving carts.

And suckers...

Okay, now for November pictures from my phone.  We still had crafts out from decorating pumpkins, so Bryant decided to decorate himself.  Ha!

Grandpa Ed celebrated his birthday with us at Nagoya, where they cook your meal on the grill right in front of you.  The boys were incredibly intimidated by the fire.

But calmed down and did really enjoy their meal

and of course the ice cream that comes with it.

Enjoying some homemade pudding

Garrett has been really into books and was reading to me.  I like how he shows the pages so everyone can see.

The boys playing as I got the oil changed in my car.

Garrett loves coffee

Here's the post-coffee Garrett...

Mmm...more suckers

Bryant was really into the tunnels when he was as old as Garrett is now, so we pulled them out for Garrett to play.  I have a very similar picture of Bryant as this one.  I'll do another post with some comparisons someday soon.

Bryant and I were playing a game (basketball, I think) and Bryant wanted the winner to have their picture taken like they were on stage.  He won, so these were the two poses he chose.  Maybe it is just me, but when he's kneeling he looks like he's 5, but when he's standing, he looks so much older!

Mocha really started struggling with moving at all, so we made the decision to put her down.  A couple days before, the boys really wanted to love on her, so we gave her lots of hugs and kisses.

Bryant had his first parent teacher conference and he did really well, so he earned a dinner out to his choice and he picked Applebees.  

November 17th was a rough day for us as that was when we actually put Mocha down.  She was raised in a college house, so she enjoyed a couple sips of beer in her younger years, so we had a beer for her.   

She was 17 1/2 years old, so she definitely lived a full life, but it is never easy to say goodbye.  I'm not sure what actually surprises me more in this picture...how little Mocha was, or how young Travis looked (he got her when he was 20!) 

Bryant struggles with it quite a bit and always asks us what he is supposed to do when he wants to pet a dog. A couple weeks after she grew wings, Bryant's school counselor visited his class (which she does every other week).  She read a book about feelings and the kids then had to draw a picture.  Bryant drew the picture below.  It has Bryant with Mocha in her picture frame and a big X through his feelings because he wasn't sure how he should feel.  He was pretty distraught that day and actually spent the recess with the counselor. (it was also partially because it was Travis' birthday and when Bryant heard Trav's age, he knew that it was a lot older than Mocha and didn't think his dad was going to live another year)  That kid is super special and has a HUGE heart.

On a lighter ntoe, here's big brother trying to teach little brother to dunk

We went to watch a Carroll basketball game that night and Bryant was the perfect height to give a super long hug to Grandma Susie.

Bobcat football Saturday has us all decked out in Bobcat gear and racing through the hallways in the house

This picture is blurry, but you can see how much fun the boys were having playing basketball.  Bryant was trying to lift Garrett up so he could dunk it.

Mmmm...Smores pizza!

Bryant wanted to play baseball in the yard and after he kept hitting the pitcher with the ball, we played a different game.  Garrett found it really funny.

Bryant's turkey hand for Thanksgiving was super cute.  After he got home from making it at school, he decided that his brother should also be listed on the thumb.

Giving me my birthday present that he helped to wrap and decorate (he's been really into drawing stars lately).

Birthday snuggles from my little.

With my birthday being so close to Thanksgiving, we got to join Garrett for a Thanksgiving lunch at school.  It's always fun to see how he interacts with his little buddies.

Giggling at the game Bryant is playing on daddy's phone

Which turns into Garrett using his head like a wrecking ball on his brother.  Those giggles are contagious

For Thanksgiving we went to Grandpa Jack and Grandma Susie's house.  They had the garage cleared out so Bryant and Garrett could play basketball and they played out in the garage ALL day!

Bryant shooting

And Garrett.  He would run to the back corner, wait for someone to say "ready, set, go" and then go dunk it...over and over and over!

How many Zanto's does it take to open a big bottle of wine?  Apparently 3 ;)

Yummy dinner

Love these little turkeys!

And one last video for this post - Garrett likes to cheer and be cheered for when they play basketball.  I LOVE how he was cheering on his brother...so cute!

Catching Up - 2nd half

Garrett's turning into a little athlete himself. He's already figuring out how to catch.  I love his first try when he misses and he yells "almost".  Then he gets distracted by the Bobcat stickers on the back of my phone.

Between growing and being able to jump better, Bryant can now dunk on his basketball hoop...

In my post yesterday, I said that Garrett had to get stitches.  You'd be surprised after watching the video that he didn't get stitches that night too...

Bryant loves to set up ninja courses and Garrett loves to climb, so he kept climbing across our bar chairs and jumping into the bean bag.  

Garrett figured out how to turn on the music system upstairs and he loves to dance, so he turns it on any chance he can get.  He paused from dancing this night for a quick picture.

Bryant and I were making banana bread and we didn't get our batter cleaned up right away.  Garrett seized the opportunity to lick the bowl and spatula.

It was Red Ribbon Week at school towards the end of October and the kids got to dress up for each day of the week.  One of the days was crazy hair and crazy sock day...

Grandma Susie made some festive Halloween cookies...Garrett preferred the frosting.

We got tickets to another Bobcat football game - it was a gorgeous weekend!

Garrett thought the hats on the band players were hilarious.

They opened up the field after the game and the kids loved running around on the turf.  Garrett would run into the end zone and jump and land on his butt.  Both kids did so good sitting and watching the game - they deserved to run around and burn lots of energy on the field!

The next day, we carved our pumpkins.  We gave the boys a couple options for designs and Garrett picked Elmo and Bryant picked the dinosaur from Toy Story.

Then the boys got to paint the smaller pumpkins, although Garrett preferred eating the paint and rubbing it all over his hands rather than painting the pumpkin.

After the paint dried, they got to decorate the pumpkins.

For Halloween, the boys got to come trick-or-treating at my office.  As shown in my post yesterday, Bryant picked Optimus Prime.  We had the absolute cutest airplane costume for Garrett because he loves all things trains and airplanes, but he did not like wearing the costume.  Our second option was ninjago because he sometimes wore the mask (as seen in yesterday's post), but he wouldn't wear that either.  So we went with the tried and true that worked for Bryant at that age, and Garrett was our little lumberjack.

It was incredibly windy on Halloween, so Trav chauffeured us around the neighborhood.

Bryant's strap on his bag broke because he got so much candy.  This was the haul just from our neighborhood. 

After the windy night, the snow came, so we made the best of it last weekend and went sledding.  Garrett really didn't want to get his snow pants and boots on, but once he got outside, he had a blast!

Being the good brother that he is, Bryant taught Garrett to eat snow...

...and throw snowballs at Dad.

So...now for the stitches.  We got a call that Garrett split his ear open at daycare and needed stitches, so we had the pleasure of spending 5 hours waiting in the ER to get it fixed.

He didn't really get lunch and didn't get his nap at his normal time, so when we finally got to see the doctor, Garrett had enough and finally fell asleep.

He had to get 4 stitches in his ear.  It was ridiculously hard to watch, but he's such a tough kid.  The doctor commented on how much of a fighter he was, and I told him that he didn't have a choice because he was the second kid.  I worried at how he would sleep last night and he slept awesome - actually better than most other nights!  If you didn't see the stitches or the red ear, you would have no idea that we spent half the day yesterday in the ER.  He's acting like the same ol' Garrett.  When he got out of bed this morning, he was walking and just fell on the tile and bonked his head and got a big bruise on his forehead.  Such a clumsy phase, or maybe just that boys will be boys:)