November’s Goings-On

Catch-up continued…

November was when Jack started school and they invited the local fire department out to show the kids their gear and play in the fire truck.  Jack was ecstatic and darling, but for some reason I didn’t bring my camera! I tried taking pictures on my phone but only this one came out okay.  So sad! Anyway, he was locked onto what the fireman was saying and doing – so much so that he completely ignored my calls to look at me and smile. 

 

Some other fun things that happened are… Jack picked out his own clothes and dressed himself for the first time! Brown was the color of the day.

 

Tommy started smiling and giving up the most adorable gooing sounds!

 

Pete and Jack helped PopPop mow the lawn:

 

We took some family photos:

 

And enjoyed some great snow days!

(There’s not much of Tommy and me since we were inside staying warm and fighting off the nasty pneumonia!)

 

Thanksgiving was the big event in November – we got to enjoy two delicious dinners!

It was so fun having the Goldings up and having a big feast with Ricky and family and Billy and DD and family. (Not sure why I didn’t get any pictures of the other families… hmmm… I’ll blame it on being sick.)

 

After the mid day feast with my side of the family, we headed over to Art and Connie’s house for another feast with Pete’s side of the family and some great friends! Again, I didn’t take any pictures and I think Jack had had enough of my forgetfulness so he took up the camera himself! Here are some of his better shots:

Good job, kiddo!

Our Trip to the Temple

Another catch-up post: Our bishop invited us to visit the temple more often, even if it’s just to stroll around on the grounds.  So we stopped at McDonald’s on a sunny Saturday in October and ate our lunch on the back lawn of the Seattle Temple.  We had a great time dodging the bees who wanted to share our food!  But as soon as we threw all our leftovers away, they left us alone and we took a walk to let Jack explore. He loved the water fountain in the front of the temple and watching a young couple getting pictures taken after just getting married.  Memories came flooding back of the day Pete and I went through the temple for the first time and how special of a time that was.  We had no idea what we were in for! Ha, ha!!

Jack then wanted to get his picture taken. Pete was kind enough to pretend along with him:

We walked (Jack ran) through the small garden/trail area and had to stop at every puddle he happened by.  It’s a very beautiful and peaceful area normally, but with Jack running around I was nervous that he might disrupt that feeling for others that may be there.  Luckily for us, we were the only ones around and so we didn’t have to get after him. 

He also stopped when we came by the statue of a young family.

It was so sweet that he wanted to get up there to hold on to the young father’s hands.  It kinda brought tears to my eyes thinking that we are that young family in so many ways.

I’m so glad that we took the time to do this! We talked to Jack a bit about the temple and enjoyed a beautiful day together as a family.  Thank you, bishop, for being so inspiring!

Our October Goings-on

So more catch-up…

October was a busy time for us, needless to say.  But in addition to our new addition (the beautiful bouncing baby boy, Tom-ster), we also had a wonderful opportunity to have a family reunion of sorts (sadly, without the Taylor tribe this time around – but hopefully next time) on the Guinn side.  We along with my parents who came up for the birth, the Goldings,who came up from Portland, and my two brothers and their families who live in the area, had ourselves a grand Halloween party! (Whew – a long and weird sentence.)

We had spooky fog for the kids to scream at and run through:

Of course, we had a mystery to solve: who was the candy snatcher?! Ryan guarded the loot for us while the rest of the detectives detected.

Our awesome and creative hostess: Witchy-Witchy Leah!

The prizes were awesome – especially the kind that you can put on your belly.

And it wouldn’t have been a party without Nanny’s Halloween socks that everyone received!

Here are some more photos of our family and our fun:

Halloween in our family is almost more important than Christmas sometimes, but I think for me it’s because it’s more about having fun together and less about gifts.  I hope to incorporate more of that feeling into Christmas as well – because that is what’s most important, right?

Jack got to spend a lot of time with his cousins the first couple of weeks of October while Tommy and I slept.  Thank you all (and especially Nanny and Poppy) for taking care of him while I studied the back of my eyelids.

We were also able to bless our little Tommy while family was in town and we got some fun pictures with both of his grandparents.  I like this one best:

Pete and I feel so lucky that we have such loving parents and family! We certainly couldn’t do it without them – thank you for all you do!!

Jack’s in Preschool

I’ve been hesitant about posting about Jack’s school for a few reasons.  First off, I’m not one of those moms that think that they’re two year old is behind if he’s not is school already.  And I don’t a need for him to be the smartest kid in the world.  My motives were for him.  I wanted him to have some structure, a routine, some fun and some socialization.  I was a bit nervous about how I would handle a newborn for the second time.  Let’s just say that I was worried about being awake enough to watch him, let alone play with him.  Anyway, that said, I found an awesome little preschool for him.  The class is small (between eight and ten kids max), it’s only three hours long, three days a week, they have a webcam so I can see what’s happening the entire time he is there and  this school said they would help potty train him.  (That one was for me!)

He has had some problems with listening to the teacher and things like waiting his turn.  Apparently he can through himself a pretty good temper-tantrum.  At this point, we are weighing the pros and cons for having him there.  Because, again, this is for him.  If he’s not having fun then I don’t want him going.  We are spending precious dollars on this and I want it to be very worth it.  Before the holidays the teacher said things were looking up and he was behaving himself pretty well.  Then we left for a few weeks.  After his first day back, it was a not so great report from the teacher.  She even said, let’s see how things progress this month and then reassess.  Great.  Awesome.  My kid isn’t doing so hot in class again. 

I have some ideas about why this might be the case.  In general, I know that he does a lot worse in class when he hasn’t had a good breakfast.  He hasn’t been eating very well in the morning.  I don’t know what happened – he used to be great at eating.  He would demand it! But now it’s hard to get him interested.  Secondly, he does worse if he hasn’t had a good nap and a good bed-time the day/night before.  I’ve got to work on that. 

And he really does rely on his binky and blanket (or silky as he calls it).  He doesn’t get that comfort at school.  And I don’t think he likes cutting those out cold-turkey.  And this last time he was at school he was coming down with a cold because the next day there were buggers and coughing and general grumpiness.  All of those factors can make or break him.  Poor little guy.  Maybe this is all just too much for him.

But when we ask him about school, he has nothing but good things to say.  He loves Miss Trish and Miss Misty.  He loves the crafts they do together.  He loves the songs they sing.  He is learning so much!

What am I to do??

I don’t want to do the wrong thing so at this point I’m going to follow Pete’s advice and just wait.  Let’s see what panes out this month and go from there.  He’s been going since November, but with the holidays, I don’t think you could call it 3 months or even 2 full months.  I’m not the most patient person, so believe me when I say I’m going to be biting at the bit to see what’s going to happen.  I’m going to be praying about this one for sure! You can, too – we could use as many prayers as we can get.  :-)