Wow it's been awhile

Sorry I haven't posted anything for awhile here. We've been really busy between me getting ready for the Pumpkin Walk (which I did quite well at) and now I'm sick and Tristan's birthday party is tomorrow... we haven't had too much time or energy to do lots of planned things.

However, we are still learning new things. When is anyone NOT learning?! Tristan is starting to be an even better helper with things like the dishes and laundry. He now knows where things goes and helps to put things away while making sure that *I* know where they go LOL.

We've been learning new things from Blue's Clues too.. yes he watches tv *gasp* His newest favorite is the show about machines. He LOVES it and is always asking for Blue and the broken airplane! He loves anything that moves and does stuff and as soon as he can start fixing things himself I'm sure we'll have lots of projects for him! He's also learned about things being heavy and light from Blue too. Good thing he's Blues Clues for Halloween! She sure has taught him a lot of things!

We've had a few playgroups this week. One was story time at the library. He wasn't too interested in sitting with the other kids but had a great time playing with them after. Griffin had fun too going up and down the steps! He was so proud of himself.

Last night we went to a family event at the library, although daddy couldn't come cause he had to work late :( It was a scavenger hunt and we just looked around the library for different halloween pictures and then Tristan got a coloring book after. He had fun playing with Felicity and Jaden when we were done too.

Back to the pumpkin walk.. Crystal, bless her heart, watched both boys so I could have some sanity and they were both so good! That was the first time he's been babysat since he's had his freak out episodes and he was so great, not one freak out at all!

Tomorrow is his birthday party so we'll see how he does with that but he's really excited!! Here's what his invitation looks like

busy busy busy

Monday was a run around like crazy kind of day! We had a meeting to discuss refinancing the house and of course we lack babysitters so both kids tagged along and learned how to act.. or rather how NOT to act in a business place like that. After that we dropped daddy back off at work and headed to visit Grandma at the school library.

Tristan LOVES the library and went nuts picking out books to check out. Griffin also loves books.. but mostly just to knock them off the shelves lol. Tristan got to listen to one of mommies favorite stories, There's No Such Thing as Dragons.

After that we hit Hancocks for fabric and Roberts for more crafty stuff for the craft show this weekend. Both boys crashed after that and other than dinner they slept the rest of the evening. It was very peaceful and mommy got a lot of stuff made with ALL her boys sleeping, even daddy!


Today was playgroup day. It was lots of fun! We went to Carl's Jr first and ate lunch and played in the playland for awhile. Tristan had no freak outs so that was great and he's starting to really play WITH kids rather than just near them. Griffin also had fun going up and down one of the steps and watching the older kids run around like wild animals LOL. After that we had an appt to check out the Corn Maze in Erda. It was a bit chilly but luckily wasn't raining and it wasn't too muddy either. It took us 30 mins to find our way around and Tristan led the whole way! He did really good.. we only hit a dead end once and didn't do too many circles lol. He must have great navigating skills! Here's a few pictures when we first started and then my camera died :S



Later today after the boys wake up we're going to read some books about cats, as that is our theme of the week! Tristan LOVE cats and I look forward to lots of meowing this week :)

Fireman in training!

Yesterday we were lucky enough to go check out the local Fire Station. Tristan LOVES firetrucks!! He was thrilled to be there!

October is Fire Safety Month so they were having an open house to educate people.

Tristan got to get in the fire trucks and pretend to drive to a fire. He thought it was the coolest thing ever.

We also got to see them spraying the hoses, but we got there too late to test it out ourselves.

Tristan was less than thrilled about Sparky the dog mascot but he wasn't scared of the firemen at all. He even got to stand on the front of an engine and have his picture taken with a fireman!!

Both boys came home with Jr Firefighter stickers, Smokey the Bear stickers and new fire hats. To see the rest of our pictures from the visit click here.

We also had Bonkos last night and after much deliberation on whether to go or not since last time BOTH boys were clingy and I didn't even get to play along with Tristan's social anxiety recently, we decided to give it a try and stocked up on Thomas tracks and trains and Grandma brought Monsters Inc to watch. He only had one break down but otherwise he was great!

We also took Griffin some cars to play with and Tristan is getting really good at counting. Usually he skips some or repeats some and counts them twice but last night he was counting all 9 cars no problem at all! He'll be playing Bonkos on his own in no time ;)

Catching up!

We've been super busy this week and kind of veered from our theme of jungles.. but that's ok.. life happens!

Tuesday we colored pictures of jungle animals. Tristan had a great time naming them all making all their sounds! He LOVES animals!! We have several bigger kid books about the jungle and he just enjoys looking at the animals in them. We read the Great Kapok tree but he wasn't very interested in the story, just the amazing illustrations.

Here our our pictures we colored. I'm pretty sure it's obvious who did what LOL




In this picture Tristan drew a ghost :)


Tues we also focused on the color green. We found green cars and green trains (which we have a zillion of each!) and looked for green in books too.

Weds we had a playgroup that kind of fizzled out with only one family showing up. Tristan had another of his freak outs and ended up sleeping through the whole thing. I'm not really sure where this sudden social anxiety came from but it makes me sad to see him so upset! Griffin had a great time playing with Talen, however. Crystal and I made some super cute Halloween cards and just had fun hanging out.

Thursday I don't remember too much of what we did. I believe it was mostly playing and laundry LOL. I've had a migraine all week so it's a miracle I remember all this ;)

Friday was my last day at the Farmer's Market so we spent the day getting mommy's van packed up and finishing some last minute items to sell. We hung out at the park all evening and it was quite tiring. Griffin spent most of it getting into things and Tristan spent time organizing Grandma's table LOL I didn't sell much but it was nice to get out of the house!

I'll post about this weekend later when it's over ;)

Discovery Gateway

I wish I had pictures from this but Griffin's milk spilled on the camera so it wouldn't work :( Today we went with the Homeschooling the littles group to the new Discovery Gateway (formerly the Children's Museum). It was really nice but not as big as I was expecting. BOTH boys had a really good time though. We hit the 'Garden' first. It was a giant beehive filled with different tubes and such that you could drop big plastic balls down and gadgets to turn them up to the ceiling and put in other tubes and ones that made sounds. Tristan LOVED this area, as did Griffin. Tristan loved figuring out the different machines and how they worked and also loved watching the balls go down the tubes and seeing where they come out at. Griffin even climbed up ALL the stairs so he could put balls in too.

Next we hit the Kid's Eye View which is a small town of stores and such that are kid size. Tristan's favorite part of that was the construction area where he could build with foam blocks and put them on the left and turn the crank to take them up the platform. He also enjoyed putting blocks down the chute too.

We briefly stopped in the little house and passed quickly past the grocery store to hit the water play area. Tristan could have stayed there all day. He LOVES water and with all the machines to do differnt things and the ping pong balls and rubber duckies. He was in heaven. Griffin had fun with it too just watching the other kids play. After this we played in a fake car for a few minutes, climbed through a beaver dam and Griffin rocked on a little dog rocking horse thing. We also picked some veggies and Tristan got to sit on a fake horse.

Next we headed up stairs but most of it was for older kids. We did a little coloring but the big hit was outside.. a real life flight helicopter! We didn't get to see too much of it because there were so many kids but Tristan put on his Life Flight Pilot vest and got to sit in the front and back of the helicopter for a few minutes.

After that we headed back downstairs to play in the Garden for a little longer before leaving. The boys were OUT cold before we even got out of the parking area LOL

That night we started our new theme of jungles. Tristan looked at a few books with jungle animals in it and knew most the animals already. He was mostly looking for monkies but was excited to find geckos, iguanas and frogs too! ~ribbit ribbit~

The Weekend (including Friday)

Our weekend was spent cleaning the house up for Griffin's first birthday party! Tristan was TOTALLY excited for the party and was literally boucning off the walls for days. Saturday he was bouncing all over shouting about party cake and it being Griffin's birthday. By time the party came around he wore himself out and got overwhelmed with the sudden amount of people in our house. He had a break down and chilled in his room for a bit before returning to the party. After that he did great though. He enjoyed all the food and almost got chocolate slimed by his little brother LOL

Sunday we hung out with Jason's parents while they worked on the Scout and then we headed to Salt Lake to visit Al and Melinda who were in town from Florida. Tristan had another melt down after he saw all the people and clung to grandpa almost the whole time. Grandpa took him outside for a bit and brought him back in and then he was ok. This seems to be a new thing that I'm not quite sure what started it, other than Scott.

After that we went to Grandma's house to spend the night and Tristan had fun hanging out building roads and tunnels with his foam letter mat and playing with Grandpa.

Play day

We had a very relaxed day today. Tristan seems to do much better with that than if I try and schedule in our time to learn.

Our wonderful friend Tammi sent us a fun package today full of goodies for the boys.

Tristan broke right into the playdough and we had fun making squares and triangles and funky hair. We also used the cookie cutters to cut out fish, cars and birds!

Tristan practiced his fine motor skills today too by stringing beads on a string. He thought it was TONS of fun!

We also played for a few minutes with one of his other gifst that was a chalk board and magnetic board in one. We sang the ABC song and counted to 10 with the magnets.

Tristan also helped a little around the house by unloading the dishwasher and trying to keep his little brother out of mommy's way.. he wasn't too successful LOL

Tristan's huge accomplishment today was *knocks on wood* having ZERO potty accidents today! He went bumless all day and pooped and peed on the potty all by himself!!! I hope this means an end to diapers for him in site! That would be wonderful!!!

Slow Wednesday

We didn't do a whole lot today but we did learn some new things.

We got to watch the hail and listen to the wind as the storms moved in today.

We watched Dora and learned a little bit about the different seasons and what things belong in each season.

Tristan played trains, as always, and Griffin "helped" too.

We read Click, Clack, Moo, Cows that Type.. always a favorite! Then we colored a picture of a cow and drew some cow pictures!

Here is the cows momma drew.. thank goodness Tristan doesn't mind his mommy couldn't draw a cow to save her life ;) The purple cow got a rip in it, but Tristan figured out exactly how to fix it!





Here is Tristan's picture of a cow that he mostly colored himself.


While trying to color on white paper with a white crayon Tristan decided that momma was right and that it doesn't work on white paper. He thought the crayon needed new batteries LOL Then he changed his mind and just said it was broken.

We also read Counting with Dora and counted all the fruits on each page. Tristan is starting to get better at counting each item and not skipping or recounting ones that don't exist! He also can count all the way to 20 now!!

We didn't work on the letter A today but that's ok we can do it tomorrow!

Tuesday~ Milk day

Well it's now day 2 into our homeschooling venture. Tristan is feeling TONS better and is fever free so he was thrilled to get to do more with cows! We read a book called Cow that went through the day in a life of a cow, right down to getting milked and shipping the milk off to the factories. Tristan thought that was really cool. We also counted the cows on each page, and other animals when they showed up. Tristan is VERY in to counting anything and everything right now, even if he doesn't get it right everytime.

He wasn't really interested in reading another cow book, he would rather jump on the trampoline instead.

Next we discovered squares. We found a square hot pad, a square Wheat Thin and a square flash card. We counted the sides on them. Tristan keeps trying to call them triangles but is slowly getting used to calling them squares. We then went outside to find more squares. Right out side the door we found tiles that were square so we carried one around to find more things that were the same shape as the tile. It was kind of hard to find things outside but we found squares on their points in the fence.. lots of those! We also found that the dog's water dish had 2 squares for the water to go into. Then we did some raking. Tristan has his own rake and the leaves are starting to fall so we raked a few of them out of the flower bed.

We came back inside and found more squares in our hallway because we have new tile in there. Tristan then counted the squares while driving his firetruck over them in circles.

We read a book next called Autumn Leaves. All the leaves here are changing so it was fun to see the different colors in the book. We went back outside to look at the leaves we just raked and picked out a green one, a yellow one, and a brown/dead one.

After lunch we placed the leaves under paper and colored over them with crayons to make fun leaf decorations.




After nap time we'll make some squares out of something and just hang out and play with his new trains that he got from my secret mommy!

Mooooooooonday

This is a day late.. but Monday started our first day of "school". We are not doing a lot of structure because Tristan's only 3.. well almost 3 LOL He's a very active little boy and likes to switch activities often. Today did not start off as exciting as I imagined seeing as Tristan had a fever and spent most of the day sleeping/laying on the couch.

We did manage to read 2 Cow books today though, seeing as that is our theme of this week, while Tristan was in the tub getting his temperature down. One was called It's a Great Day to be a Cow and the other was just called Calfs (our vocabulary word this week) that showed a calf growing up. Tristan is not quite connecting that a calf IS a baby cow yet.. but hopefully later this week he will.

We sang 10 rounds or so of Old Macdonald too and Tristan had lots of fun making the animal sounds. Griffin thought we were insane though LOL. We didn't get to walk around like cows or make cow sounds but overall we had a great day!

We're homeschooling!

That's right! We're officially starting homeschooling this week! This blog will track our learning and activities that we are doing. We are very excited to be venturing into this unknown area of our life and finding out what is in store for us. We are members of a homeschooling group based in Salt Lake that is providing us with lots of opportunities for field trips. We'll have pictures and art work displayed here because we want to share the things we learn with everyone.

Thanks for supporting us!!