Pickin' the Punkins

We are in my favorite season. I love sweaters and crock pot dinners, pumpkin flavored desserts, the end of yard work, wassail, Halloween and pumpkin picking!

I Guess It's Too Warm For His Footsie Pajamas

This is how we found Jake yesterday morning. He had taken off his one piece, footed pajamas by himself in the middle of the night. That boy has skills.

Update

I love it when Hayden is off track. We just seem to be able to do so much more. We also love sleeping in and wearing pj's for much longer into the day. Here is some of what we did.

Here is a shot of Hayden and Brandon enjoying the new telescope. Hayden looked at the moon, Jupiter and the Big Dipper (Brandon would like me not to have included this shot because the flash is making quite the bald spot on his head)
We enjoyed the last warm night of the season by playing with Bandit in the backyard.

Jake thought that being outside in the dark was fabulous.

We love Baskin Robbins! It is a tradition to have their cakes for every birthday. There's nothing better than a tiny, tiny cone.

Jake is 18 months old! He's been a little grumpy the last couple of months, and now we might know why. He grew 2 and a half inches in three months. He jumped from the 77Th to the 96Th percentile. Yikes. His poor body must have just ached. He now weighs in at 25.46 pounds (44Th percentile). His head continues to be large, in the 98Th percentile (big Thatcher noggins).

Happy Birthday Hayden!

Today, my little Hayden turns 8! I'm so happy that he is my kid. He is a joy to have around this place. Every day, he tries to be the best brother, son, friend, grandson and schoolmate. Brandon and I agree that he's smarter than us. I can't wait for him to get home today from school so the celebration can begin!

p.s. We took this picture on April 1st, printed it out and hung it on the inside of the toilet seat in my bathroom with a sign saying "Ha Ha! I seeeeee you! April Fools!" Brandon thought it was very amusing when he came home and found it.

I Only Do It Because I Have To

Jake has a blanket that he drags around all day. He sleeps with it, eats with it, watches Dora with it and rides in the car with it. It is the single most important object in his life. Blanket gets filthy. I cannot wash blanket without causing much distress. I cannot wash blanket while he sleeps because he sleeps on top of it. So I have him help me put it in the washer, and turn it on, but as soon as the door locks he is devastated. So he watches it spin around with his other blankets and waits.

He tries to pull out the storage drawer on the bottom, hoping to use it as a step to reach the cancel button to free his blanket. It's hard to watch, but it must be done. I hope he doesn't hate me too much.

The Class Pet Survived!

Inside this lovely carrying case was our visitor for the holiday weekend-Bugsy the class guinea pig. Hayden was thrilled he was chosen to take Bugsy home on a three day weekend, not just the boring old two days that most of the other kids get.

I've never been a fan of pets that live in cages (rodents, snakes, lizards all kind of freak me out), but guinea pigs are actually really cute. He's pretty chill. He was happiest sitting in the log in his cage staring. That's my kind of pet.

When we took Bugsy out for some free time, Jake took his chance to treat Bugsy like he treats our dog-with aggressive love.

But we caught him in time and Hayden showed him how to give the guinea pig "soft loves".

The train table doubled as a guinea piggy play pen, and my boys couldn't have been any happier. The boys are BIG animal lovers like their dad so having another one was a treat. And it was good for me because he went back home last Tuesday.

All in all, Bugsy was fun. The only place large enough for his cage, out of the reach of Jake and the dog, was on my kitchen island. On day three of our time with Bugsy, I was cutting carrots for Hayden's lunch on the counter across from him. Suddenly I could hear little squeaky, chirpy noises and Bugsy was attacking the corner of his cage trying to get the carrots. Hayden thought that he could only feed Bugsy his guinea pig food so panic set in when I gave Bugsy a carrot. I had to spend twenty minutes looking up the care and feeding of guinea pigs on the Internet to show Hayden that fresh fruits and vegetables are good for them before he calmed down. So Bugsy survived. And now I'm a little less frightened of creatures in cages.

More of Hayden's Pictures

I love finding pictures that Hayden takes with his camera. It's always interesting to see everything from his perspective. This first shot is his view when he's lying in bed.

The trees in our front yard
Yesterday he told me, "Mom, did you know some people in my class stick out their tongues when they are coloring?" Now, this is something he does all the time-when he's coloring, doing homework, building Legos and now apparently when he takes photos-but I didn't tell him that. I just told him, "Wow that's an interesting thing to notice."

"What? What's that you say? Speak up, I can't hear you."