Grandma and her boys

Pictures from last week with Grandma!! So special to witness the bond between a grandma and her grandsons :)

 Prepare for picture overload :) Pictures are from a visit to casa de fruta, the pumpkin patch, and hanging around the house. The boys had so much fun and it was nice to have an extra pair of hands around. It was also nice being able to go on some walks with Dave in the evening time after the boys were in bed. Now we are counting down until Thanksgiving when we get to spend time with Grandma, Grandpa, aunts, uncles, cousins, great aunts, great uncles, and great grandparents!!

casa de fruta

 that face! this boy seriously makes the funniest expressions.

 

 

 

 

 

Pumpkin Patch

 

 

 

Hanging around the house

(caleb started up his therapeutic listening from OT again and it has been helping a lot!) I just love how his legs are crossed at the ankles here as he listens to the story :) Sweet boy.

 beading rosaries

 play dough fun

 

pumpkin painting  

 

Thanks for such a special visit Grandma! Love, your boys.

 

where did October go?

A few of my favorite moments captured these past couple weeks on my phone.

 

 spotting an airplane in the sky (they think it is dusty; a plane; from the movie Planes) Planes. Planes. Planes. It is a big thing around here! Guess what these boys are going to be for Halloween?...

 We had such a fun week with Grandma here!! I can't wait to upload pictures from her visit. These boys sure do love their grandma and they had such sweet and special moments together with her last week. Caleb loved helping her bead together rosaries. What I love most when grandma is here are all the special moments the boys share with her and the different things they do! We miss her already.

 Garden dirt. This is a favorite place to sit and play in our yard. I took this picture after a rough couple hours where the boys were fighting a lot. They are best friends one minute and then instigating each other the next! Oh siblings. I'm so thankful they have each other, and their sweet brother bond more than makes up for their fighting. It takes me back. My sisters and I drove each other nuts (still do) but the love we share...oh there's nothing like it! Best friends always.

soaking up snuggles. Three weeks ago the boys woke up achy and feverish which then turned into colds. Nothing more and nothing less than runny noses for about three weeks now. I am so  grateful that since school has started even though Caleb catches the colds he hasn't needed a breathing treatment yet! I really think his gluten free diet has helped and his probiotics are helping too. I still hate flu season and school germs though!

Excited about...
pumpkin carving ("can we carve our pumpkin and put a candle inside?" caleb)
costumes that daddy worked so hard on and that Caleb is so excited to wear. ("Dustttttyyyyyyy" lucas "Chupacabra" Caleb)
fall walks as a family in the evening, enjoying fall decorations and lights
a field trip with Caleb's school Thursday
beginning our thanksgiving preparations and travels and reading stories that get the boys all excited to celebrate my most favorite time of year!

Happy Monday!

happenings

 What we were up to this week.

We had a garage sale on Saturday. The boys were beyond excited about this. Caleb kept saying 'good-morning' to people as they came up in our drive way. He was helping D with the change and handing it to the customers and saying "thank you!" It was great to see him so comfortable greeting others (This is something he is usually not very comfortable doing with strangers and even among friends and family) They were helping and happy all morning. Easy entertainment. We split the money earned between them and let them deposit it their savings account at the bank. Two very happy lil boys!

 

 We've been enjoying our fall walks in the evening. Now that it is getting darker and colder we haven't been able to go as much. It's a fun treat to go after dinner and baths in pjs and it gets the boys moving through their dinner/ bedtime routine with a lot more enthusiasm! We love going to our favorite street that is decorated for Halloween and looking at all the pumpkins, lights, and various fall décor. I love how much this boy loves his riding his bike.

 Going into week 25! I can't believe I'm almost in my 3rd trimester. This is a horrible grainy cell phone pic but oh well :) I'm enjoying the fact that I get to wear fall clothes while being pregnant. Both boys were just lil newborns at this time of year which was also so fun and I really think fall is my favorite time of year to celebrate birthdays. However I'm really excited to be pregnant over the holidays and to wear big cozy warm sweaters instead of sweating it out like I did with the boys at the end of my pregnancy!! I'm still running but at this point I feel like a slow cow that keeps getting bigger and slower. My legs hurt more and feel more heavy when I run and I end up getting Braxton Hicks at the end of the run. I consider 3 miles a good run at this point and am only running about 2-3 times a week. It's still my stress relief and I need that fresh air so I'm keeping up! But I feel like pretty soon I'll be at a slow jog turned walk.

 We finished our Ruth study last week. This by far was one of my favorite studies that I've done and I highly recommend it! It isn't one you need to do with a group or with a DVD. I learned so much in this study and was so inspired by Ruth's strong, humble, and loyal character. I felt a kinship with Naomi who struggles with her faith and starts out in the journey angry and bitter but in the end finds victory and redemption. I fell in love with Boaz and his strong and courageous character. It was such a beautiful story of Christ's love and redemption for us. Kelly Minter had my heart through the entire thing. She was awesome! Our next study is right out of the book of Colossians. We won't be using a study guide with it, just reading out of the bible and our theme is Abiding in Christ. I am so thankful I can go each week and be lifted up in God's word surrounded by godly women. I'm really thankful D is so supportive and knows how much it helps me through the week!

 Birthday Celebrations at home.

 He was so excited about his bike bell. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa! We hear the 'ding ding' sounds and know a very cute lil boy is headed our way. I smiled as I heard it up and down the street Saturday while the boys helped daddy take the garage sale signs down from each side of the street corner!

 Bedtime PJ dance. 

 

Happy Weekend.

Letter E week in review

                       Our weekly home school review:
                                                              
Letter E/Fall Activities/Pre-School
 
this area was inspired by the nature table at caleb's preschool. (dried Indian corn for fine motor/sensory/play exploration) we also used the pumpkins for some water play. I hope to set up the water play again this week and take pictures of it.

 some more fall books. our favorites this week; which aren't pictured here are Mouse's First Halloween, Mouse's First Day of School, Mouse's First Fall, and Mouse's First Snow (Pretty much all the Mouse books I've rented at the library are favorites; it is a cute series.)

  We made Pumpkin Spice play dough recipe found here at the idea room     

 For ours I didn't use food coloring. It smelled delicious and was so easy to make. How come this was my first time making homemade play dough? We will be making our own a lot more now. It was so easy to make!

 There was a lot of pretend play that happened with the pumpkins and Indian corn.

 

At the end of this day with play dough there were acorns and small twigs embedded in the play dough. I'm excited to set up another play dough invitation to play this week in our yard.

 We did some lotion painting inspired by my nearest and dearest

 they had fun mixing up the lotion with the food coloring and caleb enjoyed choosing what colors he wanted to mix together.

 

and one of our letter E activities. I forgot to take pictures of our other letter E activities, but this was a new one we did with letter disks.

 We finally have a table in our 'school room' This is so exciting for me as it is much easier to have the boys do tasks sitting at a table!! Thanks nani and poppa.

 

 

 confessions of a homeschooler pre-k/letter of the week curriculum

lastly, here are a couple pre-school pictures.

sorting

 tracing

 birthday celebration 'pretend' cake walk

A new blog I'm loving and have added to my learning inspiration collection to reference is The Imagination Tree  It has a ton of great activities, for example this post has a ton of fine motor play ideas. There are a lot of great activities I'm hoping to try out with the boys in the coming months. Thanks for sharing Marisa

 

And that's a wrap for our home school week in review!