October Update

Garrett picked out his own clothes for the day...can you tell?

We headed to White Sulphur Springs one weekend for a soak in the hot springs and play at the school playground.  Garrett likes to think he can do monkey bars.  Action shot of super dad to the rescue:)

These were definitely more challenging monkey bars, which Bryant feels is like a ninja warrior course.  He was able to do it once.

We came back and picked out their Halloween costumes.  Garrett the astronaut

And Bryant the SWAT guy.  Funny story - when they do their remote class call on Wednesday mornings, the teacher always has a topic for the kids to answer a question about.  Bryant's teacher asked what the kids were going to be for Halloween, so Bryant raised his had and said a SWAT guy because he wanted to be someone who helps other people.  The teacher thought it was very thoughtful and then called on the next girl, who then announced she was going to be a rainbow poop emoji.  It was funny to hear the teacher's reactions after both of their costume announcements!

I keep saying there are days when I feel like I'm looking at a teenager...doesn't he look so grown up in his school picture?

I went to put it in the picture frame and always such a trip down memory lane.  Here's his pictures from pre-school through 3rd grade.  Same little smile, just so much more grown up!

He wanted to build a bird feeder, so this was our attempt.  We have a lot of squirrels in our back yard, so I was thinking it was going to be more of a squirrel feeder than a bird feeder.  So far, no animal has touched it!

Time to decorate pumpkins for Halloween.  I took the boys shopping with me to pick out pumpkins and Trav was a little worried when we showed up with 8 of them thinking it was just going to be him and I doing all the carving all night. Luckily, we only had to do 3 carved ones!

Who likes pumpkin guts?

Bryant carved his pumpkin with very little help from us.

Our 8 finished pumpkins and 2 silly kids

Snow day!  And a ton of it.  The boys loved it.  I think Bryant spent at least 2 hours outside just rolling around in the snow.

You can't tell from the picture, but Bryant was actually excited about the snow, just not me taking pictures.

The next morning, Bryant and I attempted to build a snowman, but that is nearly impossible with two 4-year old kids (Garrett and the neighbor boy) trying to knock it down.

So ultimately Bryant and I built a tall pile of snow and then I let him knock it over before the little ones did

Rosy cheeks calls for yummy hot chocolate with marshmallows!

Bryant has to write down information about his spelling words and then draw a picture.  Crazy to think that an 8 year old associates masks with global.  I think they understand more than what we give them credit for.  When he was sick earlier in the summer and we had to get him tested for COVID, he was heartbroken because they hadn't found a cure yet.  Luckily it wasn't COVID and he got over his sickness after a couple days.

Grandma Susie had a necklace prop for one of her trainings, which she so kindly gave to Garrett because he thought it was his beard.

Garrett's Halloween art from school

Bryant had really been wanting a nerf gun and couldn't wait until Christmas, so I took him to Target so he could buy one with his own money.  You can't tell, but behind that mask, there is a HUGE smile!

Since we couldn't do the normal trick-or-treating on Halloween, we went to both sets of Grandma and Grandpa's houses.

We had a couple fun games of bingo.

We also did a fun candy scavenger hunt at our house for the boys.  Bryant had fun, but he was still disappointed because it wasn't a real Halloween.  The neighbors had a table set up and Garrett wanted to trick or treat over there, so he went over there and took a piece of candy out of his bag and put it on their table.  Haha!  Guess he doesn't really get the concept that he is supposed to get the treats, but it was nice of him to give them too

I also got lots of balloons for the boys to play with.  Go figure with two boys there were lots of noises coming from the balloons that caused lots of laughter!

And they were able to make them HUGE!

Bryant took the prize for biggest balloon though.

And the last picture for October is Garrett snuggling with his pup.

September Update

What's the reason for this face?  It's a I just learned how to ride my bike with no training wheels face!

Garrett's little buddy, Wyatt, from across the street is also 4 and is quite the bike rider.  Garrett really wants to be 5, so I told him that he had to learn to ride a bike without training wheels before he turned 5.  Well that only took him one night...

It was pretty fun to watch Garrett and Wyatt play because Garrett was better at baseball, but was still very encouraging to Wyatt when they played together.  And Wyatt was a way better bike rider, but was very encouraging to Garrett when he learned to ride without training wheels.  

And for memories sake, this was our family picture after Bryant learned how to ride a bike without training wheels.  

I still don't have my videos uploading yet, so all you get is a picture of Garrett learning.

A friendly game of football in the back yard.

Garrett was funny - he just ran and yelled hut, hut, hike repeatedly so that he could keep running after he got tagged without stopping.

Bryant had homework for his first day of school.  He had to bring 3 things about himself that fit inside a paper lunch bag.  He brought one of his sports medals and then the next two pictures.  Bella had to wear his medals in the picture because he couldn't bring all of them and couldn't figure out which one to choose.

And then his two very large goldfish (Colby and Cheddar - named after his favorite cheeses).

Garrett had to bring a family picture for his show and tell.  Since Bryant didn't want to be in the "Garrett only needs two wheels on his bike" picture, we had to take another family picture.  And they wanted our bamboo plant in the picture too.

We had a get together with our old neighbors and Garrett was fake sleeping on the way home.  He just got Grandpa Jack's old Packers wallet and was toting it around with him everywhere he went and wanted to pay with his fake credit card.  At one point Bryant helped him empty out his piggy bank and put all the money in his wallet and Garrett was carrying around quite a bit of cash, including a $100 bill.  So, we had to put the money back in his piggy bank before we had a very upset little kid. 

The Dollar Store had MSU football helmets, so of course Garrett needed one

Garrett likes to flex his muscles after he drinks milk to show how strong he gets.  And when he starts to flex, he holds his breath and his face turns bright red, which makes him think he's even stronger.  He told us one night that he couldn't have more milk because he was too strong already.

And just like that, summer was over and the school year started.  Garrett is in his last year of pre-school and is really excited to start Kindergarten next year.  

Bryant started 3rd grade and is doing the blended approach with COVID.  So he goes in person on Monday and Tuesday and remote Wednesday through Friday.  

Of course, we had to do a mask picture too.

The boys both got new bike helmets and loved to cruise up and down the street.

We promised the boys that they could go to Target and pick out a special toy once our house sold.  We all were super excited to have the paperwork signed and Garrett picked out a Batman remote control car and Bryant picked out a Lego set.

Garrett's t-ball pictures came in...I think he was a little nervous for the camera.

New masks

Getting so good on his bike that he can ride with a ring pop on his hand

Bryant like to cruise around the block on the battery powered scooter.

Building and trying to keep himself entertained on remote learning days.  He got really into building forts around the house and at one point, we had probably 6 different forts going at once.

There's a bike path from our house to Spring Meadow Lake that is probably about 1.5 miles one way, so the boys rode their bikes and we explored the lake for a bit.

And played at the playground equipment on the way home

And later that night headed over to the park behind our house for more fun.

Trav's cousin got married at a small wedding outside of Livingston, so we actually got the boys dressed up a little

We stayed at an AirBnB with Grandpa Ed and Grandma Betty and it turns out the owner was an old classmate of theirs.  We got to explore around the property the next morning before we headed home.

I don't think the picture does it justice, but there's a reason why it's called Paradise Valley

And that's it for our September!