The Holiday Season

We've been enjoying the holiday season so far. I love the tradition and sharing in it with Gavin...and also creating our own as a young family.

We've done a lot of the things already that the holidays bring - the great Christmas tree hunt, making two round of Christmas cookies (Gavin is getting really good at helping!), and we introduced a new holiday tradition, Elf on the Shelf.  Gavin is liking the elf concept, named him Herald and is enjoying how he travels to new fun spots each morning.  I'll do an Elf post after Christmas to share all of the things Herald has been up to!  I have photos of each day :)

Gavin has also taken an interest in photography, often wanting to take shots with our "nice" camera.  Here are a few of his early pieces while we did some yard clean up on a nice fall weekend:

Our little Native American with his school-made holiday projects for Thanksgiving.  He made the turkey with his super friend fourth grader Brayden "who knows everything".

Oh, another of Gavin's photography moments.  Not bad, huh?

A couple of weeks ago, we went on the great Christmas tree hunt.  We seem to often luck out on the weather - a mild 50 degree day!  We landed on a nice fir, but a little shorter than we would have liked.  We had the perfect tree picked out and temporarily tagged it (just with our own internal tagging system), went to look at another top contender, decided on the original, only to find it being cut down by another family when we went back.  Darn!  That's never happened to us before!  Hope they're enjoying our lovely tree!  As Gavin would say in one of his favorite phrases of the moment (compliments of his preschool teachers, I believe) - "Those little Rascals" (pronounced Rasc-oh's).

Will it be tall enough (with hindsight, no, it won't!)

He refused to open his eyes in his photo with MaeMe and BaPa.

Gavin's idea of lighting the tree!

And we decorated at Grace's for Christmas.  Gavin had a fabulous idea to get her a pink tree.  And I made her a Christmas wreath.  We also decorated her maple tree with ornaments.  Just a small way to include our angel and sister in our holiday traditions.

So, what's Gavin been up to as far as development - he is getting very good at numbers and letters and even very basic math addition and subtraction.  His coloring skills are improving.  He's getting better at staying in the lines and choosing appropriate colors for what he is coloring.  Fun art work projects are still making their way home in strong force.  Also, several new songs have entered our house. And creative stories that he makes up as he goes along.  Many of them have ghosts, monsters, bears, whales, sharks and Goldy Locks in them.

Going to the Lodge!

We spent the weekend before Thanksgiving at Great Wolf Lodge.  It was a ton of fun, even for the adults.  Shirley came along and couldn't get enough of the "yellow slide"!  Gavin's favorite was the big huge bucket of water that dumped ferociously every 5 minutes.  It was too much water pressure for him to take a direct hit, but he would have given the chance.  We let him stand just outside of the main "target" zone.  And a few times in the target zone with Brad there to huddle over him for protection!  No matter where we were in the water park, every 5 minutes Gavin had to stop to at least watch the bucket dump.  For days later, I was still hearing the dinging that went along with it!

Here are some fun photos and videos! 

Santa arrived for a visit to the Lodge by Coast Guard helicopter!  And then the kids were able to sit in the helicopter and we met the lieutenant of the helicopter.  It was an awesome little boy fantasy experience!

Beware, it's a long, but fun, video!

 Back to the water!

Leaves!

Halloween, a Teensy Bit Late

My recap is a little late, but here it is!  We celebrated Halloween in great style last week.  I think it was a record number of showings for a costume thus far - four "wears" to various parties and trick-or-treating events.  Most special this year was the first school Halloween party.

Here is our Captain Hook all ready to run the hallways in search of loot.

The parade of kids (I remember being the big kid at Gavin's school many years ago, loving to watch the little ones come through our classroom).

Those room moms are very creative.  Here is Gavin's orange pumpkin.

 

The whole gang, aren't they so cute!

 

 It was quite fun attending the party.  I took the day off of work to go.  What I enjoyed most, aside from connecting with some of the other parents and getting to know some of Gavin's new friends, was observing Gavin's interactions with his classmates and teachers.  They have their routine, that's for sure.  It was cute to see Gavin listening and "fitting in".  You always worry, you know, that your kid will be the outcast.  He fit right in! 

All of the kids said the cutest prayer before snack time..."ten fingers raised in the air (above heads), now we bring them down to prayer (crossed)...bless us oh lord, and so on".  I'm not sure how they get him to stay in his chair at school for snack time, we certainly can't keep his attention very long at the dinner table.

Halloween night!  We started with a fun pirate themed dinner of seafood and fruit skewered on plastic swords.  Captain Hook grew a mustache for the big event.  The evening was clouded a bit with less than desirable weather.  The hat that elicited so many wonderful comments (it is pretty cool), gave us a run for it's money! 

I took Gavin out trick or treating.  When we started, it was raining and about 30 mph winds (thanks Sandy!).  The hat came off numerous times.  One particular de-hatting had me running (sprinting really, which I'm not good at) half way down our street in the dark with an unidentified neighbor watching the whole scene has he passed by in his car.  Multiple attempts at "jumping on" or grabbing the tumbling hat.  Meanwhile, kiddo stands patiently in our neighbor's driveway wondering why "super mom" can't seem to capture the hat.  I won in the end and we were on our way, one hand secured on hat at all times, to the rest of the houses.  And to MaeMe and BaPa's neighborhood where the houses are closer together and easier to load up on treats.

Of course, the candy must be "inspected" right?  Tough job, but someone's got to do it :)

 

 It was a very fun Halloween, despite the bad weather.  Such a fun holiday for kids!  I'm pretty sure by next Halloween, we won't be able to get away with avoiding the super hero costume.  I'm envisioning Spiderman for 2013.

Pumpkins and Such

Our annual pumpkin adventure, searching for just the perfect set of orange, white and now gray gords!  We had lots of fun as usual at Uncle Jeff's and Aunt Janice's!

The perfect pumpkin chair.

Had to line all of the pumpkins up on the front porch just the way he wanted them.

Let the carving begin! 

Gavin: "Whoa! There's like 20,000 guts in there!!"

Gavin with his pumpkin... 

And with Grace's pumpkin, which we took this weekend to the cemetery.  Hopefully the battery-operated tea light is still shining bright.  I'll go back tomorrow to double check it.

The finished products proudly displayed and lit.

And a trip to the apple farm and corn maze, though no "you pick" this year due to the late frost.  Still enjoyed some beautiful sunny and warm fall weather, a donut and some apple cider.

Fall Family Photos

We headed to a local park to have some family photos taken by my friend, Heather of Heather Abram Photography.  Check her out on Facebook!  I highly recommend her, given she has FOUR boys and is used to the toddler craziness that goes hand in hand with getting that perfect shot.  She captured some really fun photos for us!  Here's a sampling of some of my favorite posed and candid shots (including funny faces).  Apologies if you also see one of these re-appear on our Christmas card this year, perhaps with a little discreet remembrance of our angel :)