Great Wolf Lodge

We spent two days at the Great Wolf Lodge this week with Braden and Conner's cousins and his Grandma and Grandpa Thomas. We have been there once before so Braden was VERY excited about this trip. Conner, on the other hand, was not as excited. He did not so much enjoy the trip last time at about 2 1/2.

This time Conner loved it just as much. I guess being almost 3 now he was much braver! Conner even ventured away from the baby/toddler area and enjoyed a continuous loop up and down the bigger slides. He still isn't tall enough for the really big slides that Braden very much enjoys but he was very brave on the big ones. He would climb up by himself and even go down himself after mom went first to wait for him at the bottom. It was so fun to watch him sit at the top by himself and wait for the slide worker to tell him to go when I could see him across the park from the line to the big slide with Braden.

Braden loves all things at the Great Wolf Lodge. He goes on all the slides except for the howling tornado (because he isn't 48" tall yet) and the faster the better. He is fearless and loves the water. He loves to go with his older cousins and feels like a big boy! Every time we would go down and splash he would say "that was the best one!" He also really likes the quest wand game that he would play with his cousin Jeffrey.

Both boys stayed up until 10:00 that first night which is a big deal in this household of a strict 7:30 bedtime. They both did well the next day though because I think the pool and slides were enough of a distraction and they did sleep in until almost 8 (yippee). Here they are watching a little Phineus and Ferb before bedtime to unwind. We all had a great time!

Christmas Tree

The boys enjoyed decorating our Christmas tree this weekend. This is the first year Conner was really excited to put up the ornaments. He was very careful and thoughtful about his placement of each one. They ended up all being placed about 4 feet and under so dad and I had to do a little reorganizing afterwards. Braden really enjoyed decorating too. He enjoyed finding all the cool ornaments with cars or sports on them. They want the Christmas tree lights on all day now that the tree is up. Next event, Gingerbread house and gingerbread train decorating!

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Conner replied "Um, I guess just bigger...."

Santa Train

This last Sunday we visited the Santa train in North Bend with a great group of friends. It was a lot of fun and the boys enjoyed playing on all the trains, seeing the other kids, playing with the train set and enjoying cookies and hot cocoa. Conner also loved the music that was playing by the small band while we were waiting in line to see Santa. He is completely obsessed with all things music and he loves singing. I liked watching him stare up at the musicians in awe. This was also the first year that both boys sat on Santa's lap without any tears. Conner even told Santa that he would like "Thomas" for Christmas. However, Braden froze when he was asked what he would like for Christmas. (This is unusual as he normally has a list of toys a mile long for mom). It was great to see our friends that we don't get to see very often and I think the trip was almost more special for mom than for the kids. It was great to see everyone and their adorable kids!Now you would think that with all the pictures that we took on this fun trip that we would have one good picture of all four of us for our Christmas card. Nope. Oh well, I did get some great pictures, just not of all of us! Maybe it is me that ruins the pictures as I got several cute ones of the 3 boys. The one of Jeff and Conner is my favorite of the whole day.Here's a picture of us on the train with our 3 kids (isn't our daughter cute?)

Braden and Conner loved playing on all the machines.
No trip is complete without a game of ring around the rosie.....and of course a little solo dancing by Kyla "bootie shaking" Perry.
Merry Christmas!

Pancakes, Waffles, Biscuits

At a family wedding this summer they held a large rock, paper, scissors tournament where everyone was competing in this action packed game. This was Braden's first experience with rock, paper, scissors and he LOVED it. He still asks to play it with me every now and then. Last weekend he came to me and asked me if I wanted to play pancake, waffle, biscuit. We have family breakfasts every weekend with the four of us and Jeff always makes either pancakes biscuits or waffles because that is their favorites (especially pancakes). I guess this is where he came up with it.

Basically Braden's version of the game is very similar to rock, paper, scissors. The pancake is the paper, the waffle is like the scissors and the biscuit is the rock. The hand motions were the same for pancake/paper or biscuit/rock but the waffle sign was some funky crinkly version of pancake/paper. He really loved it and was very proud of his new game invention.

Funny statements overhead.....

Tonight Conner was cracking us up. He is just at that age where most of what he says is hilarious even if he isn't trying to be. During dinner the boys were singing the days of the week song together. Then, Braden was trying to be a good teacher to his little brother when Conner got part of the song wrong and said "Conner, now what comes after Tuesday?" Conner promptly said "November" with a lot of confidence.

Then later during an exciting game of Candy Land, Braden was being his ultra competitive self and we were trying to teach him good game playing manners as Conner was losing by a lot but still happily moving his piece along the board. Then, Conner picks the coveted ice cream cone card. Now, for those of you that play Candy Land know that is the best of all the cards and can move you almost to the end of the game. Conner was so excited and as he moved his piece up to the ice cream cone square he says "Candy Land" in a low, sing-songy, voice that let us know that he was being cocky. It was quite hilarious......

What did we do without them?

Halloween

This was the first year that both boys were really excited about Halloween. They LOVED decorating the house. They both enjoyed dressing up this year (last year Conner wouldn't get anywhere near his costume) and they loved trick or treating. Luckily we had several Halloween activities before the actual day since Braden was sick on Halloween night and was quite sad. The first words out of his mouth were "I'm not going to get to go trick or treating am I?" followed very quickly by "Oh no, am I missing school again too?" Missing school is not acceptable to Braden.

First we enjoyed the annual Halloween carnival at Fidalgo School. It is always a lot of fun but very crowded. The biggest hit is the big bouncy house but it is a 5-10 minute line each time and then 3 minutes of fear as I worry Conner will have his neck snapped by the elementary school kids bouncing.

Then, we had Braden's school party. This was one of the many mistakes I will make as a parent. Braden informed me as we were getting ready that it was a costume party. I told him no that it didn't say that on the note and assured him we were to just go and decorate pumpkins and eat pizza, no costumes. Well, we get there and I was very wrong and Braden was very sad. Luckily, Miss Louise was there (Braden's teacher) and she helped Braden to the dress up corner in her room and made him quickly into a pirate. This was acceptable to him and I convinced him it was actually cool since now he got to be a pirate and a power ranger. They loved decorating their pumpkins here since it was with these sticker kits.

Decorating at home with carving was not quite as interesting to them and they both ended up leaving to play geotracks before Daddy was done. (After daddy had already saved me from my pathetic efforts at carving)

Then, we went trick or treating to all the stores in La Conner on the 30th. They both enjoyed this and we got lots of candy. Conner said no thank you to everything chocolate and would just walk away if they didn't have starburst, suckers or airheads. This was quite embarrassing to me but luckily he is still little enough that it was cute and not obnoxious.

On Halloween, luckily we had our fill from other events and Braden got past his sickness pretty quickly. Conner and I still went to our friends house where many children were gathered for a party and trick or treating. The first house Conner walked right up and tried to open the door. Then, after a bribe from Papa we were able to get Conner to take chocolate from the houses that only had chocolate (which were almost all of them) only because he knew he got to trade them to Papa later for starburst. And although he took each one and said thank you each time he still would not put them in his bucket so mom had a bag full of candy by the end of the night. Conner ended the night with 3 things in his bucket. One thing was a movie size box of Starburst so he was fine with his haul.

I am looking forward to Christmas. Halloween was a lot of fun!

Soccer

Both boys have had soccer this spring and loved it. It looks like both of my boys will be pretty excited about sports which will make their father quite happy.

Braden is now old enough to do some soccer that actually involves games and it is very cute. He is pretty aggressive about getting the ball and wants to be in the action all the time.

Conner is just starting his taste of sports with tot soccer for 2 and 3 year olds. This is very slow and really most kids just do whatever they want. Conner is not into trying to get the ball and would really rather just kick his own ball. Luckily, most of the time spent in tot soccer is with everyone having their own ball. They do a lot of practice kicking and they play red light, green light at the end of every practice. This is Conner's favorite part. They are supposed to kick their ball and run when it is green light and then stop and "trap" their ball when it is red light. Conner loves this new skill of holding the ball still with his foot on top. However.....every time he goes to stop his ball this way he falls and rolls over the ball because he is not tall enough to get that leverage on the ball. It is so funny but he just gets up and puts his foot on top of his ball everytime with a big smile.

Words of Wisdom from Conner

Yesterday, Braden got very upset because he didn't get to do something first (this is a very big deal in our house lately). I explained to Braden that he didn't get to go first because he was whining about it. Mom's do not like whining. Then Conner calmly says "Yea, I don't have much whine". Ah, brothers......

Pumpkin Patch

We spent a beautiful sunny day at Gordon's Pumpkin Patch today. The boys both picked out a pumpkin.

Conner was overjoyed at his choice.

Braden picked the biggest pumpkin he could find but my picture of it didn't turn out.
We enjoyed all the photo opportunities (most of which I had to bribe my children to pose for) and went through a small "haunted area" with pumpkins, skeletons and ghosts.

Here they are dancing with the skeleton.

Conner told all the people that came in that it wasn't scary because it was just pretend. He came to this conclusion all on his own and seemed very proud of his bravery. He was more afraid of any dog he encounted, even though they were all leashed. The kids had a great time with mom, grandma and papa (thanks for the pumpkins and apples), and their aunt Tina and their cousins.

Oh my goodness sakes....

This is Conner's new favorite line. He'll say it over and over again. It's pretty cute though.....

Woodland Park Zoo

The last week of summer we decided to take the boys to Woodland Park Zoo. Conner LOVES animals so we had been wanting to take him before school started. Now, he loves real animals but detests the stuffed walking kind like Chuck E. Cheese (we've found out from experience). So who is at the zoo on the day we decide to go? Yes, the Tillamook Cheese cow as it was Tillamook Cheese day and he was handing out little stuffed cows and cheese sticks. Since he was at the front part of the zoo this was one of our first experiences. While both boys loved the zoo, Conner still talks about the "Cow scared me". People are confused since you don't normally see cows at the zoo. Conner's favorite part was the elephants. Braden's favorite part was the lions and of course the cow game (Conner's least favorite part). My favorite part was the otters and I think it was Jeff's too. It was a great way to end the summer.

Chelan

We had a great family vacation last week in Chelan. We stayed for 4 days and this was the first time Conner and Braden have been away with us for longer than 1 night (we went to Great Wolf Lodge earlier in the summer for one night). They were both so excited the day we left and the morning we were leaving as we were packing up to go over we couldn't find Conner for a few minutes. I looked in the garage and he had got himself in the car and buckled himself in his carseat and was quietly waiting for us. I guess we were taking too long for him! The boys slept in the same room and did great! I was so proud of how well (and late) they slept. I guess it helps to tire them out so much during the day. We did a lot of swimming and Braden loved it. He swam the whole time by himself with the help of arm floaties of course and loved jumping in the pool. We don't go swimming very often (maybe 3 times in his whole life....with the exception of kiddie pools) so I was proud of how well he did. He went under water, jumped in, the whole 9 yards. He also swam in the lake which was very, very cold. Conner also enjoyed swimming but insisted mom hold onto him the whole time. The boys enjoyed having us at their beck and call for 4 days. We swam, played at the lake, played basketball, trak ball, soccer, on the playground, went on walks and enjoyed our family. It was a great weekend! The day we left Braden asked "Now, does everyone have to leave today?" When I told him people would come and go at all different times he was wondering why we should have to go and begged we could come back again another time.