{Brock turns 2}

It's amazing how fast time flies, it floors me that my baby is already 2 years old!

His nursery leaders are amazing and threw a birthday party for him in class on Sunday for his birthday. He was given the hat and pin. He felt so special.

Our Big Boy

weighs: 31.2 lbs (84%)

height: 36 inches (87%)

wears 2T clothing, size 6-7 shoes

potty training for 1 month (self-instigated)

loves to play with sports balls & cars

copies everything his older brother does

VERY independent, wants to do everything himself

still sucks his thumb to fall asleep

climbs over/on everything

likes most food he is given

always happy and smiling

 

 I made him a football cake, since he loves it,

and it's one of the few words he can say.

 We had grandma and grandpa Thompson over along with aunt Kiley and the kids for dinner, cake & ice cream.

Thanks for the gifts, and love you showed.

 After gifts we were all in the family room chatting and the kids playing with the new toys, and Brock was nowhere to be found.... he climbed up on the counter and was just digging away into his cake... loving every minute of it.

Happy Birthday Brock, we love you so much!

~October Events~

Scott's favorite band these days are Avett Brothers and he was so excited when I surprised him with tickets. We had great seats at the Morrison Center at BSU. Great date night!

 Then my friend and I took our daughters to Disney Princess on Ice.

I took Ella to Disney on Ice when she was 3

Same reaction from her: absolutely LOVED it.

Right when we got there I wanted to take a picture of her and me in it, and

she was scared pictures were taking too long and the show was going to start!

 We saw a lot of our friends there, who we didn't know were going.

We found Kassie and her girls Kenzie and Aubree dressed like little princess.

Cole came home from camping this past weekend

 (can you see all the dirt on his face!)

holding a tooth in his hand and showing me the hole in his mouth!

It's his first tooth he ever lost... kinda a big deal!

The tooth fairy did come the next day,

he was so thrilled.

swimming lessons

 Ella and Cole just finished their 3rd session of swimming lessons for the past 3 months. Above was their 3 weeks in August, they started out in the same class at level 2. They were both way behind and needed some serious instruction.

 Here's their second session in September. Ella was moved up to level 3 and could float on her back alone and Cole was still working on it.

In their last session in October, Ella was moved up to level 4 and Cole at level 3. He's mastered the floating on his back, but still needs to work on his freestyle strokes. 

Ella at level 4 was at the 25 meter lanes. It's a 1:2 teacher to student ratio and by the end of the 3 weeks she was able to do 50 meters of freestyle and breast stroke unassisted. We are so proud of her!

Below is a video of her hard work. She's doing freestyle.

Her form is a little sloppy but she's doing it!

the art of canning

 This is our first year ever we have canned.

Scott was WAY more into it than I was.

We just ended last week and I am glad and relieved that the sticky mess is gone,

But am so glad when I look in my pantry and see our stock pile!

 We started first doing the tomatoes from our garden,

I love these and now I have these for stewed tomatoes recipes

or I can make my own fresh spaghetti sauce!

Then we juiced our own grapes from our grapevines in our back yard.

We were lucky to have one huge vine of each variety:

black, red, and green grapes!

We got over 50 jars total of juice, it's amazingly delicious and SO different from

 the juice you buy in the store.

 We also did some pickled veggies, plums from our tree in the backyard,

applesauce, apple juice, pears and pear sauce.

 We went to the church orchard and picked up a bunch of apples for the apple sauce, and from that we made apple butter and cinnamon sweet apples.

 

We bought a dehydrator so we could

dry some of our fruit.

We dried plums and grapes to make prunes and raisins.
Delicious! 

 I made some fruit leather for the kids,

 since Cole is practically addicted to fruit roll-ups.

They're healthy, easy to make, and delicious. Plus he can eat as much as he wants!!

I made some strawberry-lemon and strawberry-peach freezer jam with my sister in law a week ago. I got about 27 jars and it is the best thing in the world.

I love it and my family loves it! Almost finished with the first jar :)

{pumpkin patch}

We L.O.V.E. October!

All the smells, crisp morning air,

and family traditions...

like the going to the pumpkin patch.

We took Ella here when she was 15 months old in 2007

It was a LOT smaller back then, they have added a bazillion more attractions.

 We took the hay ride so the kids could

pick out their own pumpkins...

They HAD to go on the barrel ride.

 Couldn't get Ella to stop talking about the pony rides...

 There was a petting zoo.

 Fun family traditions! 

 Hopefully we can go once more before Halloween!

{Cole is 5}

 I still cannot believe my boy is five years old, and starting school next year.

 Honestly, how did these past five years go by so fast???

Cole's Favorites

C.A.N.D.Y.

Superheroes

sports

BUGS

friends & family

bike ride

adventure

very passionate & loving

His birthday happened to fall on the day he went to preschool, so he was lucky to have a preschool celebration as well as a friend party not only on

the same day, but on his actual birthday.

I made him some superhero cupcakes, with

spiderman wrappers and superhero toppers.
I love his class this year, so polite and well mannered...

just what this loud energetic boy needs to be around!

 After preschool, he had his friend birthday party that afternoon while his brother was sleeping and sister at school. He had a superhero party, where each kid came dressed up in their favorite superhero costume.

We had batman, spiderman, superman, buz light year, and ironman!

The boys did a superhero obstacle course, threw kryptonite to crash the planets, used their superhero laser vision to find missing objects in a bowl of rice, and got to color their own superhero shield.

Of course there was cake and ice cream.
It was my 1st attempt at making fondant by myself.

The bottom blue layer turned out great and set beautifully,

But adding the red top layer was a big tricky and

 crumbled a bit in my hands in the transfer.

No complaints from boys = success!

 ~present time~

 These boys were so fun to have at the party!

 

Thompson Family Reunion: McCall, ID

 Our family went up to McCall, ID for the Thompson side family reunion.

It was beautiful, PERFECT weather,

and SO MUCH FUN.

We had a big cabin, traded off cooking meals,

had a bonfire the 1st night, took dips in the backyard hot tub,

went to our favorite Pancake House for breakfast,

and enjoyed many laughs together.

 

We went on a couple bike rides right next to the lake,

couldn't ask for a better scenery.

 Scott sneaked some fishing time every night,

 and was thrilled to catch some salmon.

We went to the lake on Saturday, all day...

We rented a boat to have some water fun

The kids all said this was their favorite activity

 I even got to sneak in a chance at wake boarding again...

I had a few fantastic falls,

left me sore for DAYS afterwards

still completely worth it.

rode in the blow up boat

swam in the water

played in the sand

 Ella got buried alive!

She also tried some boogie boarding, with the help of her uncle Ryan!

Thanks family for making this weekend great!

We love you guys.