First snowfall...

The Misters have been waiting for the first snow fall. They were excited last Friday when it finally stopped being rain and started to change to the flakes. Granted it was still a very wet snow but they found enough to keep themselves pretty entertained.

Then they ventured to the neighbors backyard. I didn't think there was all that much snow on the ground but both Oliver and his friend found enough to make large snowballs. 

Raking...

Oliver loves raking. He does it all on his own the minute the first leaves start falling. I think he loves seeing the leaves from the whole yard coming together to make a leave pile.  He doesn't actually spend that much time jumping into the leaf pile when he is done, he just likes making the biggest leaf pile he can. He'll rake the leaves out of the street back into our yard and then into his pile. He'd rake the neighbors leaves into our yard if I didn't stop him. He just loves to rake and create this monstrous pile of leaves. It's one of the few jobs he enjoys and sticks with long after every other kid stops helping him.

One day He skipped food to rake. No FOOD.... to RAKE is huge. Just jumped off the bus, dumped his backpack in the house and started raking. I asked him if he wanted a snack and he said "MARMEE, I'm raking!!"

simple pleasures: trees...

This boy loves to be in this tree out front of our house. He climbs it, sits in it, reads in it and eats snacks in it. This particular day he had hauled cushions up, piled up his books to read and then got a snack to eat. He called it his after school nest.

Meeting a new cousin...

My twin Sister Michelle had her baby on Saturday November 5th, a little boy named Holden. The boys were super excited to meet him. On Sunday we went up as a family to see him and visit.

They are both now totally and completely in love with their new cousin. Lucius won't stop telling us how much he wants a baby to live at his house.

Notes...

Every so often Jerimy and I make a decision that Oliver is not too happy about it. Sometime after he calms down I usually end up finding notes similar to this one.

I'm glad that he is expressing his thoughts and feelings. It's been a long summer but he has come a long way toward working through his big emotions. It's not always easy but there has been big progress.

First Grade Field Trip...

Mid October Lucius' class went on a field trip to the pumpkin farm. They saw farm animals, played in a corn pit and road the hay wagon to get their very own pumpkin. I went on this same field trip with Oliver and was hoping to go with for Lucius. But working in the school this year, I don't exactly get a lot of days off. After talking to his teacher I decided to let the other 12 parents who wanted to attend, be with him. Lucius seemed okay with that and I promised to go on a different one.

Another mom I'm getting to know better was able to snap a few photos for me. I'm so glad to see his smiles, even though I couldn't be there in person to share them.

Chess Tournament...

Lucius has been playing chess everyday, multiple times through the day since the beginning of Chess Club four weeks ago. He's becoming a bit obsessed with it really. I heard about another chess tournament and he told me he really wanted to play. So Saturday morning bright and early we headed to New Brighton to play chess, knowing this was going to be most of my day.

We invited a friend who also likes chess and Lucius was excited to see that his dad had brought him. I thought it was nice to have someone else there I could talk to and pass the time waiting with. Lucius REALLY wanted to win a trophy but I tried to make sure he knew he'd have to work hard to earn it. It was a grade level tournament, which meant that he'd only play against fellow 1st graders. That meant the odds of him winning increased quite a bit because there were only 9 first graders playing. He won his first game, lost his second and then won both his 3rd & 4th game. There were only 4 rounds to play.

 

Little did I expect him to beat that many players but he won the 4th place trophy. His buddy won the 3rd place trophy for 1st grade. Together they won enough games to earn 6 points and win the 1st grade Team trophy (same school/ chess club). They were so beyond excited and they both can't wait to display the team trophy at school on Monday morning. He worked hard for that and still very much loves the game.

STEAM pumpkin geo boards...

Just before Halloween we went to STEAM and the boys built pumpkin geo-boards. They thought it was super awesome. They poked small nails into their pumpkins and used colorful rubber bands to make faces or shapes to decorate said pumpkin. I think they turned out really awesome.

Halloween...

This year was kind of a lazy, do whatever kind of costume search. I didn't have time to make anything and Oliver never seems to be able to settle on one thing for very long. Lucius had decided to be a storm trooper months ago. So when I found the storm trooper hoodie at target for a reasonable amount of money I snatched it up. Oliver meanwhile was undecided till the weekend before Halloween. Thankfully Daddy took him to the costume store and they managed to find one of the last Pikachu's left in the world. But there was no way to find yellow pants in time so it was whatever it was going to be to get kids out the door.

Thankfully no one really cared too much that their pants weren't perfect, including the boys themselves. Monday night we had pizza and then took a few photos.

After which we waited for friends to arrive before going door to door. This year we managed to gather a rather large group to walk around our two blocks. 14 kids and about as many parents. Towards the end I was able to use my mad kid herding skills to wrangle the herd of candy collecting beasts. I think a fun time was had by all and there weren't too many tantrums. I call that a success.