Ward Christmas Party

We enjoyed going to our ward Christmas party this year, something we missed last year when we were all sick.  The food was good and so was the company.  This year, the ward did something different and Santa came to visit at the beginning as you came in.  That way the kids wouldn't have to wait to see him and then after the meal we could have our spiritual program without worry of losing the spirit at the end with Santa. This year the Primary children got to participate in the program and Sean was invited to go up on stage as well.  They gave him a costume to be an animal at the stable.  He took his part very seriously, as you will see in this video.  It is rather long (I didn't know how to crop it down), if you watch long enough he really gets going during one of the primary songs.  He is wearing a green shirt with a white cap and white vest/apron.  He is the one standing right at the beginning of the video.  Can anyone guess what animal he is?

Firestation Fieldtrip

We recently had the opportunity to take our co-op preschool to the Redlands Fire Station.  Sean was very excited and looked forward to this for days.  He even told me on the way there that he was going to be a firefighter when he grew up and drive a green fire truck.  When we got there, Sean suddenly got shy - which is quite funny because of how much he talks about it.  All of the boys seemed to have such fun there.  We missed one of our kids, who couldn't make it though.

We were given a small tour of their living area and then were taken out to the garage and shown all the vehicles.  One of the firefighters put on all of his gear slowly (so he wouldn't scare the kids) and let them touch him if they wanted.  He even put on his mask and oxygen to show them.  He also let the kids try on parts of his gear and Sean got to put on the oxygen tank.  It was really heavy, but you can see from his face that he was having the time of his life.  They let the boys go in all the vehicles and gave them hats, stickers and coloring books.  Once he had his hat, Sean asked the fire chief if he could get in the driver's seat of the fire engine so I could get a picture.  He was in heaven!

It was even interesting for me and I enjoyed getting to know more about what they do, their equipment and how they keep us and our community safe.  We are grateful for firemen and their sacrifice.

Here one of the firemen dressed up in his gear to show everyone.

Sean looks like he is in heaven trying out the gear!

Its hard to tell, but there is Ryan in the vehicle too - he just had to be part of the group!

Look Mom, I'm a fireman!

Mr. Independent

Lately Ryan has been wanting to feed himself.  So I just drop his food on his tray and let him at it.  Even though it is much harder to clean him, he is much happier, and will not scream at me during dinner time!  Sometimes there is just food that needs to be eaten with a spoon or fork, so we continue to try and feed him those foods and he usually screams at us and tries to reach for the spoon!  So I tried to give him his own bowl and spoon and see what he could do with it.  It ended with a colossal mess, but boy was he happy and he even managed to get a couple of spoonfuls into his mouth.  He is also definitely going to be a lefty (Yeah!)!

I'm ready to fight fires.....

Sean loves fireman.  He loves to watch, read and talk about all things fireman.  He even has been telling us lately that he wants to be a fireman.  Today he was playing around and informed me that he was now ready to go into a burning building and fight a fire and he asked me to get a picture.  And here it is.....

One year older and wiser too....??

One thing that is not very common on this blog is an entry about me. I would rather focus on family events or my kids - besides, what is there to say about me?

Recently we traveled to Denver, and whenever we are in the car I have this funny desire to take "traveling in the car" pictures of everyone.  But that usually means there is not one of me as Steve does the driving.  This time, I turned the camera on me and tried to get a picture, but all that I got was this:

 I celebrated my birthday on the first and as an adult I find that birthdays are no big deal - you are just another year older - another year to find a new wrinkle.  I remembered the primary birthday song, "One year older and wiser too..." and it made me wonder, am I wiser this year too? Are these the eyes of a wise person? I hope so.  I hope that in the last year I have gained more wisdom, not just more fat and wrinkles (haha). I realize that this is a ongoing process to gain wisdom - so I'm O.K. if I am not 100% there yet. I still have a lot of life left!

Happy Halloween

Sean declared this year that Halloween is his favorite holiday and he talked about it all month long.  He decided to be a pirate, and asked me to be his matey and we made Ryan his parrot (and I got to recycle the parrot costume Sean used a few years back).  Sean asked Steve to be his pirate ship and Steve had a great idea to make a ship out of a box and wear it, but he ran out of time to make it and I am not good at that.  So at the last minute Steve did decide to dress up as a Bronco fan who does not want Tim Tebow as quarterback.  He definitely got a couple of fun comments about that during the night.

We decided to go trick-or-treating as a family and thought we would be gone about 1 hour and then give out candy.  It turns out we were gone about 2 hours and I had to bring Ryan home and let Sean finish with Steve.  It was fun though.  We have decided to call Sean Captain Sneaky, as he would sneak up to each of the houses.  Below are a couple of short videos showing his sneaking.  We tried to get him so say something like Arg, give me your treasure, or something funny like that, but he stuck to "trick or treat".  Ryan was pretty calm and was content to be in his stroller and hold some of the candy.  Usually he eventually dropped it, and surprisingly never tried to eat the candy.  After being in the stroller for over an hour he couldn't stand being tied down so we let him get out and he was sure funny to watch walking around as a parrot.  He would move his arms and look like he was flapping his wings and he could not seem to get his balance so that was pretty funny.  I wish we would have gotten a video of that, but it was dark by then and I didn't think that it would turn out.

Once we got home it was time for a late bedtime so I put all the candy we were going to give out on the porch and let the kids get for themselves.  What a fun night!

Dressing up for Sean's preschool party.

What a cute parrot!

Having fun...

We realized after taking this that he was giving Steve the "stink eye" that he has recently started doing!

Last minute No Tim Tebow Bronco costume

Pirate family - Captain Sneaky (Sean), Matey Mom and Parrot Ryan

 Here are two videos showing Captain Sneaky in action....

 

Brothers

Having Ryan in our home has been quite an adjustment for all of us, but more so especially for Sean.  Afterall, he lost a brother last year, when our last foster child left.  When Ryan first came, Sean was excited, but the newness wore off and he started to back off and I think he might have been a little scared to invest his feelings again.  Slowly we have seen the bond between them grow.  I have watched Sean go from not wanting to hold Ryan to asking if he could hold him a few months ago.  Sean is also very aware of Ryan and will often willingly share his toys or if Ryan is upset, Sean will offer a stuffed animal for him to hold.  One time Sean touched my heart when he told me we needed to get a dog.  I asked him why - you don't like dogs.  He said - Ryan does, so we should get one for him.  How sweet that he will think of things Ryan likes and want to give them to him.

Now that doesn't mean that they always get along.  What really has grown between them has been a love/hate relationship, which I think is normal between all siblings.  One minute they are playing great together and the next minute one or both of them are crying or screaming.  What surprised me was that it started so quickly with Ryan being so young!  At first, I thought it was mostly Sean not wanting to share his toys or space, but I quickly learned that both boys play into the struggles.  Ryan seems to only want what Sean is playing with and is very quick to over-run a situation.  I can see how already he has such an aggressive personality - he sees what he wants and he is going to go for it - no matter what!  I do love to watch them play - there are many times they play well next to each other, but sadly I spend a lot of my day being referee and sometimes I think, will this ever end? 

I am so grateful that Sean gets to be a big brother, even if it means he has to share his toys or books or our attention!  What a blessing it has been to have both of these special and individual boys in our home.  I love both of my sons very much!

 

This is the first time I could get Sean to sit on the couch with Ryan for a pic.  Unfortunately he wouldn't "hold" him and poor Ryan was having a rash at the time.

 Below: Rough housing with each other.  They were actually getting along and no one got hurt!
 

  

 

 

 

These two pics (above and below) were a couple months after the "couch" picture above.  This time Sean asked if he could hold Ryan and it went pretty well, even if they wouldn't hold still! 

 They are both trying to get me and the camera in these three pics below:

 

These pics below are one of the few times they will play together happily - hiding in the desk compartment.  They will be sad when the desk is sold.

Fun Fall Days...

Since the weather has finally gotten cooler, I have tried to get the boys outside a little everyday if possible, just walking around the neighborhood.  We have also tried to just have fun in the house and enjoy each day.  Here are some fun pictures of random things we have been doing lately.

Both boys love the park and seem to want to climb up the slide instead of slide down it!

Just because....

If I will let him, this is one of Ryan's favorite places to play.  A sippy cup stopper is in his mouth.

Here is our table tent we made one day.

I don't know why I love this picture of the back of him - maybe it is the feeling of concentrated play.

They are actually getting along for a while in the tent!

He can hardly contain his excitement that we are outside and walking around the neighborhood!

Sean loves riding his trike in the neighborhood.  He is ready for a bigger bike!

Pumpkin Patch

Today Sean, Ryan and I took a field trip to Moon Farm as part of Sean's co-op preschool.  For the first time ever they had a pumpkin patch and haunted hay bale maze, plus their usual assortment of things to do for kids.  We all had a great time.  We started by going through the Haunted hay bale maze, which Ryan loved and Sean thought was spooky (though he was having a great time too).  I didn't get any pictures of that unfortunately.  We then went through the various buildings they have - including a castle and a pyramid.  Then we found the merry-go-round, which they loved.  Then we moved on to the play houses.  Sean's favorite seemed to be the house with all of the traditional home appliances - fridge, stove, etc.  But we also found Sean, Stone and Sawyer in the "school" house, playing school.  Sawyer was teaching the others about dinosaurs (which they talked about a couple of weeks ago)!  We then made it over to the animals and the big hit was the bunnies - Ellie and Addie kept going back to them.  Sean finally got to hold a bunny with the help of the other kids (I think he was just too gentle to try and pick one up).  I even helped Ryan pet one through the fence (it was too hard to get in the pen with him and there were two school groups visiting at the same time so there were so many kids).  Normally I am worried about losing Sean, but he stayed with the group pretty well, and it was one of the other kids who kept wandering off.  It was a relief to not feel so worried this time! 

We finally made our way over to the pumpkin patch and hay ride.  We rode with another school group to the end of the pumpkin patch and they let each child, including our group, pick out one small pumpkin.  Sean searched and searched for the perfect pumpkin - one that wasn't too heavy!  Ryan loved getting down and trying to pick up each pumpkin.  After we finished the hay ride we tried to get a group picture, but unfortunately, Sawyer had had it by then and would only cry.  We decided that was ok, so he is crying in every picture I tried to take.  Then we all went our own way - most of the kids did the haunted maze a couple more times, including Sean, but he also made sure that before we left, we stopped by the train and took picture on it.  The weather was perfect today and we had such a wonderful time!

Everyone loved the manual push merry-go-round!

Most of the time Ryan was content to ride in the stroller (I don't think he felt great, but that actually made it easier to help Sean most of the time!).

Sean loved holding the bunny!

Hay ride!!!!

Ryan loved trying to pick up the pumpkins.

 

Having a great time!!! I love that smile!

There is the group getting ready for the hay ride - Rome hadn't gotten on the wagon yet so he is missing.

Searching for the perfect pumpkin!

...and here it is!

Snuggle boy!

Ryan loves pumpkins!

Here is Sean's preschool group.  L to R: Sean, Addie, Rome and Sawyer.  Sawyer was "done" and I couldn't get everyone to look up.  Hopefully one of the other moms will have a better picture to share.

End of the field trip - enjoying the pumpkins!

Don't forget the train, mom!

Still my cutie pie!!!