Catching Up

Wow it's been a long time since I have last blogged. I guess with the start of school it has made things more busy. Speaking of school...Grant entered 1st grade this year! It is unreal to me that we have a six-year old son in 1st grade. He's always loved going to school but there is something special about this year. He has even said to me, "I wish there were no Saturdays and Sundays so I could go to school everyday!" So far he has excelled in school which I am sure makes a large impact on his interest in school but I think this year he wants to go to see his teacher, Mrs. Bruce. He may just have a bit of a crush on her (which I don't blame him-she is quite pretty). He says things like, "I like her face" "she has good hair" "she wears fun clothes" and "I got to hold her hand today since I was line leader." He talks about Mrs. Bruce often and gets red in the face and smiles when I ask about her. He's already thinking about next year. He said, "I don't want to go to second grade." I respond with the question, "why, because you think it might be harder?" He says, "no, because I won't have Mrs. Bruce as my teacher." He then came up with this crazy idea that maybe...just maybe she will decide to be a second grade teacher next year instead of first grade and he can have her again. Oh my. At least he's not crushin on someone his own age and calling her his "girlfriend" because in my opinion...they are far too young for that kind of talk.  I know it's all innocent but still... he'll have plenty of years to think about girlfriends...right now I just want him to be a kid. So, although his infatuation with his teacher is borderline obsessive...I'll take it.

First day of 1st Grade. He was super excited!

Lane enjoys waiting for the school bus to come! He watches, waves, and waits til it's out of sight before returning inside.

Lane really would love to go to school! And technically he could as of November 14th but we decided we would like him to start at the beginning of next school year. I just don't want him to ever be the "new kid" if I can help it.

Lane's daily routine. Wait, watch, wave. Repeat

First day of school fun with the kiddos. Homemade sidewalk paint!

I received this random letter from Grant one night and it absolutely made my day! Made me cry to think about how sweet our boy is!

Once again we decided to plant some pumpkins in our garden...however, this year we decided to only plant half of what we planted last year. We had about 30 grow but of those 30 several weren't very good ones.  There are still some green ones out there and they are still flowering so there might be hope for better ones to come. We will see. Planting pumpkins is not only incredibly fun for the kiddos but I absolutely love FALL PUMPKINS growing in our backyard. Gives me such a warm and cozy feeling.

Lane just loves Halloween decorations. The scarier the better! He actually requested to be a ware-wolf for Halloween-which was a step up from what he originally pointed out to me on Pinterest. We were just scrolling through ideas for toddlers and up popped the guy from the Saw movies on his little red tricycle. Yep, Lane yelled for joy and said, "Mommy, he's scary I want to be him!" YIKES! Fortunately for me, he changes his mind often and is still easily persuaded.  He has since decided to be Super Why, which is not at all scary and it's already ordered and here. He looks so funny in it.

Grant was lucky enough to go to another Cardinals game this season. He is still a die hard Card fan.

Grant's love for baseball is starting to rub off on his little brother. Lane likes to play t-ball and is now yelling, "home-run, Cardinals win, Cardinals win" after every hit.

The daycare kids have a hideout/clubhouse. This was Lane's initiation day!

The boys went frog hunting a few weeks ago with the intention of entering the frog in the Burgoo frog races-but they came back home empty handed. Kinda sad but they had fun trying.

Grant's rein as the Burgoo king is now over. He gave up the title at this years Burgoo. I think he had a great year and it was definitely something that helped him come out of his shell and be more outgoing. I do think he will enjoy watching parades again instead of always participating.

If you would have asked me three years ago if Grant would ever stand on stage as a little mister I would have put $1,000 on the fact that he most certainly would NEVER! He used to be so incredibly shy and although he can still be reserved he has definitely grown as a person so much since starting school. I'm excited to see what else this little boy has in store for us.

"Don't mess with me, my gang is not far behind me and we don't mess around!" Ha...such a tough look for such a sweet little boy.

The Burgoo once again had some rides to entertain the kiddos (and the adults) -Lane's favorite by far was the big slide.

Ever since the start of school Lane has insisted on having a backpack too. He wears it around the house and packs it around everywhere. It's filled with his favorite toys and it is quite heavy...sometimes I wonder how the little guy isn't falling on his face trying to wear it.

Feeding the animals at the Jungle Safari

Although they did like feeding the goats- they watched the monkey for seriously 20 minutes and giggled at all of the silly things they watched him do.

A few weeks ago we had a four person weiner roast at our house. It was perfect weather and the boys had such a blast.

Lane was struggling with a cold so he decided to cuddle up next to big brother for a little rest.

Poor Jason moved straw bales every half hour. First they wanted a  "u" shape, then a circle, then they wanted a fort, then they wanted their fort shaped differently. Ha..he got a workout just trying to keep up with them.

And of course, with boys, there will always be wrestling and romping.

Toward the end of the evening they decided they wanted to watch a movie under the stars. They did this for a while until they got too cold and tired. What a fun family night it was. Can't wait to do it again.

Lane informed us that his hair was "too long long long" and he "needed a haircut" so we took him in to get his locks cut. He loves to have his hair cut and usually does super duper well but this time he grinned and smiled the entire time. It was cute to watch.

Lane's absolute favorite show to watch is PAW PATROL. He watches it multiple times a day and is constantly quoting lines from the shows. He has a collection of all the pups (except for Sky because we can't find her in store anywhere) and plays with them all of the time. He has decided he wants a PAW PATROL birthday party so ...let the planning begin.

Lane has now started to chew his bottom lip...just like Grant used to do. Grant used to do this until his lips were so raw and sore they'd look horrible. Apparently, they get this habit from their father as he used to do the same when he was a kid. Ugh...it's annoying to me but all I can do it coat them with Vaseline.

Lane and I took a selfie....I look a hot mess but he is adorable so I had to add this pic too.

Lately Lane has had a horrible cough...and he will tell  me, "I can't breathe, I need my fishy (his breathing treatment)." He wasn't sleeping well at night so of course he took snoozers during the daytime. Had to prop him up so he wouldn't cough...poor little buddy...I hate it when he doesn't feel well.

Every year since starting my daycare we have made Stanley the Scarecrow. Well, this year I got smart and decided I was not going to wait until October when it's usually so cold it's nearly miserable to make him...we made him when it was 70 and sunny. Now I am on a mission to correct his head. I have always disliked his head...just doesnt look right to me. So I think I will try to cover a plastic pumpkin in burlap and use it as a head instead of a pillowcase.

Grant is incredibly interested in Minecraft now. This is their little book club they have going on..with discussions on different Minecraft ideas.  I will not let him play Minecraft in survival mode as I feel he is still too young to fight off and slay zombies and creepers but I let him play in creative mode where those things aren't there and your survival isn't at stake...it's all just fun and creative. I don't get it really but hey...he hangs out with older kids, he's going to want to to do older kid things like this I guess.

Sling shot fun- he's actually pretty good at this.

Grant's bottom tooth is loose. He has waited for this day for over a year. He was so excited to tell us this that it seriously looked like Christmas morning with all the jumping up and down and screaming for joy. I made this little box for his tooth to go in for the Tooth Fairy.

This is the inside of the box. Grant is excited about this but I am really freaked out by loose teeth. Yuck.

Grant absolutely loves playing with his daycare friends. They are always busy doing something. He and Brock are like two peas in a pod. Wonder what the future years will hold for these little rascals. 

Other random things that don't go with a picture.
Lane says really hilarious things all of the time. He likes root beer flavored suckers but never calls them rootbeer but always, "brown root." He always asks for his hotdogs and nuggets, "naked" because he doesn't like buns or ketchup. When he hands you something he likes to say, "here you may go" instead of just "here ya go." He loves milk still and we are currently in the process of weening him off of so much milk a day. He only gets four sippy cups of milk a day where as before it was pretty much unlimited.We just bought both boys new beds. Grant's was sooo old and Lane was sleeping in a toddler bed so we got them each big beds and they are loving them. They enjoyed jumping on the old mattresses outside...and like always they enjoyed wrestling and romping on each other on them.  They are always romping and chasing each other. It's really like a zoo or a gymnasium in my house everyday. Lane now goes to Sunday school every Sunday morning. He seems to really enjoy it and loves to brag to his friends (daycare kiddos) that he is "big" now. So cute but kinda sad that my "baby" is now old enough to do all of these big kid things. Grant is into all the things the older kids are into...and asked if he could have our old cell phones. So he has a "phone" now...of course it has no service but he still likes to pack it around with him and play the games. He changed his background picture to a picture of Jesus hugging a little boy....which made my heart melt. Love that he knows Jesus and talks about him often. Grant is really into anything antique. He asked me to take him to an antique store to find something "old" so I did. He wanted all the most expensive things like a $690 antique cash resister and $100 typewriter.  He settled for a five dollar antique pocketknife. He has now added "antiques" to his Christmas list. Yes, he already has a Christmas list!!! Grant loves to play school and teach Lane new things. He is now working on teaching him his letters..he loves to give out prizes to him and he especially enjoys filling out a behavior chart on Lane. He is very good with Lane and explaining things to him. It's so sweet to witness. These boys can both drive me absolutely looney and melt my heart all within five minutes. I will try blog more often so when I do, it's not a short novel with 1,000 pictures. Just got busy with other things that I had totally forgotten to update. Until next time....