Trick or Treat!

We had such a fun night trick or treating! The weather was beautiful - sunny & not a drop of rain! It was actually on the warmer side too! Before we left to meet up with our good friends Adam & Katie and their 3 boys, we stopped at one of our wonderful neighbors first to say hi & get spoiled!!

Our beautiful pink butterfly & crazy little monkey!

After about .5 seconds, Ben knew exactly what he had to do! He definitely used his cuteness to get more candy out of each house! He was hammin' it up all night!



He was so happy getting all the candy!

Check out all the candy! We definitely hit some houses that went above & beyond! A couple houses handed out full size candy bars, one house gave the kids a bag of candy plus a beanie baby!! Now, if only the candy was 0 calories or at least nutritious!!

Preschool Halloween Party

Jaelyn's preschool had a little Halloween Party today. She was excited to wear her butterfly costume to school as well! (yep - she LOVED her costume from last year that she wanted to wear it again!) We were invited for the 2nd half of class to enjoy the party - such fun! A big thanks to Oma for watching Benjamin so that I could enjoy some mommy/daughter time!

Enjoying a pumpkin story (what a goofy girl - she heard me pull out the camera & did a little pose!)


They put on a show for all the mommies -here is one of the songs they sang for us!

Whats a party without a snack? Plus for "dessert" they got to decorate their own cookies with orange frosting & sprinkles!

Jaelyn & Ellie (I think they are pretty good buds!) Too cute.

Playing a bit with Mrs. Erin before we had to leave.

Mrs. Pitts & Jaelyn

Date Night!

Daddy & Jaelyn had a date tonight - Carving a pumpkin at school! What a fun night together!! Mrs. Pitts asked that the pumpkin be ready to carve...so Jaelyn & Daddy cleaned it out before they left.

After a little bit Jaelyn rolled up her sleeve and went to work getting all the seeds out too!

Excited to bring Daddy to her preschool (& spend time with just Daddy!)

The finished pumpkin - cute! Jaelyn & Daddy had a special night together!!

Starting him early

Here is Ben helping Daddy mow the lawn yesterday! He actually seemed to enjoy it & sat still for quite awhile - like 30+ minutes. He didn't even mind wearing ear protection! :) See Ben waving in the picture?!

Now that's a Pumpkin!

We drive past this little nursery to get to our house - & yesterday we saw them carving the pumpkin (w/ a chain saw!) so today we had to stop and check it out! The owner came out to talk with us & explained that it weighed 989 lbs! He got the seed from a kid in Wisconsin...can you believe how big it is? It's huge! He rattled off tons of awards he has received from various years for growing big pumpkins - he grew one that was 1087 lbs last year! Wowzers.

Bathtub Fun

We LOVE the water...can you tell?!

Jaelyn loves that she can hold her breath & put her face under water now - she tries to see if she can beat her previous time too (no, we aren't competitive by any means - where would she have gotten that from?!) Plus she's a great big sister & has taught Ben how to blow bubbles! He would really love it if I let him take swimming lessons too - he really wants to get in the pool when Jaelyn is swimming!

Swimming

She's looking more & more like a swimmer these days! Angela said she is down to 1 floatie next week!! Hip-Hip Hooray!

Field Trip!

Jaelyn had her first field trip with her preschool today...to Remlinger Farms. It was a beautiful fall day and the sun was shining!! It was a jammed packed morning of singing, learning about bees, riding the steam train, jumping in the hay, going through the hay maze & picking out a pumpkin. What fun! Best of all it was just Mommy & Jaelyn....Oma watched Ben for us! What fun to have just girl time together!!

Some of her preschool friends & Mrs. Pitts as the sun!
(it was hard to get everyone to look at the camera at the same time)

Another shot of some of her classmates. We hear a lot about Elle (who is sitting next to her)...they must play together a bunch.

Not so sure of the petting zoo-but did muster up enough courage to feed the goat!

Jaelyn & Ryder

A blurry shot, but jumping in the hay was lots of fun! The hay was on top of mattresses...so it made it really bouncy!

Riding on the steam train (Mrs. Erin helps out the class too)

Picking out her own pumpkin...so many to choose from!

Games!

Jaelyn has taken off with playing games! It's so much fun to play with her & watch her little mind figure out the games. Right now her faves are Candy Land & UNO. We play these games everyday-if she had it her way we would play them all day long! In Candy Land she loves to get "the little people" and doesn't care if she has to go backwards to land on their square. She has a cute attitude if I grumble about having to go backwards, "Mommy, you can catch up to me!". LOVE our games nights together....so much fun!

Play Date

U Village has play days on Tuesdays for kiddos. We met up with Jaelyn's BFF, Sophie, and painted pumpkins together & smothered them with stickers.

After their art project was completed, we headed over to the playground which just happened to be right next to Kids Club. They were doing free braiding or pony tails for the kids so we jumped on that opportunity! You can't beat free! Here are a few pictures of Jaelyn getting her hair done.

First experience in a kid's hair salon

Then of course we had to do a photo shoot of the girls in their new do. Jaelyn became goofy at the sight of me pulling out the camera...she pulled out all of her fantastic dance moves!

I LOVE this picture (although Jaelyn is a bit blurry in it). Such fun to watch their little friendship blossom.

15 months

Weight: 23 lbs 3 3/4 oz (35%)
Height: 32" (75%)
Favorite Toy: his tricycle, trucks, sandbox, soccer ball, busy ball popper, fridge farm magnet
Fascinated by: dogs, horses, school buses (there is a bus stop at our house), garbage trucks.
Loves: to "ride" his tricycle, go down the slide all by himself, give open mouth kisses, scribble with crayons, play with play-dough, dance when music is playing, wave hello & flash big smiles to anybody, run & play chase with his big sister, use a fork/spoon to feed himself
Latest Skill learned: walks up/down the stairs (yikes!). I'm close by when he's going down the stairs, but he doesn't need my supervision going up! He also loves blowing bubbles in the bath-big sister "taught" him this skill thanks to swimming lessons! He can also point to objects in a book when we ask him to...mostly the dogs & cats at this point.
Favorite Books: The touch & Feel Farm book, The Very Busy Spider, or 1st book of Numbers/Objects
Hates: milk (will NOT drink whole milk), getting his diaper changed & finger nails cut
Favorite Foods: any fruit, tomatoes, cheese, spaghetti, ritz crackers. Latest food he loves is eating from the whole apple (thanks to our apple tree & neighbor who brought us a ton of apples from his place in Chelan). I peel the skin before I hand him the apple, but he loves to be like his big sister!
Words: dadda, momma, "bob"-we joke this is his name now!, dog (well, he doesn't pronounce the "g" sound yet), shakes his head yes/no. Not real verbal yet, but definitely can "tell" you what he wants (i.e. pulls on the highchair tray if he's hungry)
Teeth: still 4 on top, 2 on bottom-when are the rest going come?! It would be nice if some molars came in to help with chewing foods.
Hand dominance: looks like he'll be a leftie! He eats with his left, will "color" using his left...time will tell if he sticks with his left. :)
Sleep Pattern: dropped his morning nap ~14 months of age. Still sleeping 7pm-7am with a solid 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon.

Our little fish

Jaelyn LOVES her swimming lesson each week. If she could have it her way we would do it everyday....she looks forward to it that much! We have done lessons for about a month and a half and she has quickly gone from 4 floaties to 2 floaties! She is our little fish who is a natural in the water. You can't beat a 2:1 ratio for fast learning.

The last few minutes of class they get to "play". Jaelyn loves swimming after Angela, her awesome teacher, while trying to squirt her w/ water! Good thing Angela squirts her back!



Pretty impressive! She says diving head first is her favorite part of the lesson...2nd favorite is play time at the end. My kinda girl! :)



Here Jaelyn is trying to do the flying arrow dive. The idea is to get them to dive through the noodle to extend a bit more on the dive. Hasn't quite got this one down (I'm not sure if she completely understands that her whole body is supposed to go through it!). She does shows her swimming skills after this dive too.