A Fascination with School Buses!

We live in a neighborhood farily close to a school, so our kids don't need to ride a bus to get there every day. And the kids that go to the local junior high and high school get on around the corner and at the end of the next street, so we don't ever see those school buses either.

But, luckily for us, there is a boy across the street that goes to a special needs school, so there is a bus that comes by to pick him up and drop him off every school day.

Now why would that be lucky? Because we have a little boy in our house that LOVES buses! Every morning when I hear the bus round the corner, I try to let Tate know. He runs as fast as his little legs can go into the front room to see the bus. HE LOVES IT!

What's coming around the corner???

Why it's the bus!

He loves to stand and stare at it while they wait for their passenger.

And of course, we're all listening after school gets out for the bus to come back to drop off it's passenger across the street!

Nothing like a bus to watch and a sippy cup of milk to drink - does it get any better?

Not only do we love when the bus comes into our neighborhood, but whenever we are driving around town and see a school bus, Tate gets so excited. Zach and Hailey are constantly on the lookout for a school bus to point out and Tate can spot them from a mile away it seems!

I had forgotten all about this, but as we were going to the pumpkin patch back in October, we drove over a freeway overpass and what did we encounter? Why, a parking area for the local buses! You can imagine Tate's excitement!

We just had to pull into the adjoining parking lot to get a closer view of all those buses!

Tate could not take his eyes off of them.  It was so cute and we all loved watching his excitement!

 
Yes, we love buses at our house.  It's fun to watch the fascination that Tate has with them.  You just never know what little ones will love!

Wolf! Wolf!

Yep, that's right - we have a wolf in the house!  Not just any wolf, but a cub scout who has received his wolf achievement! 

Zach has been working really hard on all of the requirements to get this award and the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, received it a pack meeting.  I was so proud of him and so happy to stand up there with my big boy! (I really didn't have my eyes closed during the ceremony, Jeremiah just happened to snap the picture during a blink!)

Here he is pinning the mother's pin on me.  My shirt was a little thick, so I had to help him out a bit.  I missed the pack meeting where he go his bobcat (Tate wasn't feeling well), so I was really happy to be there this time!

 And of course here's a picture of our cub scout.

Great job Zach, we are all so very proud of you!  Keep up the good work!

Halloween Festivities

I downloaded these pictures forever ago and they got stuck in a random folder and I just stumbled onto them and realized I never blogged about our Halloween Fun Day!  So even though it's over a month late, here were all the fun activities we did!

We started out at the pumpkin patch, a tradition we do every year!  We love Packs Pumpkin Patch in Farmington, we go there every year.  The kids absolutely love the little hay maze they have!

Tate was still a bit too young to run around, so we let him just sit in the stroller and watch the kids.  He wasn't sure what was going on, but he was more than entertained watching all the kids.

Hailey and Branson are best buddies and usually run around together, most of the time holding hands.  It's so fun to watch them play together!  Jocelyn and Mylee each took turns running around with Hailey too, so many fun cousins to play with, Hailey was in heaven!

Zach loved running around the hay maze and trying to keep away from Hailey - for some reason, that's the funniest thing to him.  He did pause for a minute though so I could take his picture.

Once they had their fill of the hay maze, it was off to chose the PERFECT pumpkin to take home.

It took a while and a lot of looking to find that perfect one!

After pushing Tate around in his stroller, I realized we weren't going to be able to make it much further, so his Daddy graciously pulled him around in the pumpkin wagon - Tate absolutely loved it!

Things got even more exciting when kids started putting their pumpkins in the wagon with him.  He thought that was so neat and couldn't stop looking at or touching them!

The kids came back from their pumpkin hunting and thought Tate was so cute sitting in the wagon, so we grabbed a quick picture of all 3 of them.

Of course, we had to grab a quick family picture too!

After everyone had their pumpkin, we headed back to the hay maze and then got a quick picture with Nana and Papa.  Tate was not cooperating - he was more interested in the pumpkins than the camera!

They had this little area with a bunch of huge pumpkins and I thought it would be fun to get a picture with all the grandkids sitting on a pumpkin - none of my pictures turned out that fabulous, but it was cute anyway.

This one was by far my favorite picture of the whole day!  I just love these three kids!

After we left the pumpkin patch, we headed back to Nana and Papa's house for some more fun!  The first order of business was to make some masks.  Here's Hailey in her cat mask.

And Zach in his mummy mask.

Tate also had a mummy mask, but he was more interested in playing with grandpa's sprinkler tools and box than wearing his mask.  He was hilarious, he played with these for over an hour.

Libby played with some toys and practiced walking around.  She was on the verge of walking and was so cute - especially those shoes, how darling are those?

After the masks were done, the next order of business to was to get painting their pumpkins.  Hailey of course chose pink.

Zach started off with yellow.

Since there was NO WAY I was going to let Tate paint his pumpkin, we found some plastic face items that you could just push into his and Libby's pumpkins.  He seemed fine with that since he was more interested in the sprinkler stuff.  But I did get a quick picture of him with his finished pumpkin.

After that the kids had a blast playing.  A little bit later, we had dinner, and then was the final activity - trick-or-treating at Nana and Papa's house.  This is really a fun tradition and kids love getting dressed up in their costumes and trick-or-treating the different room in the house to get all sorts of candy and treats!  I was holding Tate during the trick-or-treating, so I didn't get any pictures, but we did get a picture outside of everyone in their costumes.  They were all so cute!

And here's one last picture of our policeman, cheerleader, and little dalmation dog in front of their pumpkins. 



We all had a wonderful time and did so many fun activities!  The kids loved everything about the day and loved most especially playing with their cousins.  Thank you Nana and Papa for everything!  As Hailey put it on the way home:  "That was the funnest day ever!"

Halloween 2011!

(Warning - overload on Halloween pictures, so prepare yourself!)

This year was definitely one of my favorites.  I have to admit that having all 3 kids to watch at different stages made it much more enjoyable. 

Our oldest is 8 1/2 now and really knows what he wants.  Zach has this thing with cowboys and policemen, so his costume (again this year as it was last) was a combination of the two - a cowboy sheriff! 

We spiced it up a little bit this year with a more cowboy like shirt and of course, a mustache - which he informs me all cowboy sheriffs have (don't know where he got that from, but I couldn't help but smile when he told me that!).

My favorite part was the sunglasses and how serious he looks with them on.  What a cutie!

Our middle child is now almost 6.  This year Hailey decided she wanted to be a cheerleader.  Luckily she has a complete cheerleading costume in her droves of dress-up clothes, so we were all set with everything we needed ...

... including her pom poms.

And because her brother had some fun drawing on his face, she had to have something too.  And because a mustache isn't exactly what she had in mind, she settled for me writing "Go Team!" instead.  I really do have better handwriting, but she kept moving and smiling as I was writing, so it was a bit sloppy.  Of course, she didn't care, she was just so excited to have it there!

Once they were each ready, they both were off to school for a bunch of Halloween fun.  Zach had a halloween parade with the majority of the school during the morning, unfortunately it was at the same time that Hailey had gymnastics, so we didn't make it to see him.  I can tell he's really growing up because he didn't seem bothered about it and told me not to worry about not being there.

But Hailey was a little more concerned about us being there, so Tate and I headed over in the afternoon to see the smaller parade for the afternoon kindergarten.  She was so excited as soon as she saw us.

She couldn't wait to show us her place on her table.

And here she is on her march.  It didn't take long, but she was all smiles and thought it was the neatest thing ever.

After a fun day at school, the two of them came home all smiles and excited to tell me all about the fun things they had done at school.

Later that evening, after dinner, we all got ready to circle the neighborhood for trick or treating.  Since I hadn't gotten any pictures of Tate in his costume that day, I thought I'd try and get one to have.  He was really excited (more because the kids were excited than anything else), so he had a hard time holding still, but I did get one pretty good one.  Isn't he darling in his little Dalmation Doggie costume?

Once we had everyone all ready to go, we grabbed one more quick picture and headed out.  (Notice Zach's updated mustache?  He won the box top drawing at the school earlier that day and happened to get a fake mustache as his prize, so we had an upgrade on that which was even better than the drawn on one from earlier - is that not perfect or what?)

I absolutely loved watching these three go from house to house trick-or-treating.  Zach and Hailey were so excited, they pretty much ran from door to door and ended up having to wait for the one with the smallest legs to catch up to them.  They were great though, and always waited for him to catch up before they rang the doorbell.

My absolute favorite thing of the night was watching this little one walking or running down the sidewalk - notice how the little tail wags as he goes!  DARLING!

Here's a picture of our 3 at a door in the neighborhood.  It was hilarious to watch Tate.  He would stand there with the kids and hold out his little pumpkin - then we would tell him to say trick-or-treat - which came out more like "trick-treat."  It was so cute.  Then after they would give him some candy, he would say "sank you" - his version of thank you and off he would run to his Dad to show him what he got.  He would run right up to him, hold out his pumpkin and say "NANNY!" or candy.  He just couldn't believe people were just giving him candy right and left!  It was so cute and I couldn't get enough of his excitement - it was so much fun to watch!

Tate did great at the beginning, but about 4 or 5 houses down, he started getting tired, so his Dad picked him up and walking him through most of the rest of the neighborhood.

Again, love the tail hanging down dad's back as he was being held.

Once we made it through the whole neighborhood, the kids came back home, sat promptly down at the counter, and starting going through their loot.  They of course got to have some candy (although, I'm sure they ate more that just some) and they were loving every minute of it.

Tate was having a blast playing with his candy - which he seemed more interested in taking out and putting it in or handing it to his Dad that actually worrying about eating it.  He was so darling, I just loved watching him have fun with the whole Halloween experience.

Home, warm, and surrounded with candy - what more could a kid ask for?

Tate's smile is the perfect ending to a very fun evening for all of us.  We all had a blast and it sure was a Halloween to remember!  And now the kids are already thinking about what they want to be next year!  Only 365 days until next Halloween!