Special Moments

The boys have always loved baking with me, and now they (and I) are determined to learn how to cook some of their own things. Isaac was up first and decided to make eggs and bacon.  He cooked everything and set the table. He even added some special touches like names at each person's seat. Here is a picture of my spot:

The boys absolutely love music class at school. They are constantly in competition in class to earn smart cookies when they win the game of the day. When they win enough smart cookies, they earn a pizza cookie which our music teacher makes as a reward for knowing their musical terms. Caleb won the first one for our house in February and was pretty pumped!

Also in February the boys celebrated the 100th day of school as "old" people.

 

Look, here we are!

We haven't fallen off the face of the earth, in case you are wondering.  Here is a recent family picture to get us going again!

Photo courtesy of Whitney Nelson!

Pumpkin carving 2013

We carved our pumpkins earlier in the week. The boys helped clean out the pumpkins; however, Paul and I got the joy of doing the actual carving. 

Caleb was not a fan of the gunky stuff. Here is the process of cleaning out his pumpkin from Bate's Nut Farm.

Cleaning his hands

Caleb chose football as his theme with the Packers (thanks, KV!) on one side and the Chargers bolt on the other.

Isaac kept with his Halloween costume theme and chose Darth Vader.

Bad Guys

The boys were both bad guys for Halloween. Isaac was Darth Vader.  Caleb was a storm trooper (think Blue Man style since we did not have a real storm trooper costume).  

We started by trick or treating where Uncle Dave and Aunt Sandy were.

We then moved on to Miss M. and Miss Termaat. (They have graduated from being called "auntie" since the boys are both in school now.)

We spent the rest of the evening with friends and their neighbors enjoying dinner followed by trick or treating in their neighborhood.

Mr. Henry finding his dark side

Glow in the dark glasses

We finished the evening stopping at Mr. K. and Miss B.'s place, but I forgot to get a picture of the our very tired boys.  (They actually turned down candy from the neighbor who offered them candy on the way back to the car.)

Lost Teeth...

…left and right at this house!  At the end of September Isaac had a tooth that was hanging on by a thread. He went to the school's resident "dentist" Miss M. to pull it out, and she proceeded to pull out a different tooth. He was pretty excited because she gave him a little tooth holder, a certificate, and a package of Smarties.

The next morning (October 1) Caleb woke up and his tooth had fallen out during the night; thankfully, he didn't swallow it. 

His note to the tooth fairy says, "Hi, tooth fairy, this is my first tooth. Love, Caleb. I will see you tonight." You can see his letters and the note a little better in the picture below. (Double-click on the picture to make it bigger so you can see it even more clearly.)

Within two weeks Isaac's top tooth that had been really loose originally was also pulled out by Miss M (on October 14). 

We were a little bit creeped out by his weird front top tooth that centered itself in the gap. Fortunately, that one came out within three days--also pulled by the wonderfully talented Miss M.

No top teeth--I lisp now!

To celebrate we went to Coldstone for ice cream.

The second time was a freebie since Isaac won the school's Box Tops monthly drawing and got to choose a gift card to Coldstone.  Gotta love gift cards and the joy of trimming lots of Box Tops! (Thanks to those who contributed Box Tops so we could go out for ice cream. ;-)

Final Days of Summer

We spent a lot of time during August in our classrooms preparing for the new school year. To break up the monotony of the work (for all of us but especially the boys), Paul and I decided to plan a few fun activities as a surprise for the boys before school started.

Their first surprise was an afternoon at the movies. We watched Planes and thoroughly enjoyed it.

We took in one more Padres game before the end of summer.  The game did not end well, but we had a wonderful time.

Through the Jr. Padres program the boys had free tickets. They also got a free bag and got a chance to throw a few balls in the game zone.

The clown noses in the boys' bags

We took the boys for breakfast at Mama Kat's, our favorite breakfast place.

We did a lot of baking and cooking together. The boys got a Star Wars cookbook from the library so we made a few of the recipes from it including Han Burgers, Jedi Juice Bars, Skywalker Smoothies, and our version of Wookie Cookies.

Enjoying Skywalker Smoothies

And on our final Friday of summer we had one last super slumber movie party complete with dinner, chocolate popcorn and a movie in the living room.

It was such a wonderful and relaxed summer. Now that we are two months into the school year, I look back at these pictures with fondness (and a little bit of wistfulness to be back on vacation ;-).  Things are a little busier now which explains why this post sat in my drafts folder since September 3!

School

We went back to school this past week. The boys were pretty excited and even set out their clothes for the first few days in advance.

First days' outfits

Annual picture in front of the fence

Heading into school

Paul's classroom

Sitting on the ring (hopefully the only time this year ;-)

Considering that Caleb has been counting down for the start of kindergarten since his last day of preschool in June, it was an exciting day especially for him!

Isaac is in the second and third grade combo class which will be interesting for him and will call for a lot more independent work. 

Both the boys have wonderful teachers so we are looking forward to a great year.

Here is to another year of school and the routine that goes with it.