Halloween Cookies & T-Shirts with Landon, Gilian and Jacob

Ok, by the time I took the pictures Jacob wasn't up at the table anymore. Sorry about that! Jenny brought the kids over and I had made the dough and frosting the night before, and I should have brought them out of the fride a little earlier than I did, because the dough was really hard to work with and the kids were ready to use those cookie cutters! Of course, they had to wait for the best part - finger painting on the frosting (and eating the cookies).

Earlier this week I took Michael and Connor over to Jenny's and we made tie-die t-shirts for Halloween. See below for what they turned out to look like. Of course, you had to marker-in the 'face.'

Fun With Daddy

The kids have not seen a whole lot of Mike lately due to his tight training schedule. So, this Tuesday, when he had an evening off, he played hard with the kids and they had a blast. This particular evening the kids got basket rides in the living room.

See a short clip below. I think Mike was spinning the kids around for at least 30 minutes.

Pre-School Day

Once a month I host a 'Pre-School' day, rotating with three other mothers, from 10am - 1pm. The kids all bring their own lunch boxes and we let the kids have a play date and do something educational. When I host the 'Pre-School' day I like to focus on sign language, and I use Signing Time videos as part of my lesson: http://www.signingtime.com/. I also like to incorporate arts and crafts projects. The theme today was 'On the Farm' and learning signs for farm animals. The kids made a puppet mouse and colored farm animals. I printed these out from http://www.dltk-kids.com/.

Boys Behaving Badly!

Wow. Today was full of mischievous incidents staring my children... Hitting, Biting and Being Messy...

Hitting...

Michael Jr. is rather possessive of his (and Connor's) match box cars. He likes to line them up or dump them from bucket to bucket, hide them in the couch, etc. Well, today, like many other days, Connor wanted in on the action and decided he'd like to play with a car or two. Big Mistake! Michael grabbed a car and proceeded to hit Connor over the head - just going at it! I of course intervened as soon as I heard Connor screaming at the top of his lungs. All was quiet after the 'I'm Sorry' and hugs and kisses. It wasn't 15 minutes later and I caught Connor picking up a car and he proceeded to bang Michael Jr. on the head. I had to explain to a 14 month old (in very short terms) that we don't hit anyone, then explained to Michael Jr. it was his fault that his brother was hitting him with a car, because he started it earlier. I'm sure this won't be the last time they hit each other. It was pretty difficult NOT to laugh out loud, as I was secretly cheering on Connor - he's finally at the age where he can fight back.

Biting...

Well, Connor obviously didn't get enough 'pay back' with the car incident so he decided to bite Michael Jr. on the back and left a pretty good mark. Connor is teething and getting two more teeth in.

Being Messy...

I had let Michael Jr. have some lotion and then a friend called me and I was on the phone with her maybe 5 minutes and in this short amount of time Michael Jr. smeared lotion all over his head, Connor's head, the fridge (and magnets) and the garbage can! Of course, this was all minutes before I was to start hosting 'Pre-School.'

Michael Jr's Haircut

Today Mike shaved Jr's hair. I always get up tight about it because of the big hairy mess, so I had Mike put Jr. in the tub to try to contain most of the mess.