Beginning of November

The other day we went to dinner and Bryant got a pair of fake teeth that he thought were so much fun.  By the next morning, they were broke and he was heartbroken.  So dad made his day and got him a pair of silly glasses.

We were getting ready to head to Whitehall the next day to celebrate Grandpa Ed's birthday.  Bryant wanted to make another cake for Grandpa (last year was river cookies).  So this year, he decided he wanted to do a fish cake.  While the cake was cooling, we took a family soak in the hot tub.  We let Garrett hang out in just his diaper, so Bryant wanted to hang out in his underwear and decorate his cake.

The finished product...a rainbow trout:)

Trav also found Iron Man tattoos with the silly glasses, so of course we had to put some on.

Doesn't he look tough?!!!

On Friday, we headed to Whitehall.  We couldn't believe how nice the weather was considering it is November!  We took advantage of the weather and played outside quite a bit.

Especially in the leaves!  I couldn't decide on my favorite pictures, so there is a lot of leaf pictures.

Bryant is such a good big brother and loves Garrett so much.  He put his arm around him for a picture without any prompting from anyone. 

Look at the excitement in his eyes when he got to jump into a pile of leaves!

Bryant also liked being buried in leaves and popping up to surprise everyone.

Garrett got sleepy and snuggled up with dad to watch Bryant play.

Then we headed out in the field to look for ducks.

We didn't find any ducks, but we did see a muskrat and also found Bryant a cattail.

Happy Birthday Grandpa Ed!

Bryant has always been a mommy's boy, but every once in awhile, he wants daddy to put him to bed.  I usually fall asleep with him, but this time I caught daddy sleeping:)

Bryant was laying in our hallway when I was getting ready the other morning and sometimes I get surprised at how tall he is getting.  I don't think this picture does it justice of how tall he looked that morning.

Daddy also found a surprise for Bryant at the goodwill store...a kids pair of golf clubs!  Bryant has been practicing his putting every morning before school:)

On Monday, Garrett had his 9 month checkup.  He's doing great and growing like crazy.  In comparison to Bryant (and Travis), he is taller, heavier and has the biggest head!  He was 29.5 inches long (89%), 23 lbs 6 ozs (94%) and I think 48 cm for head circumference.  Whatever his head was, it still is 99%.  He is a babbling, crawling everywhere, sticking everything in his mouth, pulling himself up and trying to walk around furniture, busy 9 month old.  His update is very similar to Bryant's at 9 months; however, I don't remember Bryant being as busy nor putting everything in his mouth.  I can't remember when we lowered Bryant's bed in his crib, but we've done it with Garrett as he already has managed to escape his crib.  I have a feeling Garrett is going to be a dare devil, just like his daddy...

Bryant has really been trying to be helpful as a big brother and if Garrett is into something that he shouldn't be, he scoops his brother up under the arms and carries him somewhere else.  Garrett is starting to understand what "no" means, but still does whatever he isn't supposed to be doing, but with a bigger smile on his face.  The other night Bryant told him not to play with the outlets and Garrett looked at him and laughed.  Bryant got all upset and sternly said "not funny Gare.".  

Here are the comparison charts.  The height picture amazes me...they are so similar!

We have a fun week with Thanksgiving that Bryant is really looking forward too, especially after daddy got to join him for Thanksgiving lunch at school on Thursday.  Trav's dish was a big hit with all the little 4 and 5 year olds...normally they don't eat all the sweet potatoes, but when you put marshmallows on top, there are no leftovers:)

Halloween and More

A couple days after we got back from vacation, Garrett came down with a cold.  Travis took Garrett home from daycare and since Bryant didn't get to come home early, I took him on a dinner date to anywhere of his choosing.  He chose Applebees.  It amazes me how much my kids are growing up in front of my eyes. Bryant is getting better and better with his letters and wrote our names on our to-go boxes.

Bryant also has such a big heart.  We were so happy when we got back from vacation to see that all his fish survived, only to find that lizard (the only grey fish) died a couple days later.  He watches his fish as he falls asleep at night and it wasn't long before he noticed something wrong and was talking about how it really made his heart hurt:(

I'm guessing we must frequent Firehouse Subs whenever we can because there isn't one in Helena.  And Bryant really likes their drink machine, so when we got home from Applebees, we had to build a Firehouse Subs.  He would take our order, make our sandwiches, get our drinks and chips...so cute!  Here's our future restaurant owner (although he says he wants to be either a cop or a fireman).

He's also been into building things out of boxes, so one night, we built a robot.

My parents were out of town so they gave us their tickets to the Carroll basketball game (can you believe it is already basketball season???).  Both boys were so excited to go that they fell asleep on the way in (for a 6:00 game)...when we got to the game both boys had a lot of fun watching and Bryant was able to run around on the court afterwards.

A couple weekends ago or maybe just 1??? they all run together...) Garrett started crawling.  Since he figured out how to crawl, he is into EVERYTHING and now wants to try and stand up.  It's amazing how much progress he's made in just a short amount of time.  

We decorated pumpkins the weekend before Halloween. We got 2 little ones for Bryant to paint/decorate and 2 big ones to carve.

Last year, Bryant refused to touch the pumpkin guts, but after a lot of convincing, he finally got his hands dirty this year.

Garrett took no convincing at all...

Bryant decided on our pumpkin carvings this year.

On Halloween, the boys got to come to my work to do some trick-or-treating.  Bryant was Raphael from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Garrett was a Green Bay Packer football player.  Bryant got to choose on whether he wanted to go to his school party or my work and he picked that he wanted to go to my work.

There are quite a few pictures of Halloween...it was hard to pick my favorites!

Garrett has crawled under our coffee table and gotten stuck a couple times now.  It makes me laugh because when I was older, I was pretty much in the same position in a coffee table...I'll have to see if I can find the picture!

Even though our neighborhood is fairly spread out, we love to go trick-or-treating there because they always do so much for our little ones.  Here's the family all ready to head out to collect their loot.

Everyone would ask Bryant if he wanted to grab a handful of candy for his brother and Bryant was absolutely willing to do so knowing that Garrett wasn't going to eat it.  So, here's our stash from the neighborhood this year.

We decided to let Garrett try some chocolate...I think he liked it;)

More into building with boxes...this time Bryant wanted a car...and it needed wings because it was going to be super fast.

Not that Garrett is better, Bryant came down with a cold.  I haven't even been trying to put him down for naps on the weekends, and Bryant fell asleep watching the Bobcat football game while sitting in my lap the other day.  I'm blaming that on being sick, not on the Bobcat losing streak...Either way, I can't remember the last time Bryant fell asleep on my lap.  I gladly soaked up some snuggles from my big boy!

Garrett is obsessed with electronics, whether it is remotes or cell phones.  Somehow, he always manages to turn my camera on and take pictures too.  I love how he already took a selfie of him playing with his brother!

My boys helping with the laundry:)

Garrett LOVES water and bath time.

He kept kicking his way from one end of the tub to the other!

He had the cutest little mohawk after his bath today.  He looks so sweet and innocent that I had to take his picture because I sure can't get him to sit still long enough for a picture while he's awake!