Our fun Fall weekend

It's been a busy week for us this week, but we've had lots, lots of fun this weekend.

A few highlights from during the week:

• I got a 104% on my first Calculus Test.  Woo hoo!
• Grandma Bush is here to visit.  It's been a super long time (practically a year) since we've seen her, aside from Skype, so it was great to see her Wednesday.  She is here with us for a week - when she will go visit some other friends and family - until Grandpa Bush flies in next weekend. We had to take advantage of her being here to have some fun this weekend!

Our weekend:

• The boys are easily amused by "forts" or anything they can climb into and/or under.  A few blankets over the sides of the table and they were amused for quite some time.

• After their nap, we headed to Yates Cider Mill.  There is an area where kids can ride ride ponies and feed goats and llamas that we checked out before getting some yummy donuts.  They definitely weren't afraid of any of the animals and if they weren't blocked by fences, I think they actually would've gotten closer.

• We were hoping to get some cute pictures of the boys by pumpkins, but it is not only hard to get them to both look at me to get a decent picture, but they were also too squirmy and wanted to walk run around in order to sit still long enough.

• Then the best part - DONUTS!!  Of course we had to eat a few and they absolutely loved them - not a surprise!  No cider for us.  We like it enough, but didn't feel like spending $10/gallon.  

• Last to do before we left, was check out the little fire truck...

• They loved running around and were not bashful around all the people around them - because despite the cool weather, it was still pretty packed.  Once we got home, you could tell they were exhausted.  They both ran over to the table "fort" with their blankets and laid down.  

• The relaxation was short-lived though.  Next up, grandma showed Ellis how to play the "drums"

• Grandma Bush was kind enough to watch the boys while Troy and I had a date night out.  We went to Rojo Bistro, Mexican Restaurant, and had an awesome margarita and dinner.  Then we went to the movies and saw End of Game.  GREAT MOVIE if you are looking for one to see!  

• Today, I headed out to find some bigger clothes for the boys. Some of their 12-18 month clothes fit, but some are clearly too small.  Time to move up to 18-24 month clothes.  I also picked up some winter hats.  After yesterday's cool weather and the fact that the cold does not slow the boys down from wanting to play out there, they are a necessity for us.  I'm slightly disappointed at the selection of young boys hats - most of them had obnoxious animal faces on them and without knowing what color winter coat they are going to have, I didn't want to commit to a crazy colored one either.  So we settled on these:

Once Logan started giving people a high five, then a "high ten", he likes to wave with both hands, too.

Ellis did not like having to stop pulling the wagon for me to get a picture of him in his new hat.

• Of course we had to take a wagon ride after we got home and the boys spent a good hour outside afterwards - with an additional short wagon ride around the block.  

• Phew...and that was our weekend.  I will end this week's update with a few pictures of our fall colors in the front yard.

Ensuring a good night's sleep

Here is a little video of their recent favorite activity before bedtime.  Hey, whatever it takes to make sure they have a good sleep, right?

Happy Birthday little girl!

Yes, I'm a day late, but better late than never.  Yesterday our little girl turned 3 (or should I say 21?!?).  Here are a few pictures of her over the past three years!

A mere 8 weeks old.  This picture was taken the night Troy brought her home!

Her favorite spot - MY spot in bed!

Her favorite summer treat! Oh heck, her favorite treat regardless of time of year!

Birthday #2

Laying with dad on MY blanket - yet another of her favorite places to lay down.  

Attention seeker

A favorite pasttime - going for a walk.

To celebrate her birthday, she did a few of her favorite things: went for a walk, played with her toys (including a new one), and took lots of naps.  She also got a new bed, which she so graciously let the boys play in, before we put it in her bedroom!  Her MOST favorite was the yummy treat Troy got her, which she gobbled right up!

You are such a good little girl, Bella!  Hope you had a good birthday - here's to many more years...

Nothing too exciting

I'm not going to lie - in the midst of all the other things I've been doing lately, I've definitely pushed the blog to the back burner.  It also doesn't help that there really isn't anything major going on (which is totally fine too!), so I don't have much to share.  Next month we'll have more fun to share since we have more planned, but here are a few stories and pictures to hold you over until then:

The boys have been good with going up the stairs lately, and have been able to go down steps if there is only one or two to get down.  Earlier this week, they went down the deck stairs (about 4 of them) with no problems.  Them becoming more independent with these little tasks definitely makes life easier for us - and less heart attacks fearing they will fall down them.

And of course, what is more fun than climbing the stairs?  Climbing up the stairs with a football!

With the changing weather this week, and the much colder mornings, we got some cute pullover fleeces for the boys.  Hear is Logan, all ready to go to Grandmas in the morning.  He also has been quite attached to his blanket so half the time, that goes with us too!

This weekend has included lots of relaxing and snuggling blankets and each other.  Ellis was quite content watching the news with Troy after dinner last night...and of course he loves his blanket too!

This morning, I was vacuuming the main floor, and when I was done I prepped the boys lunch before calling them upstairs.  Troy then told me to come downstairs with my camera.  Apparently Ellis was just too tuckered out, and fell asleep right on Troy.  Too cute little man...

So thats it.  A little bit of our past week - nothing big!  Coming up in the next month or so:

• A girls scrapbook weekend next weekend!
• The boys 18 month check-up (with only 1 shot this time!  Woo hoo!)
• Grandma and Grandpa Bush coming home to visit - it has been over a year since we've seen them, so it's a long awaited visit!
• A trip to the Cider Mill - cider, donuts, and pumpkins!
• The Fall Festival and the Zoo Boo at the Detroit Zoo
• And of course the boys 2nd Halloween.  They didn't dress up or go out last Halloween - heck they were only 7 months old - so I consider this Halloween to be their 1st one!  =)  

Happy Fall everyone!

Guess who?

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth.  This was a crazy busy week, so although I had intentions of updating the blog earlier this week, that got pushed to the back burner when I was bombarded with lots of other things.  Needless to say, I'm exhausted and have no motivation to do a full update now, but  here is a hold-me-over.

The other gift sent from Grandma Bush was this cute little onesie.  It's a bit big, but I put it on one of the boys.  Your job?  To see if you can tell which one is wearing it.  At almost 18 months, how good are you at identifying who is who?

The shirt reads "I can't remember...am I the good twin or the evil twin?"

Good luck!!

Edited to add: In case you didn't see the update on Facebook, this is Ellis!!

Troy's home!

What a busy week, as I knew it would be, especially with Troy gone and it being my first week of school.  Here is the Cliff Notes version of our week:

School started on Tuesday.  It was a crazy week, but it definitely got better as the week progressed and I got to know my students better.  When I actually started teaching Math on Friday, and had the first "normal" day, it got even better.

I started my Calculus class on Tuesday too.  This is the first class for my Secondary Math degree (the one I took last year was just a refresher of Trig to help with this class).  It seems easy so far, although I have taken the class as a senior in high school and a freshman in college, so I'm not too concerned.

Troy left for Cadillac on Wednesday, and on to Glen Arbor for salmon fishing on Thursday.  He had a good time, although was not successful with catching any salmon.  Only 3 out of the 18 guys even caught one.  The windy and rainy Friday made it hard to kayak fish (who wants to try to kayak and fish in 3-5 feet waves??) as well as the water temperatures that were near 70 degrees, which is not ideal for catching salmon since they feed in 55-60 degree temperatures.

Sunset on Saturday - and, yes, that is a person kayaking in the water

Now for my week with the boys:

Logan blowing kisses to my mom as we left for home on Friday.

Ellis is the short napper these days.  On Saturday, we were planning on going to the library after Logan woke up,  so once he hit the 2.5 hour mark (which is long for Logan), I said to Ellis "Where is Logan at?"  He went over to the gate by the steps and was grunting upstairs and pointing up there.  So funny! 

Time for the library.  We went to pick up our monthly books (they get a book for free each month until they are 2 years old, through the Raise-A-Reader program our library has), and then the boys played for a little bit.

Our plan after the library was to meet up with Caryn and Cole and head to the Arts and Apples Festival at the park we often frequent, but on our drive to the library I realized what a zoo the area was with parking.  I swear, it was like a sporting event - people selling parking spots at their nearby business - the closer you got, the more it was.  It was crazy.  So, we decided to skip that and go to Firefighter Park, then have dinner at Caryn's.  The boys had fun - they never have a bad time at the park!  After dinner, all 3 boys played around a little.  I think Logan and Ellis's favorite was the tunnel.  Okay, so maybe I should've gotten them one at Ikea when we went in the summer...

After we got home from Caryn's, the boys got in their PJ's (I love footed pj's on them!), had a snack and watched about 10 minutes of their favorite show (Fresh Beat Band) before they practically zonked out on the couch and I took them to bed.

I was so excited for Troy to come home.  It seems like forever since he left and of course life is much easier when there is a second set of hands.  He got home right when the boys were about to take a nap. It was all about football for us this afternoon - we are on 2 different fantasy football teams this year.  The boys played and played and played.  They must have worn themselves out, because at 6:30 - an hour before they go to bed - Ellis was clearly ready to go to sleep.  He was so cute just cuddling with my blanket on the couch.

For now, its time to drink some Hard Cherry Cider that Troy brought home from Glen Arbor and kick my feet up to watch tonight's Big Brother episode.  Here's to a much easier week!

Randomness

Just a bit of randomness from this week:

Back in May they were unsure about the swings and more about the slide.  Nowadays, they love the swings too.  Even after taking them off the swings at the park, they wanted right back on!

They have recently not liked being fed their breakfast, so my mom started them with actually eating cereal on their own.  A bit tricky for them to keep their wrist straight to put the cereal in their mouth, but they have made HUGE progress within just one week!

 Chocolate chip pancakes for dinner.  Guess who LOVED them!?!  =)

Still plenty of time playing outside in the pool and sandbox!

Troy has multiple extra controllers for his Xbox 360, so when he is playing, he lets the boys use one (with the battery disconnected so it really doesn't work).  I cracked up when we went downstairs earlier today and Logan ran for the couch, grabbed the controller, and acted like he knew what he was doing.  He looks so into it, doesn't he!?!?

Ellis too...although he is more excited to just play with the joysticks.

Yesterday was a ton of fun.  Kelly, a longtime friend who now lives in Vegas, is home for the weekend.  It was great seeing her and catching up.  The boys adored her and Chris, her boyfriend.  It was so cute seeing them warm right up to them.  We hung out at the Chandlers for the evening and had lots of good chats, food, and drinks.  We stayed a little bit for the Michigan/Alabama game, but left by halftime when it was clearly a blowout.

Roomies from CMU and friends to this day!

Today, I got quite a few things done on my weekend to-do list.  Clean out my car (my backseat quickly fills up with cereal and snacks now that they are in the car more often), re-seed an area that we are growing grass in, and put a TON of stuff of the boys on Craigslist - mainly clothes that are too small.  I'm hoping all the time it takes to take pictures, upload pictures and create the posts pays off.  It would be nice to get the 2 huge boxes of clothes out of the living room!  And, I am now addicted to the game "Song Pop"...thanks to Derek - it's a back and forth song challenge game that I'm playing on my iPad, but anyone with smart phones can play it on there too.

Oh, and starting yesterday, I made a month goal to not consume candy.  Over the summer I didn't do too bad, but back at work, I frequently was taunted with candy in front of me at different meetings we had.  I need to lay off.  So, we'll see how this goes.  And if you know me, you know how hard this challenge is going to be.  Wish me luck!

Meanwhile, Troy is getting pumped up for his salmon fishing weekend up in Glen Arbor.  In case you haven't seen his frequent updates on Facebook on how many days until he leaves, he is way excited!!  We wish him lots of luck and hopefully he'll bring lots of fish home (for his consumption only -- I'm not a big fish fan!)

Okay, enough babbling.  I hope everyone enjoys their extra day off tomorrow.  Tuesday its back to school for me - as a teacher and a student!  Not only is the first day of school with kids, on Tuesday, but my Calculus class starts Tuesday too.  I was spoiled by taking an online class last semester, but I have to go on campus for this one.  I have taken Calculus before (just taking it as a refresher before taking Calc II in the winter) but its been 14 years, so I'm hoping it comes back quickly.  Between everything starting up this week and Troy being gone fishing, this is just a heads up that you might not see me on here until next weekend when I have time to breathe!  

Happy first week of September!