Halloween

After a month full of Halloween festivities it is finally time for the big day!  After seeing what Halloween was really about at his preschool party...our Superman could hardly wait to get home and get his costume on and get his candy bag.  He was ready and waiting by the door at about 4:00!

Paxton as Superman

Age: 3 

Holiday's don't go by in our house without a little photo shoot.   Tegan is not so happy about this tradition and his pictures always turn about like this one!

Tegan as a Sockmonkey

Age: 18 Months



The Boys!! 

We loaded up and headed out to the neighborhood trunk or treat at 5:30. Paxton insisted on pulling Tegan in the wheelbarrow the 2 blocks up hill to the culdesac behind us where the neighborhood was meeting.

 We got there a little bit early and the boys discovered the big bowl of sucker I had brought to hand out to the trick or treaters.  I think they would have been happy to turn around and take that whole bowl of suckers home and call it a night!

 

For the past couple of days we had been practicing the whole concept of trick or treating and I am proud to say that Paxton said Trick or Treat to every neighbor (except for a few who had crazy costumes) and both he and Tegan said Thank You after they had received their candy!  I guess all that practice paid off!!

 Since Andy had to work, I recruited Jessica to come and hand out candy while I took the boys around the circle.  Even with bags full of candy she had a hard time keeping them out of the suckers!

After one time around the circle I decided we had collected enough candy and let Paxton take over Jessica's job and hand out the candy...I think he liked that about as much as getting candy!

30 minutes later our candy was gone, the boys bags were full and we were on our way home!  That is my kind of Halloween! 



Paxton's Preschool Halloween Party

Paxton finally gets Halloween this year and he has been looking forward to his Superman costume and his preschool Halloween party for months!!

East Meadows Elementary Preschool

Tuesday/Thursday Afternoon Class

Miss Nicole, Miss Dana, Miss Jean

Kenley, Dexten, Darl, Pona, Sydney, Paxton, Bradyn, Teague, Oliver, & Sage

 SUPERMAN!!!

 There were a lot of superhero's this year!

 They had a lot of fun activities planned for the party this year!  After a fun speech lesson where we dressed up as a mummy, they got to rotate through 3 different stations to play some fun Halloween games.

First they got to eat a donut on a string with no hands!  Pax was a little confused but once he got his first taste of that little donut he was going to do just about anything to get the rest...even if it was making a huge mess!

 Once they got their donuts, they got to finish eating them while the read a story about a runaway pumpkin!

 Nest was the fishing pond!  Paxton was in heaven when he threw in his line and pulled out baseball whistle and an Orem Owl candy (a candy that looked like an owl!)  We have never given Paxton a whistle so he was (and still is) a little confused on how to make it work...I guess he just can't blow hard enough! 

 Finally, they got to play a game where they picked a monster and put candy corn teeth on the monster!  As you can see Teague is still trying to get his whistle figured out!

After that they got to trick or treat with their class...Paxton brought his friends the same popcorn mummies that we had made for his cousin Halloween party!  He was pretty excited about the stash of candy that he got from the party and had most of it eaten by the time we got home!  It's a good thing Halloween only comes once a year!

October Preschool Fun

Paxton LOVES preschool!  I wish he could go everyday he loves it so much!  He has learned a lot of new things this month and got to have a lot of fun experiences!

At the beginning of the month we got to go for a wagon ride!  They pulled the wagon right up to the school and we rode around the neighborhood for about 20 minutes.  Paxton was not so excited about petting the horse but with a little bit of coaxing from mom he finally decided it wasn't so bad!

 Since it is the month of October we did a lot of activities that had to do with Halloween!

Paxton got to make a monster that was on display all month!

 They also did a Ghost Color Story for snack time one day.  I though it was so cute! It went like this:

6 little ghosts stayed at home while their mom went to the store. They were told to eat only white food while their mom was gone. But they didn't listen. Each ghost ate something different and then changed that color.
Licorice=red
Olives=black
Grape juice=purple
Carrots=orange
Pickles=green
Chocolate chips=polka dots like a cookie
Then to change back to white they had to drink...MILK

 They had to try these things and then match the color of the food with the colored ghosts on the table!

 And of course you can never get enough playtime!!

We had Paxton's first parent teacher conference this month...Paxton is doing a great job in all of the academic areas that are appropriate for his age but he got a "some of the time" or "most of the time" (as opposed to "always") in the following areas:

Plays cooperatively with peers

Shares

Accepts correction cheerfully

Participates in musical activities

and

Displays self control

Are you seeing a pattern here!!  Since then we have been working really hard on sharing and not always having to get our way...hopefully it is carrying over to school!

 



Fall Photo Shoot

Reason #786 that I love Fall...

Sweater Vests!!

These boys looked so handsome in their new fall sweater vests I couldn't help it and had to force them to pose for a little photo shoot!!

Paxton James*3 Years 3 Months

Tegan Drew*18 Months

Handsome Little Men!!

Pumpkinland

We decided to venture over to Orem to check out Pumpkinland...knowing my kids the more low key something is the more they usually enjoy it.

First stop...the bouncy houses!  The boys haven't really had the chance to try out a bouncy house without a million other kids jumping on top of them.  Luckily Pumpkinland had a bouncy house just for the 2-6 crowd and even better we were the only people using it at the time.  The boys got to jump around all they wanted...which for Tegan lasted about 2 minutes.  Paxton liked it a little bit better, especially the jumping up and falling down part!!

 Pax was determined he was going to do the big bouncy slide like the big kids and after about 5 attempts and that many minutes he finally made it to the top. 

 The poor slide was not in the best shape and Paxton had to scoot his little bum down the slide inch by inch until he finally got to the bottom.  You would think that he would have been bored with the whole thing and ready to move on but nope...up the slide again he went about 4 more times until I finally couldn't take it anymore and forced him to move on!

 Next stop...the animals!  My Tegan is pretty fearless...I missed the moment where he actually had his head inside the goat cage talking to the goat.  Luckily they weren't too interested in the birds (my favorite!) or bunnies but they did stop to check out the bigger animals.

 They were going for an Alice and Wonderland theme this year at Pumpkinland...the boys had a great time checking out all of the exhibits and activities that they had for them to play on!

 Next up...the Corn Maze

Look at this picture...they are so dang cute I can hardly stand it sometimes! 

 I tried to challenge Andy to a race through the maze but he refused claiming he would just have to do it twice to come back and look for me when I got lost...yeah right!  This was right at the start of the maze when the boys were actually pretty into it.  About 2 seconds after this picture was taken, Paxton decided that he needed to be held and Tegan decided that he was more interested in shredding the leaves off of the cornstalks.  We did manage to make it out of there and Tegan did walk through the whole maze...I was pretty impressed!

 Anyone who knows me well knows that there are a few things in life I could do without...one is birds (there were plenty of them at Pumpkinland) and the other is blow-up lawn ornaments!  Well wouldn't you know they had an entire room dedicated to Halloween blow-ups!  Unfortunately for me...the boys loved them but that is one thing I just don't think I could give into.

 Finally we ended up at the swings...wouldn't you know this was the part that they liked best!  I am figuring out we just do what we can to make memories for our kids and usually it doesn't work out how you pictured in your head!  In this case the best part of Pumpkinland and the thing the liked the best was the swings...oh well at least they left happy right!

Pumpkin Pizza

Reason #57 that I love this time of year! 

Nothing makes me happier than when I can comply Paxton's request for "pumpkin pizza!"  The smile on his face was priceless!

Thanks Papa Murphy's...you helped me make my son's day!!

Paxton's Hearing Screening

The l district Audiologist came to Paxton's preschool to test all of the kids' hearing.  I was curious to see how Pax would do because he is my kid who has had 15+ ear infections and 2 sets of tubes.  I told the audiologist that I was so excited to finally get him to pass a hearing test because he had not had an ear infection for 4 months!

Well of course by saying that I totally jinxed myself and sure enough...he didn't pass because he had an ear infection!  Out of all of the kids in the class the one that didn't pass is the child of the school speech therapist...awesome!!  Guess we are off to the doctor for some antibiotics and will try again in a few weeks!