Family PIctures

A few months ago my sister-in-law took pictures of the boys for Aiden's 3 year pictures and Patrick's 5 year pictures but we snuck in a couple family pictures as well.  I love, love, love how they turned out and I'm so excited to hang these pictures all over our house.

Fall Randoms

It was teacher appreciation day at school so both boys dressed up in Grandpa Clifford's ties.

 Picking plums at Grandma's house.  The boys liked pretending that they were picking berries for gummy berry juice.

 We went for a walk and Aiden thought he was so cool looking through his noculars.

 Karolyn was singing at our piano and Aiden went over and sang Child of God with her.  Sooo cute.

 We draw a good couple of hours every single day.

 We've also been working hard finishing the room above our garage that will become a yoga studio

 Patrick's kitten died(one of the saddest days of my life, and definitely Patrick's saddest day every) so we went to Four Paws and rescued it sweet cat there.

 One Sunday we decided to drive up to the Palisades Dam and it was beautiful.  Patrick literally cried because he wanted to see more cool trees.

 Carving pumpkins!

 And later, painting pumpkins.

Piano lessons

Earlier this year, I started the boys on the violin.  While Patrick liked it, Aiden really didn't and honestly, it took more patience than I had at this age with the boys.  And I decided to take my own advice that I've always given parents and start the boys on piano before starting them on any other instrument.  It was a great decision and it's so sweet to see the boys play the piano.  Both are catching on and exceed any expectations I had.  I couldn't help smiling when I heard Patrick say, "Mom!  I want to have piano lessons!  You didn't give us lessons yesterday.  Can we do it right now, please?"  Mom joy when my kids ask me if they can do their homework and piano lessons.

The day I took these pictures, I was able to play a duet with both boys and it just made me happy.

Aiden at Pre-school

This year, we are having pre-school in our house.  Grammy Blackburn wanted to start doing pre-school again and we had extra rooms so we did it here.  It's been sooo nice to just have Aiden go downstairs to school.  Again, he's 3 and pretty young so technically he doesn't need to be at pre-school yet but he loves it.  I love it.  I make it sound like I want my kids out of the house all the time and I can't say I don't like getting time alone to get things done, but also my kids really, really love the whole school environment.  I can't say how grateful I am for that.  I don't know where they got their outgoing genes from, but between always wanting to socialize, not being scared to talk to any adults(most of the time), bearing their testimony every fast sunday and everything else, sometimes I can't believe they're my kids.  But I love it.  Anyway, here are a couple pictures of Aiden at preschool(Patrick joins in sometimes so he's also in some of the pictures).
                                                 

Aiden, you're such a sweet little kid.  You have a feisty and stubborn side but man do we love you.  You are and have always been our little peacemaker and it's exciting to see you growing and moving into new phases of life.

Kindergarten

I'm really behind on updating about our life for the last couple months but I'm going to try to catch up in a few, hopefully not too long, posts.  So, Patrick started kindergarten.  Guys, this was a struggle on what to do.  Patrick is the youngest in his class.  He only turned 5 a couple weeks before school started and I'd heard so many stories about why I should wait and how boys do so much better waiting until they're six.  I get it.  Jon and I spent so many nights/days talking about what to do.  Patrick's young but he'd already been to preschool for 2 years and his teacher said she thought he would do better going to kindergarten.  Patrick gets bored at home and honestly I'm not that mom that comes up with a million crafts to do with them, or plays endless amounts of games with them.  We play but honestly, when it came down to it, mommy instinct said that he would do well in kindergarten and honestly, our relationship would benefit from him getting out and socializing with kids for a few hours.
And it's been great.  Even after putting Patrick in school, I went back and forth on taking him out but he's loved it and after talking to his teacher at parent teacher conference, I was reassured that we made the right decision.  Patrick loves to learn.  If he could go all day, he would.  He loves being around other kids, the teachers, going to the library, recess, PE and every other part of school.  From day one, Patrick has been a go-getter and I keep trying to think of him as different than he is, but he constantly reminds me that he's ready for things and that he's becoming an independent, intelligent, social, fun loving kid.  He's not perfect.  I'm not perfect.  No one is, but man, that kid surprises me all of the time.  Enough rambling, here's some pictures from his first day.

Patrick's kitten was sick so he took her to the vet with me before school.

My little stud.

Patrick, some day you'll hopefully read this and just know that I'm so proud of the young man you're becoming.  We have rough days but I'm so grateful you're our first and such a great big brother, son, student, grandson, and everything else.  We just really love you.