10/29 - Picnic & Sue's Halloween Party

We've been getting our bearings since grandma and grandpa Hoyt left. I picked Eli up early from daycare on Tuesday and we went down the park to have a picnic. Aiden had his first occupational therapy evaluation on Tuesday morning. He did well and I'm curious and excited to go back on Tuesday to find out the summary of his evaluation. We've been doing his homework which is rubbing him over his arms/legs with a soft brush and doing some deep pressure exercises on some of his joints. It's supposed to help re-program his brain for touch. He actually really likes it.

We had fun at our picnic. The boys ran around a bit and then we had dinner (yogurt, apples, crackers, and hummus). They are such silly little boys and are so cute. Eli soaked himself with water at daycare so he had to borrow a shirt (which is why it say OPK on it). I can already tell I need to send about 2 changes of clothes a day for that child.

They played in the swings for a bit. All the pictures of Aiden came out blurry. There were 1 or 2 that came out okay but I would have had to type too much to convince you he was actually having fun. As you can see in this picture of Eli, he was having a blast on the swings.

We had some stale crackers so we fed those to the ducks. We then decided to take a family picture (minus Brad who is in Nevada) at the park. It actually turned out pretty good. We then walked back to the house and did our night time routine.

Last night we went to Sue's for her annual Halloween Party. Last year it rained right as the movie was about to begin so I just left because Eli was getting pretty fussy. This year I was determined to stay as long as the kids would allow. Here are the costumes. I was able to do much of it by myself although my neighbor did sew a seam at the bottom so we could loop some cord through it. I should have gotten a picture of my costume. I went as Awesome Amy! The boys were not too excited about putting their costumes on but I told them they had to for a bit. They have brown pants but it was too hot for that.

They were trying to play soccer while dressed in their pumpkins costume. It was funny to watch seeing how they had balloons stuff under their costumes to help add some volume.

In the picture below, Aiden is telling me he's had enough of his costume and he wants it off. He didn't even keep it on long enough to march in the parade with it on.

I took it off but he still wanted to march in the parade. He ran around the whole circle almost (which is pretty far for him to run). I didn't know he had that much endurance. He was pretty worn out at the end.

The picture below cracks me up. Stephanie and her family came and the monkey is Blaise. He was too cute. Eli and Blaise were playing with the ball and it was too cute to watch a monkey and pumpkin run around chasing a ball.

Here is Super Sara getting ready to take Eli's costume off.

With costumes off, the boys played in the backyard again. Eli was draw to the sand mound while Aiden was content to just kind of walk around and look at various things.

Poor Aiden. After all that running, he was exhausted by the end of the night.

We ate pizza, grapes, and pretzels and waited for it to get dark. Once it was dark enough, the movie (Charlie Brown and the Pumpkin Patch) started. The boys that it was so neat to stand in front of the screen before the movie started.

We didn't get home until about 8:45/9:00pm. The boys went straight to bed. And what time did they wake up? Guess. Normal wake-up time is 7:00am. They were up by 7:10am! Only 10 extra minutes. I'm thinking they will take longer naps than normal today. They had lots of fun but weren't quite ready yet to go in the not-so-scary hunted house yet. Sue really outdoes herself with the production she puts on. There were probably about 30 kids there (plus all the parents) so it was quite busy. We did errands this morning including getting our oil changed. I'm not sure what this afternoon will hold for us. Brad is in Reno for the weekend and is going motorcycle riding all day today. That should be fun for him.

10/24 - The pumpkin patch; G-ma/g-pa leave

We took the boys to a pumpkin patch on Friday. Aiden was very excited to pick out a pumpkin.

This place was cool because they had all sizes of pumpkins and the kids go to pick out a couple little pumpkins for just 50 cents. They both picked out two and Aiden even slept with his the first night.

These brothers are so adorable!! Aiden is such a great big brother. His love makes my heart smile.

Eli absolutely loved this pumpkin carriage. He stayed in there for quite a while and kept coming back.

Here are both the boys playing inside the little carriage.

Can you find Eli? He's dressed like a girl :)

Aiden loved this little tractor and would have stayed on it all day if we let him. He was having so much fun.

Eli on the other hand, Eli came over and sat on the tractor for a minute but then wanted to get off and go back to the pumpkin carriage. 

Aiden was practicing his jumping skills and Eli does everything Aiden does, so here is Eli jumping off the pallets. Surprisingly, Eli can actually get a little air under his feet when he jumps. 

Eli didn't care much for the rocking chicken teeter totter.

Aiden would have gotten 5 big pumpkins if I let him. We ended up just getting one big one but we still haven't carved it yet.

Eli loved showing me his pumpkin.

What a great picture of the boys and grandma Jo and grandpa Dave.

Mom and day Hoyt got some very bad news on Sunday evening when we got back home from church. Grandpa (BJ's dad) fell and broke his hip. The Hoyts took the boys to daycare this morning and then took off to Iowa (they were going to be here until Saturday but grandpa needs them. The Hoyts brought down some of Brad's stuff with them and we were waiting and excited to give these old banks to them. They had so much fun tonight putting money in them.

10/20 - Brad is leaving

Aiden and Eli collected most of the track from the train table and brought it all into Eli's room. Aiden built a pretty awesome track. He definitely has an engineering brain! I didn't help him at all!

We had an interesting playdate last week. A few of us met at church and brought any tents that we had and we set them all up. The kids just ran around like crazy for 1.5 hrs. It was complete chaos but the kids had fun and since it was raining out, much better than just sitting inside.

Eli was cracking me up grabbing the microphone. Him and Blaise were taking turns. Between those two, there is some serious personality.

I think there were about 12 kids there.

Aiden has just discovered jumping off of something. He actually learned to jump extremely late, probably just a month or 2 ago. He was so excited to jump off the little stage. He just kept jumping off, walking around, and doing it again for probably 15 minutes.

It was finally snack time and the boys were such good listeners about sitting down to eat their snack.

Aiden started walking around inside this huge tunnel and thought it was great fun even though he fell on his face every time.

To prepare for Brad leaving and his parents coming, we moved Eli into Aiden's room. We then pulled out the futon so Brad's parents could sleep on it. The boys had so much fun playing on the futon.

Eli had fun being covered up and rolling around on the bed.

I got one more picture of Brad getting ready to put the boys to bed on his last night home for a while. Those little boys are gonna miss their daddy. Thankfully he's not gone for too long this time.

Brad left on Thursday morning and his parents came in to town. The boys took to them right away and were so excited to play with them. Aiden was using his pliers to pick up legos and put them in his truck.

The next post will feature our pumpkin patch visit!!

10/15 - Lots of church stuff

This week has gone by pretty fast. The boys are doing well and I've started to get behind on school work again. I have lots of grading to do at the moment. I'm excited to be teaching at UF and I knew it would be a challenging effort but I still think it's worth it. It seems like I get home and after the boys go down, I'm busy doing work until bed time but I love teaching. Brad has been such a huge help by taking the boys to daycare and sometimes picking them up. Without his support, I would never be able to do this. He's also been good about letting me do work at night and respecting that I have work to do although sometimes it's just doing my BSF homework or other bible study work since I don't have time during the day to get that stuff done.

Our church is having a Missions Week and there have been lots of activities planned. We went to the community cookout in OakLeaf (they did cookouts in 3 different areas of west Jacksonville/Orange Park). We brought our grill and Brad was the cook. They had a bounce house for the kids which was a huge hit. I'm not sure how many people were from our church versus just neighbors who came out but it seemed like fun for all. Here are Aiden and Eli with one of the missionaries daughters, Ashton. She was so sweet and helpful to them.

Eli actually usually doesn't like bounce houses but he did go in this one when it was just him and Aiden and 2 other kids. Once everyone else started coming, it was too crazy for him. I was excited he at least went in it a few times.

We had some of the hotdogs that Brad grilled. Aiden wanted just a bun, no hotdog. What a crazy kid. I got him a hotdog anyway and made him take a few bites of it. Eli, never one to waste food, eventually ate Aiden's hotdog too.

The boys got new long sleeve Gator shirts and I put Eli's in his when it was a little chilly this morning. He looks so cute in it (Jess - I have stuff for Liam and it's just been sitting at the house; let me check with Brad about mailing that off).

Today, one of Aiden's friends from church, Maddie, had her 4th birthday party at a local park. We went and the boys had a ton of fun running around.

Eli got in this dinosaur rocking thing but had a very difficult time getting out. I was cracking up. He couldn't have made it more complicated if he tried.

Aiden got to enjoy some new climbing with daddy.

Eli, of course, enjoyed the food and ate his hotdog again.

We were all decked out in our Gator clothes (except Brad).

Kyleigh and Regan came with use to the birthday party and they were so cute.

While trying to convince Aiden to eat his muscle food, Eli decided he would show us his muscles. He's so stinkin' cute.

Aiden got to experience his first pinata today. They all got to pull strings until it opened up. For never having done this or seen this, Aiden was prepared. Look at him standing under the pinata with his bag open. Smart boy!! With a little help from an adult, the pinata opened and the kids quickly went to the ground and after the candy. It was much less chaotic than I imagined. At the end, Aiden wanted to know why everyone else had a whistle and he didn't. Brad tried to tell him that he didn't pick one up off the ground and that's why he didn't have one. He was pretty bummed about it. Eli got ahold of some candy and even tried to eat the plastic that covered it because he was so impatient.

The other night at about 8:00pm, our doorbell rang. I was frustrated and Brad and I ran to the door. Who on earth would be ringing our doorbell at 8pm? We have kids sleeping! Anyway, we were Booed! Someone left a Halloween bag outside our door with goodies in it. We have 2 days to buy stuff and Boo other people in our neighborhood. Once you are booed, you put a sign in your window so that people know. How fun. We can't wait to ring someone else's doorbell and run tomorrow!