A few leftovers

We've had a few hiccups in the behavior department this week. January's always a hard month. We're hoping that February helps everyone even out a little more. Here are a few photos that I forgot to post last time from our trip to Wisconsin. Jacob loved playing with the dress-up outfits he got: construction worker, train engineer, and fire chief! He loves pretend play and these props are perfect for doing that. I don't know how many times I've had my ticket to the North Pole punched this month :-) Papa Roger taught Jacob a song about David and Goliath while we were up there and we need to get a video of him singing it because Jacob keeps wanting us to sing it with him and we don't know the words! The photo below is the part where he picks up five stones, hence the hands held up. This weekend Micah had a playmate over on Saturday and the two of them had a great time building with Legos, playing at the park and seeing a movie with Daddy (so Jacob could get his afternoon nap). This month we are looking forward to Valentine's parties at school, the first grade spelling bee and lots of other things in the pipeline.

All aboard!

Papa teaching Jacob the David song

Best buds

Christmas Greetings

Well we had a great time in Wisconsin, but it's hard to come home again! The kids got to play in the snow, have fun with their cousins, decorate gingerbread and do all sorts of things in addition to the usual Christmas excitement. It was a full couple of weeks. Jacob had a few tummy issues, one of which struck on Christmas morning (he was ok by 11 so we went ahead with out plans) and the other the last night in the hotel on our way home (we made it home without more trouble) and has since battle and conquered the flu (the rest of us were saved by Tamiflu). Those parts were not so fun, but we made it and it didn't seem to have any ill effects on his view of the holiday! The drive went smoothly, albeit long, and we are very glad for that.We hope you had a wonderful holiday too and are having a hopeful January.

"Maybe we should ship this one"

Christmas Eve

The whirling dervishes on Christmas Day

Christmas cheer for daddy

The brothers Inouye

The finishing touches

The hit toy this year--remote controlled-car!

Gramma teaches Micah and Jacob a few notes.

The cousins take turns reading funny poems to each other

Weekend festivities

So Santa came to Perritt Elementary this weekend to have breakfast with all of the kids. We went to have our photo taken and make some crafts. Since we had just seen Santa earlier in the week at the craft store, he asked how the boys ornament project had turned out. This is one of the advantages of living in a small town :-) Micah told him he would like Legos for Christmas and Jacob told him he would like a train. We'll just have to see if those Christmas wishes come true! We spent some of yesterday afternoon bagging leaves in the yard. Micah was a big help and we got 13 bags done in about an hour. I keep telling him that I'm going to record him when he says "Mom, can we please rake leaves?" and play it back for him in about 5 years :-) I have a pretty cute video from their leaf adventures that I'll post on Facebook. For some reason I still can't figure out how to send videos from my phone to the blog without downloading them first, so I'll just post it there. Micah made letters for both of his Grammas yesterday and sent them in the mail, so those should be on their way! Micah asked for a calendar this week and I gave him an extra one we had. I asked what he was going to do with it. He said, "Jacob keeps saying its time to open presents every day when he wakes up so I'm showing him on the calendar how many days we have left." He's been putting an "X" over each day until Christmas for little brother to see before going to school :-) We've been baking and wrapping and cutting and gluing and doing all of those sorts of things around here this week.

Ho HO HO!

Couldn't keep them out of the leaves!

This is the cutest picture :-)

Happy Birthday Micah!

Micah turned 7 on Nov. 9! He requested a Batman party, which we held at a local park. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time celebrating with friends and family. Speaking of family, we had a very special visit from Aunt Debbie and Aunt Janice and Grammy and Pop Pop! The boys had fun getting to know some members of the Vermont family and receiving all of that extra attention :-) The aunts stayed at a local B&B called Capt Henderson House and were so close to our house that they could walk. While they were here we visited Garvan Gardens in Hot Springs, a huge arboretum that was so beautiful in the fall. Micah appreciated all of the birthday cards and gifts and we are still playing with all of them. He got a lot of science-oriented things since he is really into that now. So we're "excavating" "dinosaur bones" and breaking geodes and making light bulbs light up on circuit boards. Just for a benchmark, Micah can: read kids books all by himself now. He says math is his favorite subject and really enjoyed doing a book of word problems that Pop Pop and Grammy gave him. He also likes crossword puzzles (I wonder where he got that from?) and did several with Grammy while she was here. I will post some more photos of our Christmas tree and such, but I wanted to at least get these up now that I can upload to the blog again.

Grammy and Jacob have fun reading stories together.

Pop Pop is the Tickle Monster!

Aunt Debbie and Micah read a book on CD.

Snuggle time with Aunt Janice!

Micah opens some gifts!

There was a playset at the park, but the boys preferred the dirt pile :-)

Mmm, cake!

Our sweet Micah!

Happy Halloween!

So I was having problems getting my posts to load, so this one's a tad late! Anyway, you can still see the cuteness. Micah was a knight for Halloween this year and Jacob was a doctor. They had a great time "carving" a  pumpkin with me and digging out the slimy pulp. We went to a party at church and then went trick-or-treating at the dorms on Daddy's campus--an event they hold every year. It's now December and we still have Halloween candy around the house!

You know it's fall when...

So, it's been a super busy fall at our house. I snapped a few cute photos since my last post and thought I'd at least take a minute to throw them up here and let everyone know we are still here! My next post will probably be a Halloween one. Hope you all are enjoying the seasonal color.

These flowers pop up every year in the fall. We call them Spider Lilies because of their unique shape. Almost every yard in town has a smattering of them. This happens before the leaves start changing colors.

We had a great time at the annual Manchester Pumpkin Day festival. We chose our pumpkins, took a  hayride and the boys played games and enjoyed a beautiful day. It's become and annual tradition. Except for a little apprehension on the hayride on Jacob's part (there were some paper ghosts and bats that were hung in the trees) I think they loved it.

Here's Micah shooting his paper turkey with a bb gun in the turkey shot contest :-) Daddy is helping. And yes, there were lots of safety rules in place!

Jacob and I were taking a walk one afternoon while Daddy and Micah were at fall baseball practice. An elderly woman was getting out of her car near the sidewalk and asked if it would be ok to offer Jacob this teddy bear. He named it Patches! He was having a great time smashing acorns with his sneakers.

A Slice of Life

It's been awhile since I've posted, and that's because we had just a few things to do around here :-) Work for both Dan and I has been fast-paced these days. The kids are adjusting to the new school year (so far so good) and we've been going about our business as usual. Micah requested a visit to the train car that sits down by the Arkadelphia Historical Museum. He really wanted Jacob to see the car for some reason, so we took a snack over there and let them explore for awhile. This weekend was the Clark County Fair--I hope to have some pictures of Micah enjoying the fair when I get them from Dan's phone! He won a plastic piggy bank, which he was very excited to turn over to his little brother who didn't have one yet. Now he is enthusiastically shaking the pennies it in all around the house, much to our chagrin :-) We are looking forward to a visit from Aunts Debbie and Janice in Vermont! It will be their first trip to Arkansas to see us, so I hope they enjoy their time seeing the boys and our little town. My parents will also be coming with them so we'll practically have a family reunion going on. Micah is preparing for his school musical "Cheesy" in October. He will be playing the part of "Fondue," complete with lederhosen. Jacob was very excited for a special visitor that came to his school today--a police officer and vehicle. He talked about it all morning on the way there. I hope they took pics! I'll be going on a web professionals conference in Portland, OR, and am excited, nervous, etc. about the whole thing. It's been about 5 years since I've been to one and I'm afraid my networking skills might be a bit rusty. Dan will also be traveling several times this fall for recruiting and professional development events, as usual. Hopefully we will all stay healthy this year! Hope everyone out there is having a good fall as well.

Just a couple of railroad workers...

"We represent the Lolipop Guild..."

It's the best part of baking

Micah's piggy gets a friend