Wordless Week

Well, almost wordless. I've had sick babies this week so there's been a lot of lounging around and snuggling up with lovees, but not a whole lot else. At least they're smiling sickies. :)

The Big Fresno Fair

We went to the fair this past week with Grandma (twice actually!). The first time, Auntie Jenn and Uncle Burkie came along too. I've never really been a big fan of fairs, but it is definitely more fun to go with an enthusiastic three year old in tow. He was so excited about everything. I think he was a squealing, pointing, could-hardly-contain-his-excitement ball of energy for the vast majority of our trip.

We rode a few rides....

Drew and Grandma

Nathan originally tried to hop in the front seat with Drewski, but due to some minor size differences between him and the front seat, opted for the back seat instead. 

And thanks to said size differences, Nathan readily volunteered Uncle Burkie for the next ride. 

....Played a few games....

...Won a toy (that he was very proud of)...

...And then headed over to the animals so that Collin could have some fun.

He loved the cows and the sheep!

For that matter, he also loved the goats. If we had let him, he probably would have hopped over the fence to go visit face to face.

 Drew kind of liked seeing all the animals as well. :)

The next time we went to the fair was to go visit Kenny. Remember him? The cow that Drew got to wash a few weeks ago with our friend Cayla? Well, part of the reason Drew got to wash Kenny in the first place, was to get him ready for what he would experience when it came time for the fair. Since Nathan was working, it was just me, the boys and Grandma that were able to go and watch Cayla show her steer. She advanced through all of her classes all the way to the final round and then placed sixth (which wasn't too bad considering the final class had around 20 steers!). 

Drew and Grandma. I finally had to ask Drew to wait until after Cayla's class was done to tell her how excited he was to see her. I'm sure a waving three year old on the fence line is no problem at all in a livestock class. Yeesh. 

Cayla and "Kenny". I'm sure part of the reason he still looks so squeaky clean is that Drew just did a super excellent job in bathing him a few weeks ago. ;)

Just before we went in to go watch Cayla's class, we let Drew go and ride the ponies since we had missed them the first trip. He got a kick out of it. Considering he has two horses of his own, I really should make an effort to drive him out to Charlotte's ranch (where my mares are living) to go and let him ride one day.

Drew and his trusty steed "Aladdin"

This week, the boys also went to a Bulldog's football game with Drew's best buddy Noah and his dad Aaron. Nathan and Aaron have season tickets together so they're at a game usually once a week-ish. It's a good excuse for Aaron's wife Laura and I to get together and also a fun way for the boys to all get to hang out (their boys are almost the same ages as both of ours). This week, Aaron and Nathan wound up with two extra tickets to the game, so at the very last minute Drew and Noah found out they would get to go too. Pretty fun.

Nathan, Drew, Noah, and Aaron

And finally, just because I can't resist sharing. This is how I found the boys watching a movie before bed the other night (and yes, that would be another goose egg on Collin's forehead. The kid is fearless).

Awe....

The great Pumpkin Hunt

Yep, so after that on a roll blogging thing (remember three posts in one week?), I of course, went and missed a week...as in genuinely didn't even catch that I had missed the week until looking back this week, sort of missed it. Ug!

The boys have been mostly interested in two things lately:

Train rides:

Collin is almost always the rider, and Drew is usually the conductor. Every so often they switch. They've been using those coupons that come printed out with grocery store receipts or Target receipts as tickets. Drew will ask Collin for his ticket, and Collin, super proud to be included in the big kid fun, gladly hands it over and hops on the train. He almost always picks the caboose, but occasionally I see him somewhere in the middle. I love seeing them play this way. It's new and I'm sure it will become mundane at some point, but right now, it makes my heart happy.

and Art....lots, and lots of art:

Collin's pretty proud he gets to use the crayons now!

We also headed out to San Luis Obispo this past week to pick up a desk (thank you love, for bearing with this insane wife of yours!), and since we were in the area and it happened to be October 1st, we decided to take the boys to our favorite (non-picking) pumpkin patch on our way back home. We actually went out to the Avila Valley Barn and played there for a while too, but I left my camera in the car so I have no pictures to show for it. We found Chesebrough Farms while we were living out on the Central Coast and the family that owns it is so, so nice. It was a treat to go back and visit, and the boys loved the freedom of getting to run around and look at all the tractors, scarecrows, wagons, etc. along with all of the pumpkins.

As you can see, we had Auntie Jenn Jenn and Uncle Burkie come along too :)

We gave Drew a wagon and naturally, Collin wanted to get in it. We told Drew that they wagon was where his pumpkin would go once he picked one out. Well, sure enough when we next turned around, he had filled his wagon with probably ten little pumpkins he had picked out all squished around Collin, who was loving every minute of it.

We ended up putting most of those little pumpkins back and swapping them out for two little pumpkins and one big one. We also got a ton of gourds and cool varieties of pumpkins (they have almost any type of pumpkin or squash, pretty fun!).

Collin loved the pumpkins. He kept wanting to pick all of them up. The only problem with this was that they were usually heavier than he could actually hold, which meant they would drop. I'm amazed we didn't end up having to buy a pumpkin that Collin had cracked open by dropping.

I tried to get the boys to take a picture together, but as you can see they were really interested in appeasing me.

Anyway, it was probably the earliest we have ever gone to get pumpkins, but the beautiful benefit to this is that my house is already all decorated and fall-ish. Now, if only we could get some of that delightfully cold back East-ish fall weather....

Art A La Auntie Jenn Jenn

I think I am finally caught up with all that has been going on around here. Christi, I don't want to hear you gripe about how often I blog for quite some time. Go back and look, I think this makes post number three for this week alone.

This week was the first week we haven't had a million and one things going on, and I have to say, it's been sort of nice. I feel like our summer has been packed!

Auntie Jenn took advantage to this break in busyness and got the boys started on a project she's been itching to do with them. I've had red painted canvases hanging in our entry way for a while now. We got them shortly after we were married and they've just sort of followed everywhere we've moved. I don't have much red in my house...ask anyone that knows me. Blue and green (in any variation) are my go-to colors. Because of this, the red canvases have stuck out like sore thumbs to my interior designer sister. After weeks  (maybe months) of begging me to let her re-do them, I finally gave in and let her do what she wanted with them.

She started by sitting Drew down with some paint colors of her choosing. She handed him a paintbrush, and let him have at it.

Drew loves to paint anyway, so it didn't take a whole lot of convincing to get him to help Auntie Jenn out with her project.

When Drew's paintings were dry, Jenn handed Collin a few colored pencils and let him scribble away over the top of each painting. Collin hasn't had a chance to color much, and he loved it!

Finally, when the boys' artwork was all finished Jenn put them over the old red canvases and hung them back up in the entryway. (Sorry about the glare on the artwork. I couldn't get rid of it, they have a gloss coating).

Truth is, I'm glad Jenn re-did them for me, and I love the little kid look to them. They'll be a fun way to look back and remember my boys at this stage in life. :)

The other highlight of this week was a birthday party for Drew's best buddy Noah. Noah had a fireman themed party, and at the very end of the night, a real live firetruck full of real live firemen showed up to let the kiddos check it out. I can't even find the right words to help you understand just how excited Drew was about this. It was adorable. Birthday boy Noah even got to wear his Halloween costume early and was an exact match to the firemen that showed up. So cute!

Engine 85

Not sure if the big boys or the little boys were more fascinated by all of this

Noah and Drew

The birthday boy and his matching firefighter

Even Collin loved it!

These firefighters were so great! They answered the boys' millions of questions and at the end even let them hop into the drivers seat. Do I even need to write that Drew ate this all up?

And finally, three things about the boys this month:

Drew:

1. Has just started saying "Homy Cow!!" (Holy Cow) in response to everything.

2. Loves to build "nests", which basically is a fort without the top portion to cover it.

3. Loves to tell you that you scared him. This usually happens when we walk into a room he is in by himself. He'll turn to us and say, "Oh! Mom, you scared me!". I think I've only actually startled him once, but he loves to say it and then laugh at your reaction.

Collin:

1. Loves (seriously, delights in) getting into mischief. We currently have all of our toilet paper rolls sitting on counters instead of hanging where they should, thanks to Collin's delight in unraveling them as fast as he possibly can as soon as he gets into a bathroom.

2. Says banana (or rather, "nanas") and some form of "Hi Wrigley", which is what we say every morning to our dog Wrigley who is laying outside the sliding glass door next to his highchair.

3. Can now point to his nose and bellybutton when asked.

Date night all around

Have I mentioned yet, that Drew and Collin's Uncle Dana is the football coach for Riverdale High School? If I haven't, he is. And he's pretty amazing at it and creative...a few weeks ago, Dana's players were all wearing camouflage jerseys with a military service member's name on the back in honor of the people that have or are fighting for our freedom. Pretty cool and all thought up as a football fundraiser by Dana. Anyway, Drew spent last Friday night on a date with Grandma and Auntie Kim to go watch one of Uncle Dana's football games. He even got to go down to the field to hang out with Uncle Dana while the players warmed up before the game. I wasn't there, but from what I heard and what I saw in the pictures that came back on my camera, Drew had a blast (it's always fun when your team is the winning team too)!

Auntie Kimmie said that Drew was a wee bit intimidated by all of the players in uniform once he was up close. This photo sort of says it all...

LOVE this picture! Drew and Uncle Dana 

And of course, what trip to a football stadium would be complete without a photo with the mascot?

Anyway, the intent was that while Drew was off playing with Grandma and Auntie Kimmie, Nathan and I would have a date night. Well, date night took on a slightly different form than I had originally planned this week:

Thanks to a fractured/dislocated thumb, we spent most of the night here, in Urgent Care. To make a long story short, Nathan smashed his thumb at work. He thought it was fine until he couldn't get the pain and swelling to subside. So, on his way home from work he stopped in at the Urgent Care. Wouldn't you know it, a simple stop in turned into a "Hey hun, can you come pick me up?" phone call and hours in Peachwood Medical. Anyway, Nathan's fine now. All that wrapping seems like overkill for just a thumb, though doesn't it? A guy at Costco told him it looked more like his thumb had been amputated than broken, and I have to say, I sort of agree. Nathan had a follow up appointment this morning and although he was hoping to ditch the soft cast in lieu of a simple splint, that lovely cast will be sticking around for four more weeks. I'm thinking Drew won out on the whole having-a-fun-time-for-the-night thing.

And where was Collin for all of this? Thankfully, Auntie Jenn and Uncle Burke were able to drop me off to pick up Nathan at Urgent Care and then take Collin home and tuck him in bed for the night. The next morning he was back to his usual antics...

Pay no mind to Daddy's bum wheel there Coll, just keep on climbing all over him :)

A huge thanks again to Grandma and Auntie Kimmie, Drew loved his date with you two!!