First Day of School

This year Weston started Kindergarten and Sophie (after barely turning 3) started pre-school! Both kids love school...especially Sophie.  Their classrooms are in the same hallway, and they begin and end at the same time.  This makes my life easier!  They even play on the same playground in the morning when we get there. These are pictures from their first day. Here is Sophie showing off her new dress (courtesy of Grandma Laurie).

And the cute hair clip (a blue butterfly) that Auntie Shae-Leigh gave her for her birthday...

Weston was pretty excited too, as you can see!  His teacher this year is Ms. McBreen, who is a WONDERFUL kindergarten teacher!!  We couldn't be happier with her.  Weston likes her too, but was rather disappointed when he realized that he only gets 5 minutes on the playground every morning ...he was used to the 30 minutes of playing that he got in preschool.  He also kept telling us that he had no friends in class, which I found out wasn't true at all!  In fact, he is so friendly and chatty that the teacher had to kept moving kids around until she found the only two students in the entire class that he doesn't care to talk with (one because he's super shy and one because she's the "smelly kid")!  He seems to finally be settling into his new routine and is pretty content with it.

 

How can I not love this?  On the first day, I kept telling Weston to look after Sophie on the playground and take care of her - you know, since she's the youngest in her class and had never been to school before. 

 

 He dutifully (and lovingly) held her hand...until they got inside the playground area!  He immediately found a friend from last year and ran off in utter glee.  Meanwhile, Sophie ran off and started making her own friends...and I think she hardly even noticed that Weston wasn't there any more!

 Jason and I stayed a while, watching them play.  At some point, Sophie noticed that we were there and came over for one last pic... 

I felt a twinge of sadness leaving them both, but was pleased to see this note from Sophie's teachers after picking them up:

 Sophie was thrilled to show me her first picture!

 

Weston was much less excited about his, but I loved it and thought it was adorable.  It is still hanging on my fridge!

One of the highlights of my day is picking the kids up from school.  Every day, the kids are so excited to see each other!  They always give each other a big hug, and often times one or the other will yell, "Yay, Weston (or Sophie)! You are my best friend!" They may spend the entire car ride home fighting, but in that moment, they are always pretty thrilled with each other.  I am happy they have such great teachers and are learning so many new things...and that Summer is FINALLY over!  How I love the Fall!!

this morning

This morning while I was helping Weston get ready for school, Sophie saw her moment and jumped into his bed to cuddle with his "Ray puppet." The Ray puppet is a highly coveted item, but it is actually not a puppet at all. It is one of those stuffed characters you can get with the claw machine at grocery stores. Ray Stance is Weston's favorite ghostbuster, which makes the "Ray puppet" extra special! So, like I mentioned, Sophie saw her opportunity and pounced. She was rather content snuggled up with Ray and her sock monkey...until Weston came along!

Fortunately, Weston is a sweet boy (most days), so he took the opportunity to snuggle with both the Ray puppet and Sophie.

As a side note, those ghostbuster toys that are available only through claw machines are so popular with Weston that he is currently working on memorizing the 10 commandments so that he can earn a Slimer "puppet!"

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

While Weston was at school, I was completely focused on reading something. Suddenly I realized that Sophie was singing the alphabet song by herself! The tune wasn't all there, but she said every single letter perfectly. I am so impressed with her! She's not even two and a half yet. Here is her glorious singing debut:

That's my girl! (In case you're wondering, I do usually do something with her hair... it's not usually quite this crazy!)

Swim Lessons

Sophie took swimming lessons every Saturday morning for the months of August and September. She had a blast, and was very brave (she went under the water every week)! Sometimes Weston was lucky enough to come along and swim with Daddy in the area of the pool adjacent to where Sophie had her lesson. On this occasion, we swam for awhile after the lesson, too, which is why Weston is in these first two pictures.

Doing the cheesy camera grin...

Chasing the ball...

Like Weston (and most little kids I guess), Sophie hates to get water in her face...

Kicking, on the other hand, is always a fun activity (and causes a lot less collateral damage in the water than on land)!

Sophie's Bike

Sophie got this bike at Christmas, but it was just too big. The other day she determined that it was time to ride! It's still a bit too big, but she sure had fun trying!

No worries, Weston is more than willing to give her a ride...

They now do this almost every day!

Our drawn out Halloween and AWESOME pumpkins!

Halloween has never been as eventful as it was this year! It began the Wednesday before, when I got to chaperon the Stake youth Halloween dance, which was ridiculously fun. Here is a picture of Lara and I representing the Harmony Hills ward... dressed as nerds (like you needed an explanation!) Jason told me after looking at this picture that it almost seems like I was going for the "hobo" nerd look. Wow, does it get any worse than that!?
(by the way, that is nasal spray there on the lanyard around my neck!)The next day Weston had his Halloween party at school. He had planned to be Spider man, but when the teacher requested that the kids wear costumes that allowed them to still go potty by themselves, we had to switch plans. Weston was Elmo last year, and convincing him to be Elmo at the school party was actually much easier than I thought it would be!He was pretty thrilled with all the candy he brought home, but not as thrilled as Sophie!Sophie hasn't ever even tasted candy before, and yet she instinctively knew that she HAD to have it! Here she is digging through Weston's bag, dishing me up a darn cute camera smile! The next night, on Friday, I took the kids and met up with both Grandmas and Aunt Shae-Leigh at this super cool carnival/festival activity in my mom's Stake. This, again, was Sophie's first real exposure to Halloween activities (she was only 2 months old last year) and yet she "trunk or treated" like a pro! If I believed in re-incarnation, I think I would have to believe Sophie was a professional candy beggar in her previous life... it was truly impressive! Here's my little "fairy" in action:

This tiara was actually the one I wore the day we got married! Weston wasn't in the best of moods... we kept offering him food, which he did not want. Finally Auntie succeeded in getting him to eat cotton candy! (I'm sure she really had to twist his arm!)I couldn't seem to get enough pictures of my angelic little fairy!Saturday morning was pumpkin carving time! Jason is a pumpkin carving genius. Usually he does something really difficult - for example, he did President Monson last year and President Reagan the year before that. This year his pumpkins weren't quite as elaborate, but they were still extremely impressive I thought!Hard to believe that pumpkin was transferred into this:

This second pumpkin was done, of course, at Weston's request.

While daddy carved away, the kids found all kinds of treasures in the garage. (We still haven't unpacked everything that we recently got out of storage) Here is cookie monster from when my brother was a baby like 35 years ago. Now that I mention it, he may want that back. All I have to say is that he'll have to fight Sophie for it! Judging by her hair, I think she had just woken up from a nap in this photo.

Jason's dad gave us some various Halloween novelties and decorations including this skull which, when you pull the lever, opens it's mouth, belches, and then says (in a British accent): "Pardon me!" Weston pulled that lever at least a thousand times, or so it seemed. He was so BORED waiting for Jason to finish Lightening McQueen. He eventually fell asleep while waiting.But not before discovering his Nemo costume from a couple years ago! The second he laid eyes on it, his formerly intense need to be Spider man for Halloween completely vanished. While in the Nemo costume, he also rediscovered his "hulk hands" that Uncle Chris (who is currently serving a mission in Argentina) gave him for his second birthday. He got so crazy with the Hulk Hands that I ended up having to take them away, but I'm sure Uncle Chris would be proud!

Oh yeah - and Winnie The Pooh, formerly a character of no interest, suddenly emerged as a new favorite for both the kids too upon finding the Pooh bear and the Pooh sing along book!Ironically, the "real" Halloween activity - our own ward's Trunk or Treat, was a huge disappointment. We didn't even take any pictures. We just came home and watched Jason's favorite movie of all time - Ghostbusters!

However, the next night (we're talking day 5 of celebrating), was REAL Halloween. So, we went to visit Grandpa and boy did he let Weston load up on goodies! It was fun.

I think my favorite part of Halloween this year - besides Sophie being so darn cute that I melt every time I look at these pictures - is the fact that Weston got to dress up in all of his different costumes at least once. I never really cared much for Halloween before having kids - but now I genuinely look forward to all of the traditions we have created around it. I have managed every year to be very lucky when it comes to great deals on costumes... who knows, maybe next year I'll get ambitious and even make my kids' costumes! (Well, stranger things have happened, you know.)