Just a Weekend?!?

Wait, I have proof there was a week between our weekends!  Here's Grayson gardening at school!  Looks like he's having a great time, and the flowers look nice!  Maybe I'll have him show me the planter bed next time I'm down at the school.  Looks like they did a great job.

On Friday, Brooke had a homeschool field trip lined up, and Grayson was of course going along because he doesn't have school on Friday.  They went to the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center in south Austin. It looks like it was pretty awesome, and I selected a smattering of pictures of the kids having fun.  This kinda looks like Grayson is caught in a spider's web.

And here's Brooke and... wait! Didn't Winry have school?  I mean, technically, but it was also a half day, so that's basically a no school day, so Monica let Winry come along too!  And here are the hens keeping their eggs warm.

And here's Winry and Sierra sailing the front of a ship!  This place essentially had a lot of big, cool and unique playground type structures.  It looks like it was a lot of fun.

On Saturday, we spent much of the day trying to get the house ready for Brooke's birthday party.  My main goal was to keep Grayson busy.  I was able to help with cleaning and set up in the morning, but in the afternoon, Grayson got bored and I found myself in the backyard.  That said, I will not complain, it was a beautiful day, and it was NOT hot either!!  Lovely.

Grayson thought relaxing on the swing seemed pretty sweet too, and he came and joined me.

Oh, that actually happened in the morning, as the girls were off at a dance camp at the middle school.  The camp was a few hours, and at the end we were able to come and watch them all dance!  Here's Winry.

And here's Brooke's dance.  One thing I thought while watching this, is that I think Brooke would be able to make the middle school dance team now if she tried out.  Looks like all those dance lessons are paying off!

Here are the kids with Ashley, their favorite babysitter.  She is on the middle school dance team and is who told us about the camp.  The kids love her so much, and she was even helping in Winry's group!

That evening was Brooke's party.  It was a Wicked themed spa night, and I missed most of it.  At the start, Grayson and I were up in his room trying out one of his hot wheel tracks he got from the Lasky's.  This track you have to attach to the wall, so that's why we hadn't done it yet. But this seemed like a time worth getting out 3M strips for.

After playing for a while, Grayson wanted to go to Chick-Fil-A which was the original plan to keep him from disturbing the party.  I thought maybe we'd just hang out at home since we were having so much fun with the hot wheels track. But he sure didn't forget I offered Chick-fil-a earlier in the day, so off we went.  He had fun playing in the playground and even got ice cream.  We made it back for the last bit of the party to sing to Brooke and have a brownie.

After the kids went to bed, we had the Packers over for date night.  It was a secret date night, so don't say ANYTHING about this before Christmas! I needed to make sure what I got worked, and the best way to check was a fun date night.

I mean, you know you're having fun when even Jelly comes by to have a turn.

On Sunday morning, the kids were all playing together. From downstairs, I heard Winry ask Grayson if he knew how "Jingle Bells" went, and then they played a very lovely rendition of "Jingle Bells" for quite a while.  You know what, they never fought, so I've heard worse sounding play.

And that's a wrap on the week.  We had a pretty busy weekend after a pretty quiet week.  We'll definitely not have to wait until the weekend to party next week, as Brooke's birthday is on Monday!! Yay!
 

Just a week

Winry really likes to play out front, and Grayson often comes along with her.  They'll head out of the garage and often find something good to play with along the way.  For the last little bit, there's been a kite sitting out in the garage.  We've never had a good windy day and remembered the kite is sitting there (hopefully soon) at the same time, but that won't stop us from running like the wind!

The kids were looking for ways to be snuggly I guess, and the go to item was mermaid tail blankets.  Grayson's baby Yoda snuggie thing made it's way in, and this mix was the result.  Lovely.

Here's my favorite shot from school!  It's hard to imagine he's not the happiest kid on the playground right there.

On Saturday I had a date night planned to watch the BYU basketball game on Saturday night.  I bought some face decals and maple bars, etc. to try to get more of a BYU experience.  However, Monica was feeling sick, so I moved it up to the football game (which was in the afternoon) and included the kids... and as I'm writing this I'm realizing we never did my BYU trivia...  Looks like I've already got next week's date planned! 

The kids really wanted to go to the library, so I took them right when the football game ended.  The library wasn't open much later than when we got there. We also couldn't find the library card. So we had a little time inside, but mostly played on the playground outside.  It's pretty cool and bird shaped.  On our way back to the car, we got our picture by the sign.

That evening, Jelly was waiting for someone to spend some time with her halfway up the staircase, so I obliged.

And Monica pulled out all of the ginger from the garden.  Looks like we got quite a bit!  I've never cooked with ginger, so I really don't know how much this is, but it seems like a lot compared to the size you buy at the store.

Monica was sick much of the week, and I think that's part of what kept things slower around here.  I feel like it's been ebbing and flowing a little bit with some days her feeling better than others, but hopefully she can kick it soon and just feel better.  She's also been losing her ability to taste, which, thankfully has not been showing in her cooking!  That's still been as good as ever.

 

Halloween and Parties

We'll kick things off with all of us ready to start trick or treating!  We were Phineas and Ferb characters this year.  Monica was Phineas, I was Ferb, Brooke was Candace, Winry was Dr. Doofenschmirtz, and Grayson was Perry the platypus.  We're looking SOOOO good!

Here's a moment from preschool.  It looks like they had a balloon party, and you know that Grayson's always gotta go to that!  I think the real highlight is the video they sent where you hear a teacher tell a kid off camera that we only hit the balloons!

At work, we're moving to a new space in the WeWork that we're in, and it's smaller than our old one, so my company was getting rid of the extra desks and monitors.  Connor came down with me to help me move stuff into my van.  I was going to get a desk and monitor, however, the monitors were locked in the new space my key wouldn't get into, so I had to settle for getting a desk.  I actually grabbed another guys desk too, and next week when we're all back in the office we'll grab two monitors and then swap a desk for a monitor up at my place while he's driving back to Dallas.

I feel like poor Grayson has been hurting his back a bunch lately!  Specifically, this time he somehow tipped the chair he was on (if you've seen him on a chair around a table it doesn't take much imagination to see how this might have happened) and landed his back straight on the edge of another chair, or maybe on the chair he toppled.  Ouch!  Poor guy.  I hope he can be a bit more careful.

We had our ward trunk or treat on Wednesday night.  They had some games set up for the kids to play, with the big draw being donuts on a string.  Who wouldn't have a hankering for a donut right before dinner?

One person who for sure needed to get in on the donut action was Grayson.  This kid is all donut and no dinner!

After dinner we headed to our car to hand out candy.  I already shared a picture of us in our costumes at the start of this, and the lighting was better on Halloween too, so here I'll just share a picture of our trunk decorated like Phineas and Ferb's backyard, with our Candy Passer-outer 3000!

Update on that lizard story, I guess we had more than one lizard in our house, and this one hadn't been found by Jelly!  I was able to eventually get it trapped under a big tupperware. Honestly, we all wanted to keep the little guy instead of throwing him back outside, but in the end it was back out to the garden for him.

Grayson had a costume parade for preschool on Thursday.

Thursday was also Grayson and Winry's last day of volleyball.  They got new shirts, and Grayson was even wearing his Spike Frog volleyball shirt that day, so he just threw the second one on over it.

When we got home, Monica had made a cool Halloween dinner while we were gone.  We should leave her alone in the evenings more often.

On Friday night, we had a great time trick-or-treating.  While wandering our neighborhood, we found this garbage can... I can't imagine this was meant to be a decoration, and I'm a little curious how exactly they burned up their garbage can like this... You can also see a burnt spot in the grass back there closer by the fence.  Whatever it was, it wasn't safe.  Glad no one's house burned down.

Grayson really loves these big blow up pumpkins. He always asks us to drive that way so that we pass them when we're leaving the neighborhood. When he trick-or-treated at their house, he let them know, and they were so happy about it and told him to make sure he gave them a hug on his way out!

Saturday morning was Brooke's last day of volleyball and a volleyball tournament.  It was a lot of fun, and very exciting.  Sadly, they ended up losing their first two matches and were done, but the games were really close, and Brooke had so much fun.

Here she is with her team and coach.  I really liked her coach and hope that Brooke can be on her team again in the future.

After the volleyball tournament was over, we went to the park to set up for Grayson's birthday party.  One of the games we played was a dragon egg hunt.  Each egg held a clue to the next egg that the kids needed to find, and each egg held a surprise for the kids to put in their take home bag.

It was a little bit windy while we were singing happy birthday, well, actually, it was windy the whole time.  I tried to block the candle, and it worked for a while, but the wind changed directions on me right as it was time to blow out the candle, and I didn't quite figure out from which direction in time.  Good news, Grayson didn't actually care.

And then Saturday evening we had a fall fiesta put on by the stake!  What a full day Saturday was.  There were tacos, sports out on the field, rain, and even a dance at the fiesta.

That night I was trying to help Grayson get on pajamas and somehow got them on my leg!  He thought this was SO funny.

At church I saw Mia come walking by and lured her over with my phone.  Babies sure like seeing themselves on phones!  She stayed to hang out for a few minutes before squirming down and running away.  Tearing up my heart!

Brooke, Winry and I played volleyball in the backyard for much of the afternoon.  Grayson came out with us, and sat on the swing eating cheese balls.  Just your standard 5 year old afternoon.

And I think that's everything for now.  I hope you had a happy and safe Halloween, and I hope you got as much candy as we did!  Nom nom nom, I maybe like candy a little too much...
 

Grayson Turns 5!!

Happy birthday Junior!  This seems like a good moment for a tangent.  Grayson, when asked what his name is, has recently been responding "Junior!"  Don't know where it came from, but part of me wants to let it stick because that'll be great fun for him to explain when he's older.  Anyway, here he is dancing to a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday" in the candle light!  Most of the pictures he's just smiling, etc. so I had to pick this one because it was just so much more fun!  I can't believe Grayson's already 5.  I remember for at least the first year we lived here in TX thinking that it never seemed like Grayson had changed much.  Looking at this picture, and thinking of the 2 year old that moved here, it's crazy to see how much he's changed!  I hope he still spends some time looking at the acorns out his closet windows...

Jelly stumbled upon a really good bag this week.  Can you believe she'd jump out at me too?

Grayson's birthday was on Tuesday, and he opened presents first thing.  We even took Winry to school a little bit later than usual so she could be there while he opened them. She was still on time to school, she just usually gets there at the start of drop off and instead got there at the very end! He got Luigi legos, dinosaur rockets, a glow in the dark marble run, Snack-o-saurus, and a ghost pillow.  It was non-stop excitement as he opened each present, and he has been having a blast ever since!

When Monica got home from dropping off Winry at school, there was a roadrunner on our driveway and we followed it a few houses down trying to watch it for a bit.  I'm slowly ticking off my Texas animal watch list.  I've seen a roadrunner, armadillo, and opossum.  I may be missing some others, but those are things I've only seen once, so they've felt more special.

Here is Grayson with Snack-o-saurus.  It's a board game, but the dino comes off and it's pretty fun to shoot out his tongue.

Grayson took donuts into school for his birthday, to everyone's delight, and it looks like he got to wear a birthday crown as well.

He wanted a strawberry cake, but then also threw in the curve ball that he wanted Toothless, from How to Train your Dragon, on his cake.  I think Monica did an AMAZING job drawing it on there.

Ok, I'll be 100% honest, and say I don't actually know what I took a picture of, but knew this would at least serve as a placeholder for the following story.  One morning, Monica saw a lizard up high on a wall in our house.  I went to try to get it, but it had run off and hid somewhere in the meantime. I had to go into work, so I didn't have a lot of time to look around for it.  A few days later when I got home from work, I was greeted by Monica who had found the lizard again, but not until after Jelly had found it... It was on the door mat to the backyard, so I took the mat out and shook it off.  This is maybe a picture of it after it fell into the garden, I was trying to hide it from the kids.  I guess we know Jelly's hunting instincts are still good.

Grayson's marble run has a lift in it.  He really loves the lift, and one night I helped him make a new marble run that actually used the lift to loop the marbles back.  He really liked that.  We also spent some time using a flashlight in the dark to get parts of it to glow nice and bright too.

Grayson had his 5 year checkup as well, and everything looked good at the doctor, including his sweet clothes.

The girls got to show us dances at the end of dance class this week. Either Monica or I made it to all of them.  Here's one from Winry.

And here's Brooke doing one of her Halloween dances.

I liked this picture of Grayson at preschool.  All the kids worked together to try to flood the slide with rocks.  There was a picture of Grayson being the holder at the bottom of the slide, but it's from a different angle and you can't see how full the slide is. So I went with this one as I thought it looked more fun.

And here's another dance for Brooke.

And afterward, her class all took a picture together with their teacher.

On Saturday morning, Brooke had a volleyball game, and it was CRAZY!  We dropped her off at the door, and I circled the building 3 times before finding a parking spot.  There was a big cornhole tournament, so I'm guessing that was why because it's usually not hard to get a spot.  We missed her first game, but she did great in the second and third.  Afterwards we headed straight to Grayson's preschool for a fall fest/Halloween party.  Here are all the kids in their costumes as we arrived.

They had cutouts to let the kids look extra spooky!

There were lots of activities for the kids to do as well.  They had bingo, and a cake walk, and tossing games like ring toss or throwing a pumpkin into a bucket, etc.  There was also a silent auction and Grayson REALLY wanted me to get some stepping stones, so I put a bid on it and he kept trying to pick them up and take them with us.  I've since found out that we did win them! Yay!

A little while after we got back, Winry had a birthday party for a friend from school.  I took her and she had a lot of fun playing at the park with kids from school.

In fact, she had a lot of fun with a girl named Macy.  AND they were both cowgirls!  I was able to swap phone numbers so they can get together sometime.

We spent some time Saturday out in the garden, and Monica decided to check how the sweet potatoes were doing.  She ended up pulling out 15 lbs., and they were HUGE!

Also, we woke in the middle of the night to a loud sound.  Looking around it would appear that Jelly got on the counter and knocked some stuff off, scared herself with the loud sound and knocked several plants over...  I think the fur clump in the potting soil says it all. She scared the heck out of us!

And that's all I've got for now.  Have a good week.