All About Kyle

Kyle turned 4 in December and asked for a "chocolate birthday." On his actual birthday we had a spread of the most chocolaty delicious bakery we could find. He enjoyed sampling a few things but didn't seem to enjoy our singing;)

He did better at his family party, but passed on eating cake that day.

Kyle is outgoing, bold and has a great imagination and enthusiasm. He is in Pre-K this year and will attend K4 next fall at the same school as Claire.

He draws a "masterpiece" each day at school that is often red and most likely contains some sort of fire, volcano or sand storm.

Kyle just finished his first swim class and will be in the next session too. He loves cars and dinosaurs and all kinds of adventures. He just mastered pooping on the toilet, which his parents love.

Happy Birthday!

We celebrated Lucian's birthday with his siblings last weekend. This cool cat made a sash from his gift bow before we headed out for some karaoke. I was too chicken to give it a try, but it was entertaining, none the less.

Lucian's brother and cousin share close birthdays, so each got a candle and birthday wish.

Then off to Saturday swim class for Kyle. He seems to be enjoying the session.

And an interesting shot I took of Claire in the hallway at swimming. Love this beautiful girl.

Museum Day

I haven't posted in in a while. I keep meaning to sit down and do a recap of Christmas and Kyle's 4th birthday and the last two months... but it's not happening. So I'm jumping to present day.

Lucian was off with the kids on Monday. They took a great trip to our Public Museum. Here's the photos I got via text.

Bugs (ewww)

Butterflies

Halloween

The kids' requests were pretty straight forward this year. Kyle wanted to be a red super hero and Claire a snow leopard. A google image search landed us on Baymax from Big Hero 6 for Kyle. He was quite happy to wear the costume around the house and even got to wear it to school last week.

Surprisingly, there was a girl's snow leopard costume easily available that made Claire happy too. She chose not to wear the white fur boot covers, but they would likely have been wet and muddy when we returned. 

Since Halloween fell on a weekend, our neighborhood trick or treat took place on the actual day. Unfortunately it was cold and raining the entire time:( The kids were happy to make it around our circle and head back in. The houses were happy to see us and rewarded the kids with extra candy.

We had to make a quick stop at the grocery store after. Kyle was happy to keep his costume on while Claire thought everyone would be looking at her and took it off in the car. She also didn't want her brother to see her off to the bus the day he was dressed up for school. It's interesting to watch her self-awareness and self consciousness develop. Makes me a little sad. The new car carts at the grocery store, however, made both of these kids happy as can be.

Fast Forward

Well September and October flew by. It seems we had commitments every weekend with no time to catch our breath or blog! So, here are random photos to explain what we've been up to the past few months.

We visited Oktoberfest in our city. We had heard great things and met some of Lucian's family there one night. The kids had fun and so did we. We'll definitely do it again next year.

We met friends at the zoo

 We took Frida on some urban adventures

I completed a 10K!

And Kyle is starting to master #2 on the potty! He is motivated by hot wheels, so while we may blow his college fund by the time this is over, I am not longer washing poopy underwear! I think it's a win win.

Claire is 6!

Better late than never, right? I started this post back in Spetember. It's now November, so let's see what happened.

This little lady turned 6 years old this month. Her birthday was during the week at school, so we sent rice krispy treats for the class. We had a family celebration at the house with cake and presents.

 

Claire was super excited to receive clothes this year. She also got some fashion jewelry and a baby doll carrier, which she had her eye on at Target. She also kind of got a puppy, whom she adores. 

We love our sweet, silly, opinionated, bright and caring young lady.

Pumpkin Farm

Trying out a new look for the blog. Here goes... I got to chaperone Kyle's class field trip to the pumpkin farm. Unfortunately the day was quite cold with rain, but they had plenty of sheltered activities for the kids. He and I really enjoyed our time together.

He loves to ride the bus. I sat with him.

He touched a bunny, snake and chicken.

We took a tractor hay ride and saw the muddy pumpkin field, but picked our pumpkin from a bin near the barn.

They fed the goats

And we rode a "train" that looked like Thomas. 

He napped well that afternoon:) It can feel hectic to fit stuff in like this while working, but I feel really fortunate to have had the opportunity to go. He's growing so fast!