Thanksgiving

This November has been so fun! We really enjoyed Ian's 5 day thanksgving break. The first two are pictures of Thomas at the Feast our church has every year. That dinner is always so much fun and filled with great food and friends.

The boys are waiting anxiously for cinnamon rolls to get done on thanksgiving morning. Yes...I got up to make cinnamon rolls!

A little parade watching

After our traditional themed thanksgiving (spanish this year) at my dads we went to Ian's sister's to have some REAL thanksgiving food. It was nice to have that this year. And there are 6 week old babies at Aunt Erin's so Mary is happy!

                                      

Recent happenings

This is how Thomas feels about learning to sit in a chair when mommy tells him to stay! Usually he does much better:) And I'm usually not snapping pictures of his sadness...but I thought his reaction was noteworthy since it's so disproportionate to the activity I'm asking him to do!

Anyway, last week was Halloween! On Tuesday we went to story time at Ikea. I love this place even more now. On tuesdays kids eat free. And not one kid per adult kind of free, but FREE! So I got three kids meals and one adult meal and only paid the $4 for an adult meal! Incredible. And then they do a story time which includes a craft and a snack and that is all free too! So we won that week, but they definitely get us some times when I also buy stuff that is awesome, but not needed.

 The skunk costume is alive and well! Still my favorite costume ever...

 And here is my crew plus one of their good friends who came with us. They had a great time even though it rained, and our neighborhood had a decent number of kids. Such a dramatic change from our last neighborhood. The kids made it around almost the entire neighborhood before the rain really started to get to them and they told me, "we have enough candy, let's go home!" We did, but I got Noah to go back out with me later!

Working hard

Both Noah and Ian have been working hard! Noah is making holes in a useless piece of wood...

Ian is building my corner cabinet!! Almost finished...

The lazy parents' guide to Halloween costumes

At the beginning of this year I had grand plans to go as a family as the cast of Dora. Mary would be Dora, Noah would be Diego, Thomas as boots, Ian as swiper, and me as the lazy mom who eats all the kids candy while they run to the next house. I think that last character is in one of the books. Definitely read that somewhere. Anyway, doesn't that sound so cute? 

But here is reality:

And here is the lazy parents' guide to Halloween costumes: open up the dress up bin and let it explode on your kids! It's especially nice if, like us, your dress up bin is really just a card board box where you've thrown past Halloween costumes (when you actually went to once upon a child and bought your kid someone else's old costume) and clothes people have given you that you didn't really think were outfits, but didn't know what else to do with.

I am pretty excited for the return of the skunk though! I actually bought that costume new (from gap clearance center with a gift card...but still) when Mary was a baby. Good luck with your costuming!

Quotable: soccer edition

Ian coached Mary's soccer team this fall, along with two of our other friends, and it has been a hilarious time. Our first quote comes when Mary was in the goal and Ian had three boys set to play against her...

Ian: ok boys, your job is to try and score on my daughter, but you've got to get through me first!

Other coach: uh, you may want to rethink how you worded that

Ian: oh! You guys will NOT score on my daughter and you WILL to go through me first!

Another time our team was up by a lot (even though there is no official score) so this was Ian's solution...

Ian: ok guys we can't score anymore, so when we get to their side of the field you need to just pass it to Mary.

Boy on our team: (passes ball to Mary- it bounces off her legs and she stares at it- he looks up at Ian in horror with an 'are you kidding me' look on his face)

Ian: Buddy, girls are going to be frustrating you for the rest of your life! Get used to it!

Ian (to boy on team): hey bud run on back to coach Matt and he will show you what to do.

Matt: (staring up at the sky where another kid on the team was pointing)

Ian: Matt! You're supposed to be teaching them where to stand!

Matt: what? He saw a plane! 

There were so many funny moments. Hopefully more will come back to me!

Noah's learning time

We have started some actual structured learning time with Noah a couple days a week. I thought I would share a couple resources that we use for our little man.

 

 

• There's always the amazing starfall and they now have starfall apps! So we put both the letters and the learning to read ones on the ipad and both him and Mary love them.
• The tried and true preschools packs and all the other great resources on that site
• I recently found the pattern block printables pictured above and we already had the Melissa and Doug blocks and boards.
• And my kids LOVE the dot-a-dot markers so I found these great printables to use with them.
• And I follow the Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading with him just like I did with Mary. Seriously works like a charm:) Except we don't really follow their order...just do whatever letter corresponds with the topic we have that week.



16 months

This picture says so much about Thomas. He is DEFINITELY a Sammons:) He is a happy little man with a sweet smile and he is absolutely loveable.