Science Museum trip...

Last Thursday and Friday Oliver & Lucius had no school. So Thursday I took the boys downtown to the Science museum. We got our tickets for the 11am showing of "flight of the butterflys" omnitheater. Before the show started we had an hour to go see the dinosaur bones. Its the Little Misters favorite thing to see at the museum.

 

After the dinosaur bones, we stood in line to see the Butterfly movie. The boys thought it was pretty nice. Lucius thought the best part was that "it feels like you're flying by your not, right?". Oliver thought the story of the butterfly's flight was interesting. After the movie we walked to cossettas to eat pizza with Auntie Mick. then it was back to the museum for more exploring with cousins. 

Before leaving we got the four boys together for a group shot. Thanks Auntie Mick for coming out on an adventure with us!

Quotable: Dear Santa...

Back at the beginning of spring the boys started discussing what they wanted to ask Santa to bring for Christmas. Lucius had asked Opa to get him a motorcycle, but Opa wasn't fast enough. So one day Lucius said:

"Since Opa is taking so long getting me a motorcycle, I'm just going to ask Santa!"

Of course a motorcycle sounded easy in comparison to what Oliver told me he wanted from Santa:

"a super hero set (suit) that's fireproof, lava proof, waterproof and flood proof. Plus it washes in a second by magic so I never have to take it off. Also a magic wand, shredder weapon with an on/off switch and a gun."

Thank goodness they've changed their minds since spring and moved on to "just Legos". I can handle Legos. 

phone photos...

Lucius has finally overcome his fear of raindrops. We've played in the rain all summer to try and ease his mind. It still freaks him out from time to time if were out when it looks like rain, but if he's got his rainjacket or and umbrella his happy to splash in puddles and dance in the rain.

Auntie Dana called us early one Saturday asking if we wanted to go to Ikea. Well who wouldn't?!?! so we went, cause it happens to be one of Marmee's favorite stores. We even managed to find an "Oliver"... boy they have everything! (Oliver wasn't feeling well so he laid in the cart for the second half of our shopping trip.

Speaking of not feeling well, Lucius was super whiny one day, so we forced him to lay quietly in our room for ten minutes for a break. Needless to say he fell asleep shortly after that and slept of almost an hour and a half, till we woke him up for dinner. (Daddy laid down for a while to snuggle with him and then daddy feel asleep too.)

oh and then Lucius was feeling better. The next day we went on a shopping run before school.

Then it was off to school but we were a little early, so Lucius decided I had to take his crazy faces.

 

books, books, books...

Our house usually has at LEAST four piles of books throw about. There's always one pile on the couch, a second pile in front of the bookshelf, a third mess of books strewn across the playroom rug, and a fourth on some one's bed. It's not toys that we continually step over, or have to pick up but books.

Not that I'm complaining, we love books in this house. We can never have too many and it's always a fantastic day when we come home from the library with "new" books. Oliver usually is at school when Lucius and I go to the library for story time. I try my best to borrow books I think he might like. And once Oliver climbs off the bus after school he goes straight for the bag of library books and starts reading. 

Books are a huge part of our day. Oliver wakes early every single morning, about 6:15am. And EVERY SINGLE DAY he comes straight into my bedroom to ask me "can I read books quietly?". I almost always say yes, but first I check the time on the clock because there have been days he woke up at 4am and wanted to read right away. A part of me wishes he wouldn't wake me up that early, but I've grown so used to it that it might be weird if he didn't wake me up. Who am I kidding, it'd be awesome to sleep until my alarm wakes me up- it would only be weird for a day.

Oliver is patient enough some days to read to his brother.

Also Daddy and I try to read to them both every day, weather it's picture books or short chapter books.

(This summer Daddy and Oliver almost finished "The Hobbit". I read them "Alice in Wonderland", "The Magician's Elephant" and now we're reading "The Water Horse".)

leaf pile...

The Little Misters love leaf piles a lot. One saturday while waiting for Oma and Dana to come, they raked the whole front yard. Of course the leaves were all wet, so they didn't get to jump in the piles that day.

On Sunday the following week they spent a long time working really hard to rake the whole front and side yard to make a big leaf pile. Then it was another hour or two playing in the leaves.

Lucius modeling...

Lucius and I ventured downtown this afternoon because I got super excited about a new photography location. I just had to see it in person. Lucius was just happy to get out of the house. He usually isn't super excited when I point my big camera in his face but today he was cooperative. Maybe more than cooperative and even a little silly.

I absolutely LOVE this mural and those giant red dots, but I think this photo might be my favorite I snapped of him today:

Random stories...

Lucius being silly giving me double bunny ears.

Oliver has a fifth grade reading buddy. One Friday he had a little trouble being nice to this fifth grader. Apparently they were comparing who reads faster and the both thought they read fastest. Well Oliver ended up correcting his reading buddy and telling him he wasn't fast when he was reading out loud to Oliver. It frustrated this older kid and Oliver got into a little trouble. I heard about it from his teacher. At home he and I talked about how everyone has different things we're good at and other things we need to work at. He offered to write an apology letter to his reading buddy and I was super proud he worked hard at it. It seemed like the lesson sunk in and the next week he had a much better reading time with the fifth grader.

Now that the leaves are falling off the trees the boys are super excited to rake. They want to make the biggest leaf pile so they can jump into it. I told them we didn't have that many leaves just yet but gave them rakes. They were out there for a few hours raking up that pile. I'm glad I'll have good helpers this year raking all the leaves.

One of the last Fridays in September we had our last summertime outdoor movie night. We watched Rio 2 and besides all the mosquitoes, it was a pretty lovely night to sit outside.