September Favorites

With school back in session, this month seriously flew by and it's already time to share my favorite Project Life photos from the last four weeks.

 

Tyler really lucked out the other night at swim lessons when the other two kids in his class didn't show up. That meant he got some exclusive one-on-one time with his teacher. They went through all the usual practice stuff and had time left over to laugh and be silly.

 

I took this picture of Tyler one day when I was picking him up from school. He's always happy at that time and has a TON of stuff to say.

I laugh at this one every time because Coco looks like such a predator. She's sitting as close as she possibly can to Fluffy in his exercise ball, probably because she's curious, but if Fluffy were to escape and run loose on the carpet, I'm pretty sure Coco would run in the complete opposite direction. Much like an elephant and mouse situation. Still I keep my eye on her just in case.

Here Tyler built an "O" shaped tunnel with the extra pieces of the hamster cage claiming that he was going to teach Fluffy how to climb. Rick and I both scoffed at the idea, but if you look closely you can see Fluffy climbing right up the tube. Well that set us straight!

Speaking of His Royal Fluffiness, I try to give him a treat every day. He especially likes apple and carrot slices.

Here's something you don't see everyday: the boys playing together without arguing.

I love this picture so much! I ran into the grocery store with Kyle to get a sandwich at the deli and he got a free cookie while we were there. He absolutely could not wipe the smirk off his face. He was beyond pleased that he a) even got his own cookie and that b) he didn't have to share with brother or adhere to brother's rule about saving the cookie for later.

Another silly one from the grocery store. Can you please tell me who Kyle thinks he's protecting my baguette from?

Happily playing outside at the water table.

News to me this month: Kyle can climb up the ladder and get on the trampoline all by himself. He can get up, but he can't get down.

Here Kyle was coloring in his Sesame Street coloring book while simultaneously watching Sesame Street on TV. Huge Elmo fan. Huge.

Caramelita loves Kyle and she loves getting her hair brushed, so combine the two and it's pure heaven.

Central Washington State Fair

Yesterday we spent the day at the fair.  It's the last weekend in town and we'd already purchased a voucher for Tyler's wristband in advance, so despite the cool, windy and overcast weather, we put on our coats and made the best of it.

 

We got there right after the gates opened at 11:00 and let Tyler have the first two hours for going on rides.

He went in a few of the fun houses in the kiddie section and rode on the small caterpillar roller coaster, but then we moved over to the big rides.

He rode on the 1001 Nachts ride a few times, but always sat in the back row, so I wasn't able to see him at all.

Getting the rides out of the way first thing in the morning was the best idea because the lines were so short or non-existent.

The swings...my old favorite.

Then Tyler went on the hang glider ride for the first time and that was about as extreme as he ever got. No drop zone or upside down roller coasters for him. Oh, and can we all acknowlege the random kid in the middle who knows how to take a picture. I called, "hey, Tyler" and the kid looked, smiled and waved. Um, thanks, but not the right child.

Meanwhile we let Kyle play a few games since he's still kind of small and we didn't buy a wristband or any ride tickets for him. He's pretty good at throwing though and he won a small frog (a second tier prize) from this table.

For lunch we ate at the Lamburger place for what...the third year in a row? For $2, a bowl of lamb chili really hits the spot.

After lunch we went around to see some of the exhibits. Can you believe this one? It's a picture of a cat made completely out of sequins. Cats and sequins...a perfect combination as far as Kyle Bear's concerned.

The photograghy is one of my favorite exhibits, but Tyler was on the sidelines dying of boredom.

Then we went to visit the barnyard animals.

If only this picture had audio, then you'd hear Kyle Bear over there on the side saying mooooo, mooooo, mooooo. Silly boy!

Later in the evening we ate some BBQ beef sandwiches at the Young Life booth and then let Tyler go in the fun houses a few more times. Then he got in line for the big slide, but it started to rain and they shut it down for safety reasons. At that point, around 8:30, we called it a night and headed home.

Swim Lessons

We've always been interested in getting Tyler into some kind of sport, or extracurricular activity so that he could make new friends and keep busy doing something other than playing video games. The problem is that he has no particular interest in most sports and his temperament is such that we pretty much have to rule out any sort of team sport.

 

In the past he's taken swim lessons in the summer and it's gone relatively well, so now we've enrolled him in two more sessions for the fall. Maybe swimming can become his sport and if he continues to improve, he could even think about joining the swim team at the athletic club. I think that would be so cool!

 

At the end of summer Tyler graduated from the level 2 class and is now in level 3. His new instructor seems super nice and there's only three kids in the class, so it's pretty low-key.

I never learned how to swim myself, so I can't really judge effectively, but I thought Tyler was doing good so far. Look at his instructor though...is that just how he watches people swim or is he thinking "Dear God, this child needs help".

He's into his second week of class and last night they were practicing frog kicks in preparation for learning the breast stroke.

Meanwhile I have to find different ways to entertain Kyle while his brother is in the pool since he isn't one to sit in a chair and watch. At first he was getting the foam dumbbells from their storage crate in the corner of the pool deck and stacking them on end on one of the tables. I didn't really see the harm, especially since the dumbbells weren't being used for anything else, but the lifeguard came over and put an end to that game.

So then we tried playing peek-a-boo with each other from behind our chairs.

Another night Kyle brought a soft soccer ball to play with and we noticed that the pool basketball net was in the perfect position for shooting some hoops. He was having so much fun that I could hardly get him to leave when it was time to go.
 

And last night, with nothing else to do, I let him play Angry Birds on my phone. He doesn't know how to play and I wasn't much help, but at least he had fun watching the screen. I just need to come up with better things to do with Kyle since Tyler's swim lessons will continue through October.

Today

Today I had to go and wake up Tyler since he slept in Kyle's bed last night and there was no alarm set up in that room. He sleeps like a log and generally needs help waking up, or he'd probably never make it to school on time. Ever.

 

We changed Kyle's crib into a full sized bed a few days ago and moved Tyler's mattress set over, so there was only one fully functioning bed and the boys have had to share for the last few nights.

Meanwhile, this is what Tyler's bed looked like as we awaited the mattress delivery later today. Funny story: Caramelita came around the foot of the bed, jumped up and crash landed into the storage containers on the floor. Um....did she not notice the mattress was gone? What a rude surprise! It's like falling into the toilet because you don't realize the seat is up.

I turned on GMA as I usually do in the mornings and much to Kyle's delight, the characters from Sesame Street were on. How perfect! Kyle loves Sesame Street, especially Elmo.

 

Tyler also had his first 3rd grade spelling test today. We went over the words one last time before leaving for school.

Back at the house, I got started on my workout: STS disk 27. That's Mesocycle 3, week 1, shoulders, biceps and triceps. I'm warming up with a barbell shoulder press.

Later in the afternoon I made some Coconut Blueberry muffins using some of the blueberries we picked over the weekend. Not a bad snack with a cup of coffee.

Finally the mattress set was delivered right around 3:00. Now if only we had enough sheets and bed sets to go around. Maybe we'll find something this weekend.

And poor little Fluffy Bear had to go to the vet today. I couldn't wish away the problem any longer. He had some itchy skin thing going on that clearly wasn't going to go away on it's own. Now he has some medicine though, so hopefully it starts getting better.

Lastly, our evening is reserved for reading. Right now I'm reading Peter Nimble and his Fantastic Eyes to Tyler and it's worth 14 AR points, so he'd better be paying attention if he expects to get 100% on the AR test. His last book was worth 4 points (The Cricket in Times Square), so with 10 extra points, this book means business.

Weekend Wrap-Up

On Saturday we drove over to Selah to attend the Skewered Apple BBQ Championship at the Tree Top Headquarters. It was a two-day event, with the bulk of the cooking and judging taking place on Sunday, so while there were plenty of tents set up, we didn't really get to sample any of the food.

 

There was also a handful of food vendors selling to the public, like Porky G's, who was actually from Coeur d'Alene. We tried the brisket, pulled pork and a hot link.

The main event, as far as Tyler was concerned was the apple pie eating contest.

He was in the 8-12 year old category, but let's be honest...he never had a chance. Look at the size of some of those kids! The girl in the white shirt (second from the left) won the $25 prize.

Oh well, he still had fun.

And on our way out we stopped at the Tree Top gift shop/visitor center and grabbed a few bags of our favorite snack: dried apple cinnamon slices. So good!

Then on Sunday we went to the local family blueberry patch over on Zier Street. In the past they've had their blueberry patch open until October or whenever the first frost of the season strikes, but they told us that the berries for this year were all but gone. What!?! Still they welcomed us to go in and look for whatever we could find, so that's what we did.

The trick to finding the last few berries was to get down low and look toward the bottom and/or center of the bushes.

In the end we were able to pull in around 5 lbs, but it was seriously hard work. Tyler thinks we should make a pie with our berries, but I was thinking more along the lines of muffins or scones.